Chapter 7: Spring of Survival

With the windows finally fixed, the room felt secure and Xia Qing slept more soundly than she had in ages.

That night she dreamed of a massive evolved ox wandering into her fields and stubbornly refusing to leave. So, she strapped a plow on its back and, sure enough, it could till fifty acres a day.

When she woke, Xia Qing couldn’t help but laugh. If only she really had an ox—unlike machinery, it didn’t guzzle diesel, and these days, fuel was too expensive for most people to afford.

After washing up with spring water, she ate a chunk of rations for breakfast, slung three drinking water buckets on her back, and set out to fetch more water.

Yesterday, between cooking, drinking, and washing, she’d used up an entire 20-liter bucket from the spring. The other two buckets were scrounged from a half-smashed kitchen cabinet in a nearby village. The lids were tightly screwed on, so they could still be cleaned and reused.

On her way there, she chopped down three venomous snakes before finally reaching the cave and discovered the rocks she’d piled at the entrance had been pushed aside.

She gripped her machete tighter and listened carefully, eyes scanning every inch. Only when she’d checked a fifty-meter radius and found nothing but sparrows and a few snakes did she feel at ease.

The reason Xia Qing could survey everything within fifty meters? Deep down, she was actually an evolver with three enhanced attributes.

Besides strength, her sight and hearing had evolved too. She never went to a lab for official testing, but compared to other evolvers, she figured her auditory and visual abilities weren’t below Level 4. As for her reported strength, it was supposedly Level 4, but in reality, she was already Level 6.

So, Xia Qing wasn’t just any ordinary evolver—she was an advanced triple evolver.

Multi-attribute evolvers were incredibly rare. Of the two million residents in Hui San Base, only twelve people had two evolved attributes. As for three? Just two. And both kept their identities and specialties secret. Xia Qing only knew one worked for the Military, and the other had transferred to a research center at Hui Yi Main Base.

After that, nothing more was ever heard about those two. Rumor in the Safe Zone was, they got sliced up for research and died long ago.

After Xia Qing’s own evolution, her father worried she’d be dragged off for experiments too, so he only reported her strength evolution.

Her triple evolution had helped her survive danger countless times—it’s the only reason she dared leave the Safe Zone alone to farm.

At the mouth of the cave, where Xia Qing left her buckets yesterday, three clear sets of animal tracks remained. One from a bird, one from a weasel, and the other looked like sheep or deer.

Birds were whatever. Weasels hunted rats, so best to leave them be. As for sheep or deer… well, she was their natural predator. If she found them, they were hers!

If Xia Qing could find this spring, it stood to reason that the animals of the mountain knew about it too. Ever since the water in the reservoir below had been contaminated, any animal with a brain would come here for a drink.

Her eyes lit up as she scanned the area. Before long, she spotted a few white hairs snagged on a branch about two meters away.

The length, the curl, the toughness—together with the tracks, it could only be from a sheep. Xia Qing almost wanted to drop everything for the day and just camp out to wait for it.

It’d been years since she last tasted mutton.

Inside the cave, the spring still filtered right through the cracks in the rock. No water ever pooled in the pit she cleared, but that was no surprise. If it had collected or flowed out, the search team would have noticed long ago.

She set her buckets in the pit to catch spring water, then checked the three venomous snakes she’d killed. Her luck held—one of them was actually edible.

The discovery cheered her up no end. All the more reason to keep an eye out for that sheep.

But for today, one edible snake was enough. While waiting for the buckets to fill, she picked and tested wild greens she recognized.

Only after filling all three buckets did she find seven small wild vegetables. Not much, barely a bite after blanching, but Xia Qing was still content with her haul.

She washed the greens with spring water, grabbed a bigger rock to block the cave entrance, took everything home, then picked up her shovel and headed out to tend the fields.

Once she managed to level four acres, all the seeds from the base could finally be planted. She chose a plot a hundred meters from the floodwall, easy to irrigate and safe from flooding.

First step to prepping the field: turn over the soil and clear it of rocks, roots, and visible pests. Xia Qing pressed her straw hat lower and got to work.

She was shocked at what she found.

Under a thick layer of ash and mulch, tender sprouts had already broken through. Xia Qing couldn’t tell what they were. After her test kit showed they were all toxic, she ripped them out as weeds.

Without machines or oxen, Xia Qing’s evolved strength made all the difference for fieldwork. In just one morning, she broke four shovels but cleared two full acres.

At this rate, she’d finish all four acres today. That sense of achievement felt pretty damn good.

“Xia Qing! Hey, Xia Qing!”

Hearing Zhong Tao’s voice blasting through a loudspeaker, Xia Qing wiped the sweat from her face and hurried home to grab the edible snake before heading for the signpost.

As soon as she arrived, Zhong Tao hopped from his truck and waved, careful not to set foot on her land. “Sis!”

She smiled and approached him. “Tao, what brings you here? Making your rounds?”

Zhong Tao looked her over, surprised at how much fairer her skin was now, then grinned. “Yeah, yesterday I checked out the fields nearby, today I’m working along the base of the mountain. Everything alright out here?”

“All good.” Xia Qing handed over the bag of snake meat. “Had some luck this morning—caught a snake on the hillside.”

Zhong Tao shook his head quickly. “Oh no, don’t. Snake meat’s a delicacy, you should eat it yourself.”

Xia Qing insisted, pushing the bag toward him. “I don’t eat snake.”

When he realized she was serious, Zhong Tao accepted the bag and passed it to Zheng Kui, who was smoking nearby. He asked, “I seem to recall the mountain’s been cleared pretty thoroughly. Still a lotta snakes? If so, I’ll report it and have a crew make another sweep.”

“Not too many. No need to send people.” Xia Qing declined outright, then handed Zhong Tao a slip of paper with her phone number. “Here’s my number. What’s yours, Tao?”

As the head of the transport squad, Zhong Tao had a satellite phone. He recited his number, then lowered his voice. “Sis, you got a satellite phone too?”

When Xia Qing nodded, his grin widened. “That makes things much easier. If you ever need help, just give me a call. Two things: First, remember to listen to the base broadcast every night from 7 to 8. Second, the military sends troops to patrol the mountain’s buffer zone and forest. If they’re around, they’ll check in with you first before stepping onto your land.”

Xia Qing pressed, “Are the people patrolling from regimental HQ?”

“Yeah—” Zhong Tao froze, realizing he’d let something slip. He glanced around, voice dropping lower. “How’d you know the HQ’s still got people?”

Xia Qing just smiled. “Just a guess. I know nothing, really.”

Zhong Tao scratched his head, then smiled too. “Alright, as long as you know. Don’t mention it to anyone. Want me to give your number to the patrol teams? Makes it easier for them to reach you.”

“Sure.” For ten years since the disaster, the Military had sacrificed so much to protect the people—they were by far the most trustworthy group around. Xia Qing added, “Just don’t tell anyone inside the Safe Zone about my phone.”

“Got it.” Zhong Tao was about to leave when someone suddenly sprinted toward them from the east. He immediately raised his gun, shielding Xia Qing behind him. “Stop! Any closer and I’ll shoot!”