Chapter 862: The Harvest of Rain: Seeds and Survival

Out of 97 spinach plants, 51 turned out to be female and produced seeds—4,826 spinach seeds in total. Two ended up in Little Fei Mao’s belly, and the other 4,824 made their way into Xia Qing’s bag.

A few minutes later, Ji Li arrived at the north gate of Section Three to pick up the bag of spinach stalks and 2,000 spinach seeds. When Yang Jin came by to deliver the laptop and phone, he’d collect 1,500 seeds at a rate of 130 credits each.

Of this batch, the highest Evolution Element content hits 7.6, with the Devastation Element at around 2.5—superior even to the x-2 seeds Hui Three Base handed out this spring. These are truly top-tier high-evolution spinach seeds.

If planting them again maintains this quality, by the rules, this batch should be named x-3.

But Xia Qing and Zhang San had already made up their minds—x-3 wouldn’t go public. For most people, x-2 was more than good enough.

Once these 1,324 x-3 seeds finish their month-long dormancy, Xia Qing plans to plant them in batches on the terraces and keep cultivating even stronger high-evolution spinach.

After another sleepless night, Xia Qing raised the rain cover on Greenhouse One, letting sunlight pour onto the crops inside. Next, she had to reapply the insecticide and fungicide solution to the netting, making sure no clueless bugs or little creatures like Little Fei Mao could gnaw a hole and wreck her precious veggies again.

But spraying means she couldn’t let Little Fei Mao tag along, though before letting it go, she needed to make sure it understood its mistake.

Xia Qing fished the little rascal out of the detainment room, held it up near the insect net, and regardless of whether it understood or not, scolded it sternly, waving her hands for emphasis. After flicking its tiny forehead twice, she let go. “Go on! Back to your nest!”

Given its freedom, Little Fei Mao deftly scurried back along Xia Qing’s arm and right into the pocket of her clothes.

What now?

Not seeing any other way, Xia Qing hauled the furry freeloader back to the Western Buffer Forest. Along the way, she stopped to check on the new Devastation-Evolved Red Bamboo in the bamboo grove, then paused beneath the tree where the Red Squirrel family lived. Fishing out the little rat, she hung it on a branch. “Climb up, go find your mom—I hear her in the nest.”

The Red Squirrel, clutching its precious stash of wheat seeds, trembled in fear.

Up higher, two little red squirrels were braver than their mom. Each poked its little head out from its own grubby nest to peer curiously down at Xia Qing’s voice.

The scrawny red squirrel with patchy fur that Xia Qing set down on pine bark stubbornly crawled right back onto her hand and dove into her pocket again—this time, straight into the one stuffed with spinach seeds.

Guess it decided spinach seeds tasted better—now it was determined to mooch off her for good…

Left with no choice, Xia Qing carried the brainpower-challenged little guy back to the little house by the fields. If she stuck around any longer, she worried the other squirrels might come out to freeload too.

After locking Little Fei Mao in its cage, Xia Qing headed off to re-spray a dozen greenhouses and reinforce the wild grass wall.

When she finally finished the work, she wound up in a scuffle with the ever-lazy Old Goat, scolding it and ordering it to help Er guard the chicken flock by Greenhouse Twelve. Only then, muddy and exhausted, did she drag Little Fei Mao home.

Sure enough, she found the Monkey had made another mess on the straw mat in the sheep shed. No diarrhea this time, but cleaning up was no easier!

She’d barely finished cleaning the sheep shed when the client from Hill Fifty-Five barged through her yard, shoving aside the waist-high Devastation Grass and pushing open her door—nagging her to get to work.

Seriously, she wasn’t the lord here! To the little animals she was just the local big shot; to the wolves she was Summer Workhorse, the tireless slave!

Working wasn’t happening today. Xia Qing patiently explained her predicament to the client, then smoothed things over with an apology—a chain strung with a pink pearl. The discerning client finally left. Only after breakfast did she get to clearing out Devastation Grass from the yard.

Catch up on sleep?

Who had time for that? She juiced some spinach, mixed it with nutrient solution, and got busy tidying up both the yard and the grass around the greenhouses.

Beneath Xia Qing’s hardworking eaves, the Monkey dangled from an IV line while, in a cage beside it, a little squirrel gnawed on a walnut.

Though this time’s Devastation Rain lasted more than five hours, the grass grew just over a meter tall. Even so, it’d soon scatter seeds if left unchecked. Also, scattered among the new grass, there was still deadly Huanggan-39 that needed special handling.

Just as after the second wave of Devastation Rain, Xia Qing had hired help from Territory Seventeen and Territory Fifteen to clear the Devastation Grass. She herself focused on the Abandoned Village where she lived and the area around the greenhouses.

The people from those two territories wouldn’t arrive for their shift until the afternoon, so all morning things stayed quiet. Xia Qing cranked up the radio, tuning into the news as she worked.

She wanted to hear Hui Three’s official take on how the leadership was explaining this sudden disaster hitting Section One and Section Three.

She finished pulling up all the piles of Huanggan-39 in the yard, bundling them aside, then started on the rest of the Devastation Grass. That’s when Hui Three’s news program finally began reporting on last night’s sudden catastrophe in the northern Safe Zone.

“Within ten days after Devastation Rain, as the excess Devastation Element evaporates from the soil and water, it rises to the upper atmosphere, forming an important shield around Blue Star against cosmic radiation. But in rare circumstances, the evaporated element is drawn to certain clouds, quickly gathering and returning as precipitation…”

After breaking down the science, Hui Three’s announcer introduced the official name: “This sudden natural disaster is called—Return Rain.”

“Return Rain? That’s a pretty fitting name,” Qi Fu piped up in the Lords’ channel. “Remember last July we got hit by hail? No Devastation Rain after that, so that wasn’t Return Rain.”

Kuang Qingwei picked up the thread. “Before all these disasters, there used to be a fish called Return Fish—pretty pricey too, if I remember right.”

Xia Qing tore out a big handful of Devastation Grass and tossed it onto the pile, listening as the announcer asked, “Professor Li, has our base ever been hit by Return Rain before?”

Today’s special guest in the broadcast booth, Hui Three’s meteorology expert Li Xiangshan, answered, “Return Rain is actually a rare natural phenomenon. Since the start of this era of disasters, it’s only happened five times across all of Blue Star. Last night was the first time we’ve seen it in our country…”

Tang Huai swore on the Lords’ channel, “Great, we finally got a nationwide ‘first.’ What an honor, huh.”

“Not the only first,” Hu Zifeng shot back, taking revenge for Tang Huai’s earlier snark. “Let’s not forget the ‘first person’ who broke a toe on his initial expedition—one of our five-star evolved fighters. That’s two records in one go.”

Tang Huai, lying in bed, shot upright. “You talking about me?!”

Hu Zifeng chuckled. “I’m talking about our double record-holder. What’s got you so worked up?”

Everyone else: Here we go again…

Xia Qing turned off the lord communicator, focused on pulling weeds, and kept listening to the radio.

Most of the Devastation Grass was gone from the yard by the time the Monkey’s IV drip finished. Xia Qing peeled off her muddy gloves, detached the IV and placed it in a special recycling bag. In disaster years, resources were tight—even IV tubing needed to be recycled, cleaned, and sterilized for reuse.

As she packed away the drip, Xia Qing noticed the Monkey’s mouth was trembling slightly.