Chapter 84: Eggs, Nets, and Night Operations

After cleaning her gun and finishing her accuracy drills, Xia Qing moved on to reaction speed training. By 10:30 PM she wrapped up, washed up, nodded goodnight to Boss Sheep lounging on his first-floor throne, then headed upstairs to her room in the northwest corner to get some rest.

The building Xia Qing lived in sat right in the north-central part of the farmland at the foot of the mountain. From the bedroom on the second floor’s northwest side, she could look out the window and see all of Territory Three’s fields, the planting areas, and the spring.

Even though Luo Pei had taken her people and left Territory Three, there were still eyes from Territory Two watching the place. So Xia Qing decided to move into this bedroom—she could guard the land’s most important resources at night: the spring and the crops.

She’d set up over a dozen simple but nearly invisible traps near the fields and spring. If people or large animals passed by, any movement of trees or stones would be caught by her highly evolved ears. She could deal with intruders on the spot, gun in hand.

With night vision goggles on, Xia Qing checked through the glass window to make sure her territory was quiet. She’d just finished spreading her sun-warmed thin blanket when she heard Boss Sheep’s hooves clattering up the stairs.

Even after evolving, sheep had poor night vision. To help Boss Sheep get to the courtyard door at night, she always kept the downstairs nightlight on.

By the dim glow, Boss Sheep smoothly made it to the second floor and now stood in front of Xia Qing, squinting and staring at her.

With her best negotiating tone, Xia Qing explained, “Boss, didn’t I already tell you? I have to sleep here tonight to guard our water and food. You’re on first-floor duty, guarding the main door and yard.”

Boss Sheep didn’t move. Xia Qing let out a helpless but happy sigh. “If you insist on sleeping in the same room, fine—come in.”

She laid a bamboo mat with a flat grass cushion on the floor of the bedroom. “Sleep now. Tomorrow we have to take down the rainproof tarps and clear out the Xiang grass. The next Xiang Rain won’t come for at least two months, and by then, our wheat, mung beans, and potatoes will all be ready for harvest. After that, I’ll eat the grains and you get the stalks.”

With that, she yawned, pulled up her blanket, and closed her eyes.

Boss Sheep settled on the grass mat for a while but found it wasn’t as comfortable as the one in the living room. Clearly dissatisfied, he stared at Xia Qing, then stood and clopped his way back downstairs.

Lying in bed, Xia Qing couldn’t help but grin.

Next morning, the pain from the dancing potato vines had eased even more—it barely slowed her down at all.

After breakfast, Xia Qing switched on the radio for some background chatter. As she wandered around, she gathered a full sack of evolved pests—half went to feed the fish, half to feed the snakes.

The baby fish, now grown to five centimeters, rushed to the water’s surface at feeding time. But as soon as they did, an egret pacing in the shallows would snap one up and swallow it whole.

Strange. Why is there only one egret fishing today?

Xia Qing glanced at the bird’s nest in the Chinese swamp cypress by the water and spotted the second egret squatting inside.

So—eggs must have been laid and incubation begun, huh?

After feeding off her fish for so long, it was finally the egrets’ turn to pay her back. Xia Qing had been dreaming of tasting those eggs for days.

Are egret eggs edible? Well, it wouldn’t hurt to bring some home and test.

Stealing? That doesn’t exist here.

Everything in Territory Three was hers. How could it be stealing if she was taking her own things?

Xia Qing chuckled sneakily.

Back at home, she hitched the rotary tiller to its cart, chugged over to the edge of the fields, and whipped off every rainproof tarp from the shelters in just a few minutes. She got Boss Sheep helping her fold up the tarps neatly and pack them into the cart.

Next, she hauled out the insect net, cut it to size, and stretched it over the shelter supports. The Base’s agricultural radio had been aggressively promoting this type of net—bug-proof, light-permeable, airy, providing just enough shade.

As for why The Base was pushing this technique, Kuang Qingwei from Plot Six had once asked Qi Fu from Plot Five.

Qi Fu confirmed—because he’d bulk-bought insect netting originally meant for Safe Zone window screens. When Zhong Tao found out how he was using it, he filmed the bug-proof veggie shelters and sent the video up the chain. That earned Qi Fu some very generous rewards.

Nobody pried into what exactly the rewards were. Qi Fu wouldn’t say, and everyone else was polite enough not to ask.

Xia Qing had already seen the benefits—her veggies thrived under the nets. She’d planned long ago to cover all her crops, trading with Zhong Tao for plenty of insect netting.

Good thing she acted early; Kuang Qingwei said the price of netting had gone up.

Xia Qing had been busy fixing up the house lately and hadn’t managed to get her fields netted until now. With the rain shelters finished, it was the perfect time to swap out rain tarps for bug nets.

With the net in place, she and the local birds would handle any insects that couldn’t get in. None would survive outside the barrier.

These days, Xia Qing’s territory teemed with magpies, crows, sparrows, titmice, and red-billed blue magpies. They’d tried to swipe seeds and fruit before, but after Xia Qing’s strict discipline—okay, she beat a few to death—the rest straightened up fast and became model helpers.

Well, except for the egrets. Snatching fish doesn’t exactly qualify as being a ‘helper.’

By the time she finished switching out all the tarps for netting, it had taken her the whole day. She definitely deserved something tasty as a reward.

Grabbing a sack of the dozen snakes she’d caught today, Xia Qing wandered over to the reservoir. There, she spotted both egrets getting all cozy together, nesting away.

Come on—she and Boss Sheep had worked themselves to the bone, still both single, while these two feathery thieves were having a honeymoon. Time for some payback.

With a new reason to teach the egrets a lesson, Xia Qing drove the cartful of tarps home, checked the snakes for edibility, tossed the best-in-class into the snake crate, then fed the rest some evolved bugs. Once it started getting dark—when the egrets’ vision was at its worst—she returned to the cypress grove, keeping out of sight, and slipped the snakes from the bag right next to the egret nest.

Egrets are daytime hunters thanks to weak night vision. Most snakes prefer dusk or nightfall. Once the egrets and snakes clashed, Xia Qing could just sit back and benefit from the chaos.

She crouched nearby and soon enough, the egrets and snakes starting brawling at the nest. Once both birds flew away, Xia Qing scurried over and found five pale blue eggs sitting in the nest.

She grabbed three and stuffed them into her bag. As she slipped away from the scene, the sound of egret wings flapping burst out above her. Swiftly, she pulled a fierce meter-long evolved snake from her sack and pinned it next to the nest, shouting, “Egret, hurry back! There’s a snake stealing your eggs!”

Back at the nest, the egret guarded the eggs and stabbed its long golden beak deep into the evolved snake.

With a sharp crack, it pierced right through the snake’s head into the tree trunk.

She never would’ve guessed—those egrets may look sophisticated strutting at the water’s edge, but their combat skills were off the charts. No wonder they became the bird bosses in her territory.

After helping the egrets clear out the remaining evolved snakes, Xia Qing grabbed her spoils and headed home.