Chapter 860: Before Dawn: Stardust and Survival

3:30 a.m. The last shards of ice melted away as the clouds broke and the temperature soared. A sky full of stars glimmered like grains of wheat, untouched by harvest, flung high above by wild winds and hail—out of any landowner’s reach.

In Sections One and Three up north some wept, some cursed, and some cried out for help. Others rushed to save the wounded or to gather ruined grain. But most just stood in the suffocating dark, unmoving, as if all life had drained out of them.

“Ah—!”

Suddenly, one of those dazed figures erupted in a scream, swinging a farm tool wildly—pouring out eleven years of bottled-up rage and despair.

In Section Three, Liangzi, the Auditory Evolutionary, straightened from reaping wheat and glanced east. “Someone’s lost control over in Section Four.”

Losing control meant the Devastation Element inside someone had surged past the limit. Their brain, corroded by it, suffered irreversible damage. Even if rescued, there’d still be consequences. For most, losing control spelled certain death.

“At least dying after letting loose feels better than dying with it all pent up,” Er Yong mumbled, cutting down wheat stalks flattened by the storm.

Many wheat heads had been smashed to pulp by the hail. Watching them go to waste made Er Yong ache inside—he almost wanted to scream too.

Xia Qing’s tinnitus wasn’t as bad as before. She clearly heard the howl of despair from Section Four, but didn’t even look up—it wasn’t Zhao Ze or his mother.

Under the beam of her headlamp, Xia Qing reaped wheat as quickly as she could.

Every minute sooner she harvested, the less time the grains spent in that deadly rain—the higher the wheat’s quality would be.

“Captain Tan, someone lost control in Section Four. Already contained. Requesting support,” Zhao Ze rasped into his walkie-talkie.

“Arriving within ten minutes,” Tan Junjie replied, his voice steady and grave as ever, helping lift the spirits of leaders already fighting this disaster for five and a half hours.

The X-2 fields had been cleared. Without X Nutrient Shake to restore energy, everyone was exhausted.

More hands made lighter work.

The crew in Section Three—eleven people—harvested an acre of Yellow Lantern Wheat, battered by hail, in under half an hour.

After seeing Hu Zifeng’s Squad and Huo Zhun off, Xia Qing hauled a cartful of wheat back home with the rotary tiller. She carried bundles up to the rooftop drying rack and covered them with netting.

The yard was choked with Scourge Grass; there was no space to lay out wheat to dry.

Then Xia Qing went downstairs, pulled away the boards blocking her windows, and opened them wide to air out the cabin.

After this sudden disaster, the chat was full of complaints over ruined fields, but no one mentioned their homes. Unless you were unlucky enough to have a tree come crashing down, the houses in each territory had mostly weathered the storm intact.

Living through these years of calamity, everyone was used to battening down at a moment’s notice. Outside every window, there were wooden or metal boards ready to block out the wind and hail when disaster struck.

Xia Qing’s home had boards, too, but disaster hit fast. She’d been racing to save the greenhouse and hadn’t blocked the windows in time. Her cabin was left in a chaotic mess, two window frames twisted and glass shattered.

But really, that was nothing much. No one and nothing in Section Three had died or been badly hurt—a fact Xia Qing counted as a victory.

This disaster made Xia Qing painfully aware of her biggest weakness: she simply didn’t have enough hands.

But reality was harsh—Section Three just didn’t have space for more people. Xia Qing really only had two options:

One, build a standardized greenhouse; or two, improve the rain cover system in her current greenhouses and find a way to automate it as much as possible.

A standardized greenhouse with 1.5 acres of space would cost 350,000 credits for construction and materials. After that, it needed 3,000 to 5,000 credits each month just to keep it running. With costs like that, even the Base’s Planting Center only dared to build a few of them for seedling production—a personal territory? Forget it.

Cost aside, building a standardized greenhouse on her land would stick out like a sore thumb—totally at odds with Xia Qing’s wish to live quietly and under the radar.

So, she chose the second option.

Xia Qing pressed her walkie-talkie, breaking through the gloomy silence. “Uncle Huo, you there?”

“Here,” Huo Lei chimed in instantly. All the Alliance members paused in the night, listening closely.

After the rescue tonight, Xia Qing’s standing in the Alliance had only grown. Everyone knew she never wasted words—if she called, it was serious business.

“Uncle Huo, is there any way to make the greenhouse rain cover work like a mechanized curtain—automatic open and close, like in the big greenhouses?”

If she could solve that, she’d never be caught flat-footed by another disaster, even if she was alone on her territory.

Huo Lei wasn’t just a blacksmith; he designed and built all kinds of protective gear—way more complex than a rain cover system.

The moment Xia Qing and Huo Lei started discussing it, the other landowners snapped right out of their gloom.

“I was just thinking about this too,” Huo Lei rumbled. “Rain covers aren’t as heavy as those curtains, but need tension cables to keep them in place. True automation’s tough, but making it drop quickly isn’t so hard. Main issue’s materials and cost.”

Shizhong, who was just as short-handed, pressed in. “Think we could use pulleys, Huo?”

“Pulleys could work,” Huo Lei replied.

Jiang Ying, standing with Tan Qi, joined in. “We could use what we have—beast bones, timber, and stone instead of steel. Would drive down the cost a lot.”

Tang Huai jumped in, “But bones might attract predators—better not use them.”

Everyone threw in ideas. Ten minutes later, a research group of Huo Lei, Shizhong, and Jiang Ying had formed—with full confidence they’d build an automatic quick-release rain cover before the next Devastation Rain hit.

So, Alliance leader Xia Qing posted an announcement in the group: The new research team would get an advance of 1,500 credits; more if needed. Once they succeeded, they’d get a reward of 500 to 1,500 credits, depending on contributions.

Every group in the chat quickly agreed. A reliable rain cover was a problem on everyone’s mind, and the costs would be shared by all.

That little research group, founded just before dawn after disaster struck, would one day become the famous Hui Three Territory Alliance Research Institute.

With a real solution in sight, morale soared. Everyone tackled the ruined greenhouses and battered crops with renewed energy.

After a quick cleanup of her cabin, Xia Qing ducked into Greenhouse One on the slope and started collecting spinach seeds from under the protective film.

That wild storm had shaken the protective film before Xia Qing could get the rain cover down, sending the High-Elevation Green Lantern Spinach into a sudden, explosive ripeness.

The seeds were still fine, but the now-stubbled stalks needed to be packed away fast—if the temperature climbed, they’d rot in no time.

Every seed Xia Qing picked up meant at least a hundred credits earned. Every pound of spinach stalk she collected meant 280 credits more. No wonder she worked with a spring in her step.

While Xia Qing enjoyed her harvest, the freeloading Red Squirrel and its two young darted between the tree hollow and Greenhouse Twelve, scooping up wheat seeds pelted to the ground by the hail.

With no humans or rival rodents, and no predators hunting here, the little freeloaders ran wild—Red Squirrel’s eyes practically sparked with excitement.

“Hurry, kids! Haul every seed from those stalks back to the tree!”

Old Goat lay nearby, still chewing her cud, but her ears twitched at the commotion.

Wolfdog Number Two, patrolling the territory, came up to Greenhouse Twelve and bared his fangs at Red Squirrel, whose cheeks bulged with stolen wheat seeds.