Chapter 640: Spring Planting and Unexpected Visitors

Once the terraces were tidied up and sprinkled with fertilizer and compost starter, it was time to start turning the soil.

The terraced plots were far too small for the sheep-drawn plow to be of any use, so Xia Qing had to flip the soil one shovelful at a time. Luckily, though there were many plots, the total area only came to about 1.7 mu—not a huge workload.

After turning the soil, it had to be leveled out with a smoothing rake, a skillful task. Xia Qing had learned how to find level ground from Qi Fu and his wife, and she’d already mastered this technique.

With the land smoothed and the ridges shaped, it was time to plant.

The usual vegetables—Green Lantern spinach, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, chili peppers, green onions, string beans, and pumpkin—were all familiar from last year and easy to handle. Xia Qing soaked the seeds in advance and helped them sprout, finishing the planting in no time.

The Yellow Lantern potatoes needed special treatment: they had to be cut into chunks by their eyelets, mixed with wood ash, left out half a day to let the cut sides dry, then planted in the field.

Wood ash wasn’t just for mixing with the potatoes—it also provided nutrients to help them grow bigger. So Xia Qing scattered plenty of ash across the potato terraces as a base fertilizer.

She’d eaten potatoes all winter from last year’s harvest, and now there weren’t many left. If she hadn’t gotten poisoned and ended up able to eat only Green Lantern food due to her rising Devastation Element levels, there’d be even fewer potatoes in store.

She hadn’t saved enough Yellow Lantern potatoes for planting, so Xia Qing traded with other territory lords to get what she needed.

Potatoes had a Devastation Evolution rate of twenty-five percent during Devastation Rain, and more than an eight percent chance of developing aggressive mutations. With such instability, they were risky to grow out in the open.

Most lords couldn’t afford to take that kind of risk with their crops. Add in all the new vegetable varieties everyone was swapping, and plenty of ordinary lords who tried potatoes last year weren’t bothering again.

Xia Qing seized the opportunity to trade for a batch of potato seed stock with Devastation Element content between eight and ten per thousand and filled up two entire terraces with them.

With the Yi Stone in her possession, Xia Qing didn’t consider Devastation Evolution much of a threat.

After planting potatoes, she sowed another one and a half terraces full of corn.

This spring, all the Green Lantern corn seeds Xia Qing planted in her fields and terraces came from the top-grade Y-3 variety Tan Junjie had bartered from Red Eleven Base. Remembering the lesson from last year’s winter wheat, she didn’t sow all six jin of seeds, keeping back two just in case.

Corn too was prone to a remarkably high rate of Devastation Evolution under the Devastation Rain.

Last year, Xia Qing had planted two Yellow Lantern varieties of corn—one traded with the Territory Management Department, with a mutation rate of thirty-nine percent; the other acquired from Luo Pei, with a rate of twenty-two percent.

Even though corn had high Devastation Evolution rates, it hadn’t shown aggressive mutations, so it was still safe to grow.

This corn needed high temperatures, though—not ideal for spring planting. The corn Xia Qing kept from last year would need to wait until June or July when things had warmed up.

When the corn was in, she moved on to garlic cloves from the storage room, planting them in the freshly prepared terraces.

She’d found some herself last year, traded for the rest, and now had seventy-one heads of Green Lantern garlic and twenty-eight Yellow Lantern. The small cloves she’d eaten, and the big ones were saved for seed.

When the garlic was finally in, Xia Qing straightened her back, took a satisfied look at the scattered white garlic skins in the terraces, then pulled out her notebook and checked off the ‘plant garlic’ task.

With that last check, all the scheduled spring crops were planted.

All she had to do now was wait for the seedlings to break through the soil, then when temperatures rose at the end of the lunar month or early April, she could plant cotton and sunflowers.

Xia Qing shook out her aching arms, rolled her stiff neck until it popped, then headed toward Green Lantern Orchard in the golden glow of sunset.

In her orchard grew one large toon tree, two apple trees, two jujube trees, a Sichuan pepper tree, and a passionfruit. Because she’d slacked off on the cold-weather prep, the passionfruit hadn’t survived the winter freeze.

It wasn’t just hers—after asking around, Xia Qing learned that all the passionfruit swapped at last year’s Crop Trade Fair had also frozen on the other lords’ land.

It was a shame, sure, but nothing to be done about it.

In a couple of days, she’d have two new Green Lantern orange saplings in the orchard, thanks to a trade she’d made last year with Territory Five.

She broke off all the mature toon sprouts and filled up her basket with them.

Seeing Xia Qing pick so many toon sprouts, Old Goat’s big sparkling eyes went wide. He bleated happily at her. “Baa~~~”

She handed him a bundle of toon sprouts, then headed home with Old Goat in tow.

She’d picked so much because Section Three’s new storage room for vegetables would keep toon sprouts fresh for a month and a half. This harvest would also push the toon tree to grow another batch of shoots.

Xia Qing couldn’t explain all that to Old Goat out on the hillside—especially with Chonglian’s construction crew hammering away at the barrier on the northern edge of her territory.

If any of those workers were advanced Auditory Evolutionaries, her vegetable storage room—where she’d secretly kept so much food—would be exposed.

Once home, Xia Qing prepped the toon sprouts and put them away in the vegetable storage, then started making dinner.

Old Goat got toon sprouts and a compressed ration, Er Gou (the sick wolf) got a raw Green Lantern egg and a chunk of Green Lantern wild boar, and Xia Qing herself feasted on steamed rice and Green Lantern chives scrambled with egg.

Since Alpha and Broken Back hadn’t brought her meat in a long time, Xia Qing’s stores of Green Lantern and Yellow Lantern meat were nearly gone. She could go without, but Wolfdog Number Two needed quality raw meat to keep his now-healthy gut in shape.

In fact, Wolfdog Number Two wasn’t ‘sick wolf’ anymore. He’d bounced back—a healthy, full-grown evolved wolf.

With Chonglian’s team building a wall outside, Wolfdog Number Two couldn’t slip out to hunt. Tomorrow, Xia Qing decided, Hu Zifeng’s Squad would guard the territory while she headed into Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine to hunt wild boar and dig up chestnut saplings—and maybe stop by Valley Two to clear the spot where Yellow Lantern chrysanthemums grew last year.

The best hunting in Section Three was definitely the wild boar raised by the Wolf Pack. Xia Qing was the Wolf Pack’s ‘team doctor,’ and Wolfdog Number Two was family, so it was only fair they grab a boar when they needed meat.

Making plans put Xia Qing in a great mood. After her usual patrol and evening run, she dragged herself home and collapsed into bed—until her phone on the nightstand jolted her awake.

Beep.

Xia Qing jolted upright, checked her phone, and sure enough, there was a long-missed notification—

Broken Back Wolf entered Section Three via the northern gate at 11:28 AM, March 2nd.

Broken Back was here, which meant there were likely Chonglian spies outside the north gate!

Danger!

Xia Qing threw on her clothes, raced downstairs, flung open the security door, and dashed out.

Then she stopped short.

Broken Back was standing at the sheep shed door, turning to meet her gaze. By his side was Wolfdog Number Two, and across from them, Balding Weasel lurked, shrinking back nervously.

Xia Qing’s eyes lit up. She waved enthusiastically and called, “Broken Back! Long time no see!”

Wearing a snake skin protective suit, Broken Back squinted, showing off two tiny, sparkling white fangs in a wide grin.