Chapter 675: Spring’s Promise: Sowing Seeds, Hatching Life

“Stupid mutt?”

“Speak for yourself!”

“My Er is a wolfdog with half wolf blood. Alpha paid with Yi Stone for medical treatment—no one’s selling their loyalty here. He’s a free Evolved Wolf, not some pet chained up by humans. He goes wherever he wants.”

Xia Qing hurried home, quickening her steps so she could finally open the small pouch and inspect the spinach seeds she’d received. The X-2 spinach seeds looked identical to the original seeds she grew in her terraces, matching in color, shape and size.

Technically, the Territory Management Department classified these as X-1 original seeds. Idol once said they were bred in an environment completely isolated from Devastation Element, so not just the appearance but even the Devastation and Evolution Element content nearly matched her own first-gen seeds.

They called them X-2 to let everyone from other bases assume Hui Three offered even better, higher-Evolution spinach seeds. Right now, the base was investing heavily—money, manpower and resources—trying to cultivate an even better crop.

If Hui Three’s high-Evolution spinach could get Devastation Element content above 10, it could be used to make even more valuable Evolution Element stim shake, creating huge economic value for the base.

But breeding higher quality spinach isn’t easy, so the base didn’t pin all its hopes on official trial fields. Instead, they trusted every individual to do their part.

Every resident and lord at Hui Three Base got their own seeds!

Xia Qing split her 150 spinach seeds evenly—half went into the spinach terraces, half she sowed deep in Hidden Valley.

She wasn’t alone. Lords from Territory Four, Five, Six, Ten and Fifteen in the Alliance did the same—sowing half their seeds in the valley’s farmland.

Planting in the valley meant also renting Yi Stone during the Devastation Rain season to shield the crops. The first Devastation Rain this year proved it worked: rice seedlings protected by Yi Stone thrived, not one lost. Now, every lord placed their faith in it.

Territory Eight joined the Alliance late, missing out on a valley plot. Still, Xin Yu had her own state-of-the-art Greenhouses and didn’t care for the tiny valley fields others guarded so jealously. She just sent someone regularly to fetch Hot Spring Water.

There were two acres in Hidden Valley—Xia Qing laid claim to one entirely.

Seventy-five spinach seeds couldn’t even fill two square meters of farmland, so after moving the grown rice and sweet potato seedlings aside, Xia Qing planted peanuts in her acre—half with Green Lantern variety, the other half Yellow Lantern. The day she’d found the valley, peanuts had shown the best quality among the crops there; that convinced her this place perfectly suited them.

Other lords sowed peanuts in their own plots too. Territory Four, Five, Six and Ten got Yellow Lantern peanut seeds by trading with Xia Qing, while Territory Fifteen’s seeds came straight from Military Command.

With the new territory policies, plenty of retired soldiers with some fight left in them joined the farming effort. Their method was teamwork: dozens or even hundreds lived on the same land, boosting both productivity and safety. This was exactly how Fifteen ran things.

These farming veterans could swap for top quality seeds from Military Command at a discount, but only in limited numbers and never for trade.

Once the spinach seeds arrived, the Alliance lords couldn’t wait—they filled up the group chat, discussing when to team up and head to Hidden Valley to plant.

Hill Fifty was already an off-limits zone. A Devastation Snake was spotted there days ago, raising the risk. Without Evolved fighters to escort, ordinary lords from Territory Four and Five wouldn’t even be allowed in.

Xia Qing had to wait for the Wolf Pack, who could show up anytime, so she stayed on her territory. In the end, Yue Haiying and Shi Du were chosen to lead the team—tomorrow, they’d head out and plant the spinach. Xia Qing handed over her 75 seeds so they could plant them, too.

With the spinach plan settled, Xia Qing left home for the Breeding Greenhouse, ready to feed the chickens, fish, worms and rabbits.

Spring was a season of hope. The chickens were nesting, female fish and does heavy with young, all needing careful feeding and attention as their due dates approached.

Today was critical—the first batch of chicks in the territory had been incubating for twenty-one days. Time to hatch.

Xia Qing stopped by the Planting Greenhouse to pick plenty of greens, chopped them up, added crushed Yellow Lantern corn and Pure Spring Water, grabbed a few breadworms from the wooden tray—then mixed them all into chicken feed.

She barely had to call—soon as the feed was ready the chickens were already lined up by the trough, necks craning for breakfast. She counted fourteen in all, with seven hens currently nesting. Two more broody hens stayed put in their nests and didn’t come for food.

This spring, nine hens were nesting in total. Xia Qing had given them 180 eggs, so if all went well they could expect ninety chicks.

But—

Three hens weren’t taking their jobs seriously. Apart from meals they’d wander about, coming and going as they pleased. Worried those eggs wouldn’t hatch, Xia Qing moved some to the more diligent hens to boost the odds.

If hens could fit more eggs under their bellies, Xia Qing would’ve long since taken these three slackers off incubation duty.

Hardworking hens not only got rich feed—they also earned a few breadworms as a reward. Even the top-tier Evolved White-Feathered Hen was up for treats, since she was nesting, too.

While the flock pecked away, Xia Qing hurried over to the nest, hope shining in her eyes as she watched the eggs under the laced hen.

She’d been keeping an eye on these eggs since yesterday. They looked the same, but holding one up to her ear, she caught the faintest sounds from inside.

This time, as she gently lifted a warm egg, her eyes widened—it was shaking!

“Tap, tap.” The chick inside was working to break out—pecking, determined to escape its shell! This egg had a fully developed embryo and was about to hatch.

“Cluck cluck—”

The laced hen spotted Xia Qing sneaking around and abandoned her food, flapping straight over. Xia Qing quickly put the egg back, watching helplessly as the hen buried every egg safely beneath her.

She squatted by the nest for another twenty minutes but still didn’t hear chirping from the chicks. With a sigh, she turned to feed the fish.

Old Goat wasn’t as thorough a worker as Er—he didn’t catch enough worms, so the fish were still hungry. Xia Qing went to catch more herself. Of course, the pregnant fish got to eat breadworms too.

Now that the weather was warmer, breadworms were growing faster. The first batch had already hatched and grown big. Xia Qing tried stir-frying them once but now only used them to feed the chickens, fish, the Yellow Weasel—and sometimes tossed two to the swallows.

Not that she didn’t like eating them—it was just that breadworms needed to be deep-fried, and she barely had any Green Lantern cooking oil left. She really couldn’t afford to waste it like that.

For now, boiling Green Lantern wild boar was a better fit for her pantry.

While feeding breadworms, Xia Qing noticed one fish’s belly had shrunk. She grabbed her flashlight and bent to check the rack built from strips of stone at the tank bottom. Sure enough—bands of tiny, clear fish eggs covered the surface!

Ecstatic, Xia Qing called out, “Old Goat, Old Goat!”

Old Goat trotted in from the next greenhouse, clover stalk hanging from his mouth.

“Old Goat, our fish finally laid eggs!” Xia Qing couldn’t keep the joy out of her voice.

Finding nothing tasty, Old Goat just squinted lazily and went back to his clover. Joy? Nope, not for him.