Chapter 61: A Day Among Cotton and Wolves

Kuang Qingwei turned to Qi Fu for advice. “Old Qi, I’ve got this cotton plant in my field—the main stem split into two at the fourth leaf, and now I’ve got two main branches. What should I do about it?”

Xia Qing’s ears perked up right away, since she had several of those wild, free-spirited cotton plants in her own field.

Qi Fu carried on, sharing his wisdom. “Just keep both branches. Snap off all the wild shoots below and above them—just leave the fruit branches.”

Xia Qing thought the name ‘wild shoot’ was perfect—leafy offshoots that grow like crazy but never make buds. If that’s not a wild shoot, what is?

Kuang Qingwei looked even more troubled. “No matter how I look at it, all I see are wild shoots on both branches.”

Qi Fu just chuckled. “Then start by snapping off the ones at the bottom. Let the small ones higher up keep growing for now—you can deal with them later. Don’t worry, as long as the cotton plant is healthy, it’ll sprout fruit branches sooner or later. Don’t be afraid of breaking off too many—as long as you leave six or seven fruit branches per plant, that’s enough. Any more than that, and you’ll have to pinch and top them off. Too many, and cotton bolls won’t set properly.”

Hearing Qi Fu’s advice, Xia Qing finally relaxed. She promptly cleaned up the cotton plant she’d been staring at for fifteen minutes.

There was something oddly satisfying about snapping off all those wild shoots from the main stem, leaving the cotton plant almost bare. Why did that feel so good?

Grinning from ear to ear, Xia Qing juiced the snapped-off wild shoots to test for Xiang element content.

Red light.

Still grinning. No problem—a red light only means the cottonseed isn’t edible. As long as it produces cotton, that’s fine. She’d keep it.

Yellow light.

Still all smiles. Yellow’s good. That means the cottonseed oil is edible, and she can sell it for more points. She tied a grass rope around those to mark them.

Green light?

After testing more than a hundred plants, she finally found one! Of course, she’d tie a bright red ribbon on it for special protection. That one would be her seed stock.

Hearing the chitter of mutated locusts beating their wings, Xia Qing straightened. She’d just reached for her pouch of steel balls when two evolved crows swooped in and swallowed the locusts whole—not even giving her a chance to act.

Xia Qing gave them a thumbs-up. “Nice work!”

“Baa.”

Lounging in the shade about ten meters away, Boss Sheep thought Xia Qing was praising it and gave a token grunt in response.

Xia Qing let out a laugh, then bent down to keep snapping off wild shoots.

Pruning and tending over eight thousand cotton plants on two acres is repetitive, dull farmwork. Yet after ten hard years of disasters and struggle, Xia Qing found pure joy in it. She loved the peaceful feeling of tending her cotton, so much so that even the distant clatter of two mutated crickets fighting sounded almost musical.

Clearing all the wild shoots took Xia Qing two full days. The first morning, she did it kneeling and stooped over, but by the following afternoons she’d switched to sitting. Xia Qing rigged up a little stool at just the right height and strapped it to herself, sitting between two rows of cotton. She’d bend over a few plants and shuffle forward, still sitting, as she went.

With her oversized straw hat woven from mosquito-repelling grass, Xia Qing was truly in her element. The only thing spoiling the mood was the sharp, noisy shouting drifting over from Tang Lu’s Territory Two.

Yang Jin had stayed behind in Plot One to oversee the development of the Mountain 49 training base. Tang Zheng had hung around Mountain 49 for two days but left after getting nothing out of it, so Tang Lu naturally stayed in her own territory.

Wherever Yang Jin went, she followed.

It wasn’t just Xia Qing who found Tang Lu noisy—the Inspection Team thought so too.

Since Tang Lu couldn’t barge into Plot One and the Azure Dragon Unit guarding the gate refused to pass messages to Yang Jin, she came up with all sorts of ways to pester the Inspection Team, the only ones who had direct contact with Plot One.

One moment she’d claim her pet rabbit had run off and ask them to negotiate with Plot One so she could go looking for it. The next, she was complaining that the Inspection Team wasn’t doing their job—her territory was crawling with dangerous mutant bugs and she wanted to lodge a formal protest.

Su Ming was about ready to stuff something in her mouth to shut her up. “She only gets away with it because her dad is Tang Sufeng!”

If it weren’t for Tang Sufeng, a woman with no survival skills who causes so much trouble during a disaster would’ve died a hundred times by now.

Huzi muttered, “The more she acts like this, the less chance Jin-ge will like her. What’s she thinking? She should just go after someone else—hasn’t Xu Pin always liked her?”

Su Ming grinned. “Haven’t you heard that old saying? The more you can’t get something, the more obsessed you become.”

Yuan Rui, who rarely joined in big conversations, suddenly chimed in. “Actually, Tang Lu’s pretty smart.”

Huh? What?

Huzi and Su Ming both stared. “Brother Rui, you’ve got a pretty unique perspective.”

Yuan Rui was a few years older, had seen more, and thought deeper. “Tang Lu is just a regular person who can’t evolve. If she wants to keep living a comfy life, she either needs to help the Tang Family win over the Azure Dragon Unit, their main rival, or give birth to an exceptional next-generation Evolver herself. Either way, Yang Jin is her top pick.”

It was a while before Su Ming broke the silence. “Even if she’s picked the right goal, it’s no use if she can’t catch him.”

Yuan Rui shot back, “How do you know she can’t unless she tries? She’s still young and Yang Jin doesn’t have a girlfriend. If she does manage to succeed, she won’t need to worry for the next hundred years.”

How do you know you can’t unless you try? Huzi mulled that over.

Su Ming sneaked a glance at Captain Tan in the lead and lowered his voice. “I heard—just a rumor, okay? Don’t spread it. But word is, Jin-ge doesn’t like women.”

Everyone went silent…

Without turning, Tan Junjie called out, “Su Ming.”

“…Yeah?”

“Fifty laps with weight when we get back.”

“Bzzz—”

Before Su Ming could grumble, a desperate, hopeless squeal rang out from the Breeding Center. The Inspection Team had just passed by and immediately wheeled around, guns in hand, and rushed toward the center.

The cry startled Xia Qing, who was sitting on the highland in Territory Three eavesdropping. That scream wasn’t normal—she bolted north and scrambled up a tree near the Breeding Center, peering out at the wild boar valley.

Not long after the Breeding Center went up, more than a dozen researchers in pure white airtight protective suits had moved in and disappeared from view. Xia Qing had all but forgotten about them and their boars—it had always been so quiet. But that cry just now was anything but normal.

Thanks to her sharp eyesight, Xia Qing saw two people in camo protective suits carrying an adult wild boar toward a row of white buildings. Two researchers in white airtight suits came rushing out to meet them.

Xia Qing couldn’t make out what the researchers were saying, but she clearly heard the people in camo outfits yelling, “It’s been bitten in the neck—by a mutant wolf! Incredibly fast! Researchers, get back to the safe house!”

Wolves!

Xia Qing tensed up too. She remembered all too well how terrifying mutated wolves were. Hadn’t all the dangerous large mutant beasts been cleared out around the territory? Where did this wolf that attacked the boar come from?

“Baa—”

Hearing the call from Boss Sheep, Xia Qing scrambled down the tree and raced down the hill. “Boss, you heard the pig screaming too?”

Boss Sheep nudged Xia Qing with its head, pushing her down the slope, clearly on edge. She nearly tumbled but quickly started running down with Boss Sheep at her side.

If mutated wolves dared to hunt thick-skinned wild boars, then juicy Boss Sheep was even more tempting!