Chapter 863: Signs of Recovery and Rising After the Storm

Thank goodness, after four days under her care, the silly Monkey finally started to show signs of getting better. Xia Qing beamed and flicked Monkey’s forehead, then rearranged its tiny arms and legs to form two heart shapes.

She turned, ready to get back to weeding, but noticed Little Fei Mao had already finished nibbling a small chunk of Green Lantern Cucumber. Quivering its tiny whiskers, it gripped the cage with weak paws and gazed up at Xia Qing.

That expression was exactly like its mother’s.

Xia Qing stared at it for a couple of seconds before asking, “Do you want some spinach seeds?”

Little Fei Mao, all skinny and scrawny with a patchy dull coat, looked at Xia Qing with the saddest puppy eyes.

Never underestimate the instincts of a Brain Evolution creature. Little Fei Mao wouldn’t even go home anymore, trailing after her, desperate for X-3 seeds. Maybe there was something in those seeds it desperately needed.

Xia Qing slipped off her mud-covered protective boots and went inside. She grabbed two seeds off the second-floor windowsill and handed them to Little Fei Mao. “Go ahead and eat—you’ll recover sooner, and then you can pay me back with something valuable you find.”

Little Fei Mao crunched the spinach seeds with gusto, then clung to the cage, still looking longingly at Xia Qing.

Was it full now? Wanting to go home?

Xia Qing barely got the cage door open before the little guy scrambled up her arm and dove into the side pocket of her protective suit—the very same pocket where she’d kept the spinach seeds…

Little Fei Mao might end up being the first debt in her territory she could never collect.

Sighing, Xia Qing pulled on her gloves and kept weeding. After clearing the Devastation Grass by the east side of the greenhouse where she’d planted orange saplings, figs, and jujube trees, she rolled back the rain cover. Seeing all those thriving seedlings inside, especially the figs already bearing fruit, her mood instantly brightened.

Up on the high slope, a strong wind tore the rain cover right off the Green Lantern Orchard, sending it flying over two iron mesh walls and landing somewhere in Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine. Hailstones also pounded the orchard’s trees again.

The tiny apples on the apple trees were battered until almost none remained, the freshly sprouted jujube trees were stripped bare, and more than half the pepper tree’s branches snapped off. Only the little grapes on the trellis by the spring water in Greenhouse Two and the Green Lantern Strawberries in the planting greenhouse had come through without a scratch.

Xia Qing hadn’t gotten to check on the chestnut trees growing in Valley One of Hill Forty-Nine, but she figured they hadn’t suffered much. That area’s terrain would have shielded them from most of the hail, plus those evolved chestnut branches were tough enough to hold up.

After these couple of years, Xia Qing understood: you can’t just slap a roof over fruit trees and call it a day. You need real greenhouses to actually protect them or the odds of harvesting fruit are slim at best.

Building covers for crawling grapes, ground-hugging strawberries, or little saplings was easy, but coming up with a shelter design for ten-meter-tall jujube trees or five-meter-high apple trees took some serious thought.

That would have to wait until she finished her current work.

“This round of returning rain led to 43 deaths and 56 injuries in Section One and Section Three Territories in the north, with 468 acres of farmland destroyed. The Base Director is deeply concerned for everyone affected and has ordered the Territory Management Department to do everything possible for the wounded and provide strong support for post-disaster recovery…”

After relaying the heartfelt support from the base to those affected, the announcer shifted gears, starting to tell stories of courage from the disaster.

“Within less than a month since its formation, the Ninth Planting Center in Section One of the north had all 136 employees escape injury, with no farmland or resources lost.”

“Beyond that, staff from the Planting Center also went out to support other territories, lending a hand to the fight against the disaster across Section One and working with lords to safeguard farmland…”

“Now, let’s connect with Director Yan Yue from the Ninth Planting Center to share why and how the team went out to help. Director Yan, welcome.”

It was supposed to be Xia Qing that the base radio planned to interview, but she passed this headache along to Yan Yue.

Yan Yue’s polite, official-sounding voice came through the broadcast. “Hello, host, hello, listeners. I’m Yan Yue from the office of the Ninth Planting Center.”

Once Yan Yue started, both Tang Huai and Hu Zifeng stopped bickering and everyone listened up. Yan Yue spoke clearly and to the point, explaining all the Ninth Planting Center’s strategies for disaster prevention. She mentioned how Director Xia Qing had immediately sent people to help with disaster relief in nearby territories. When things got tight, the staff responded without hesitation, following her lead to head out and support others.

Tang Huai sighed, “Director Yan’s a real talent. After hearing her talk, I feel like Sister Qing’s wasted as deputy director of the base.”

Huo Zhun replied, “Brother Huai, don’t compare Tang Zhengrong and Sister Qing. That loser isn’t worthy.”

Everyone: Wait, hasn’t Huo Zhun only been here a day? The way he talks, it’s almost like he really knows Xia Qing. Did they meet back when Xia Qing forged knives at the Huo Family Forge in the Safe Zone?

When Yan Yue’s interview ended, the host patched in the representative from Territory Twelve and the lord of Territory Seventeen. Hearing their emotional words, everyone listening ended up with teary eyes.

The lord of Territory Twelve—the agent Tang Huai from Territory Two—sent his thanks through the lords’ channel, sobbing as he thanked Xia Qing and the team at Ninth Center.

When all the thanks got no response from Xia Qing, Tang Huai sniffled and asked, “Is Xia Qing not online? What’s she busy with?”

He didn’t need anyone to answer. Tang Huai knew exactly what Xia Qing was up to, because over at Section Three, the familiar rumble of the rotary tiller cutting grass echoed out.

That sound thumped in Tang Huai’s ears like a drum.

Here he was, this grateful recipient of help, still crying his eyes out, while up north, Alliance leader and Ninth Planting Center director Xia Qing, a three-domain powerhouse, had switched off her walkie-talkie and thrown herself into the land. Odds were, she hadn’t even turned on the radio.

She’d started her day running the rotary tiller—that meant she’d already pulled all the Huanggan-39 in the areas that needed machine harvesting!

No way Old Goat or Er helped with this job; their hooves or paws couldn’t handle it.

She’d suffered the least of any lord in this disaster, but was the first to come up with fixing the rapid set-up and removal of greenhouse rain covers afterward.

A year and a half had passed, but no matter her title, Xia Qing hadn’t changed a bit. She remained sharp and clear-headed, always with her own plan—she knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.

Tang Huai pulled on his protective suit, grabbed a crutch, and hobbled out the door, heading for the insect-rearing greenhouse.

Just like after the second Devastation Rain, Xia Qing finished cutting the grass around the abandoned village where she lived, then carved a north-south line through the territory’s flatlands, circling the greenhouses with the tiller.

She parked the rotary tiller by Greenhouse Twelve and started pulling all the Huanggan-39 from the grass-cut ring she’d just made. After this, she still had to clear the Buffer Forest and Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine.

She just needed two days to finish all these tasks—or else the big landowners on Hill Fifty-Five were going to run out of patience.