Chapter 483: Frost, Firewalls, and the Farmer’s Instinct

Xia Qing drove the rotary tiller through the swirling snow, dropping off Huo Zhun—who’d eaten his fill—at the edge of Section Three’s buffer forest. She asked Guan Tong to escort him out and hand him over to the folks from Territory Seven. Meanwhile, Xia Qing took Er Gou the Sick Wolf to check on the greenhouses.

Inside the main greenhouse, all the vegetable seedlings had sprouted, thriving in their beds. The strawberries and mint were also bursting with life, leaving Xia Qing in high spirits.

Cold temperatures? The greenhouse’s firewall pumped out steady heat. Not enough sunlight during this Devastation Snow? No problem, there were grow lamps—any intensity she wanted, she got. Too much Devastation Element in the air? Yi Stones kept everything in check.

In the breeding greenhouse, the Green Lantern hens, pure spring fish, rabbits, and Yellow Lantern mealworms were all doing well. Xia Qing checked the temperature and humidity, tossed a few logs into the stove, and carefully looked over the chimney.

Er Gou wandered off to the side, then turned back to grin at Xia Qing with a raspy laugh.

With her night vision goggles on, Xia Qing walked over and counted the eggs in the basket. Delighted, she said, “These hens laid sixteen eggs in just two days. Tomorrow morning, the two of us are having boiled eggs for breakfast.”

Er Gou looked even happier, eyes crinkled and mouth stretched wide in a goofy smile.

Further ahead, Xia Qing spotted three peanuts drying on the rain cover. She felt a wave of emotion wash over her. Just the other day she’d climbed Hill Fifty to collect them—though it was only days ago, these last few have felt like a month.

She endured the aches in her body and slowly sat on the ground, flicking on her flashlight to take a closer look.

The dirt clinging to the coarse shells had dried out but hadn’t fallen away yet. No rush—as long as the peanuts don’t go moldy, a few sunny days after the Devastation Snow would dry them out just fine.

Having slept all afternoon, Xia Qing wasn’t the least bit tired. She told Er Gou to bring over a basket and began sorting the fresh peanuts. The best, plumpest Green Lantern and Yellow Lantern peanuts would be kept for seed, while the more tender ones would be set aside to eat.

She divided the tender Green Lantern peanuts into three portions: the finest went to her Idol, the second she saved for herself, and a small amount—along with some Yellow Lantern peanuts—she packed in a basket to take to the greenhouse.

Red Lantern peanuts couldn’t be eaten raw. If Yang Jin didn’t want to buy them, she’d trade them to Zhong Tao. After all, with the Hill Fifty incident blowing up, everyone knew about her peanut harvest—no point hiding it anymore.

She wondered if the hidden valley would fall within the firewall’s raging reach. If so, every edible plant in the little house, every supply in the stone hut, even the family portrait of the valley’s builders hanging inside, would be reduced to ashes.

Xia Qing glanced at her massive backpack and crawled over, fishing out the waterproof bag she’d found in the valley’s little house—it held a phone, laptop, and kindergarten textbooks. She hung it around faithful Er Gou’s neck, who lay quietly beside her. “Er, grab the basket. Let’s head back to the truck.”

Er Gou gave a happy wag of his tail, picked up the basket full of eggs and peanuts, and patiently followed Xia Qing’s slow steps.

With Er Gou in tow, Xia Qing drove the rotary tiller to the edge of the main greenhouse and told him to go home ahead. She carried the basket into the rapeseed house herself.

Inside, she saw that the once orderly rows of rapeseed were now patchy, bare in places like someone with thinning hair. The sight made Xia Qing’s heart ache.

For those who farm, love for the land and its crops runs deep—almost an instinct.

Even if she knew insurance would cover the loss, she still felt the sting. All her sweat and care had gone into these fields, and now she stood on the edge, silently calculating how much grain she’d have reaped if the crops hadn’t been ruined. In a disaster year, good food is more precious than gold; sometimes, no amount of credits can buy it.

“Sister Qing.”

On shift, Xiao Jiang ran over, worry etched on his face. “Why haven’t you gone to rest yet? Are you sure you can handle this?”

Xia Qing pointed at the basket beside her. “I’m much better now. These eggs and peanuts are for you all—have them for a late-night snack or breakfast. Eggs can’t leave the territory, that was Third Brother’s rule and I promised him.”

“This many? We’re eating like kings again!” Xiao Jiang lifted the basket’s thermal cover and marveled at the ten eggs and half a basket of peanuts inside.

Right now, the Devastation Snow had reached yellow level—the ‘stable period.’ Xia Qing walked forward slowly, but her sharp eyes still caught a rapeseed seedling right under her nose shooting up from palm-height to elbow-high in no time.

Xiao Jiang dashed over and yanked the Devastation Evolution rapeseed out, roots and all. No sooner had he finished than he spotted another seedling sprouting tall a dozen meters away and rushed to pull that one too.

Xia Qing stood at the edge, steadying herself, trying to sense any abnormality in these fields. She confirmed that before a normal Devastation Evolution plant mutated, she couldn’t sense a thing.

She walked on, covering over twenty meters, eyes settling on a seemingly ordinary rapeseed seedling barely ten centimeters tall.

It looked perfectly normal to the eye, yet Xia Qing could “feel” something off about it. It was a feeling that words couldn’t pin down—like suddenly sensing danger.

She couldn’t say exactly what made it risky, but deep down, her instincts screamed it was trouble.

There was no visible change yet, but Xia Qing knew for sure this one would undergo Devastation Evolution—and not just any evolution, but an aggressive one.

Just yesterday morning, during the pursuit of fugitives, Xia Qing had trusted this same instinct to keep Huo Zhun and Crippled Wolf away from certain big trees and zones. One of those trees later proved deadly when an out-of-control wild boar lost its life to it.

Now, Xia Qing felt even more confident in her senses. She quietly observed the rapeseed, wanting to see exactly how Devastation Evolution would kick in and identify its attack pattern before having Guan Tong and his team remove it, and then post a warning in the Lords’ channel.

“Sister Qing, need a ride back?” Guan Tong, just in from clearing snow outside, saw her standing there and hurried over, worried she was about to collapse.

Xia Qing explained, “I’m fine. Just thinking about what to plant in all these empty spots after the snow.”

Guan Tong knew Xia Qing must be feeling the loss and tried to reassure her. “Every territory’s the same right now. Heck, their wheat got hit even harder than ours.”

Everyone grew their Yellow Lantern rapeseed from seeds swapped with the Territory Management Department. With Devastation Element content between eight and ten per thousand, and the same growing conditions, the Devastation Evolution rate was about the same everywhere.

The reason Xia Qing’s Yellow Lantern wheat had a lower evolution rate was because her batch wasn’t second-generation seed but top-quality ones traded from her Idol, with Devastation Element at just six per thousand.

Still, Xia Qing had promised Idol never to mention the trade, so she changed the subject. “At least the Yi Stone saved one patch.”

The Yi Stone Xia Qing gave to Hu Zifeng didn’t just protect half an acre of Green Lantern wheat; the extras shielded fifteen square meters of Yellow Lantern wheat and nine of Yellow Lantern rapeseed. Everywhere else was bare, but within the stone’s boundaries, the seedlings thrived—dense and green.

Hearing Xia Qing bring up the Yi Stone, Guan Tong and his companions couldn’t hold back and started chattering on and on about its wonders.

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