Chapter 864: After the Devastation Rain: Cautious Steps and Hidden Seeds

Xia Qing couldn’t completely trust anyone from Territory Seventeen, or even those from her own Territory Fifteen.

After surviving eleven years in the era of disasters, Xia Qing had learned to trust only herself. No one else, not even her idol or closest friends, ever earned her full trust. Trust your instincts, stay vigilant—only then can you survive.

So when it came to dividing up areas for activities after they arrived in Section Three, Xia Qing took extra care to set boundaries.

This round of Devastation Rain barely reached over a meter high, not even to Xia Qing’s waist. It couldn’t touch any crops taller than that in the greenhouse.

Since last night’s Devastation Rain was short and never hit red-level severity, every territory still had some greenhouses left standing. Even so, there weren’t many devastation-evolved crops inside. So when people from Fifteen and Seventeen spotted those crops standing taller than the scourge grass, it didn’t really raise questions.

The biggest risk was the freshly planted sweet potato vines.

Those newly inserted sweet potato vines were still in a fragile state. From today’s chat among the lords, Xia Qing learned that other territories lost a fifth of theirs last night.

In Section Three, not a single sweet potato vine was lost. Xia Qing had placed Yi Stones in time, driving Devastation Element from her fields. Luckily, those new vines were short—under twenty centimeters—so the scourge grass acted as perfect cover.

She expanded the area of scourge grass around the greenhouse, making sure that anyone from Territory Fifteen standing outside would have their view blocked by the tall grass. No chance of seeing into her sweet potato greenhouse.

Only after checking every angle and finding no risks did Xia Qing invite people from the other two territories to help clear the scourge grass.

Wolfdog Number Two lounged on the roof of the rack building, keeping watch over the wheat heads drying there and eyeing the workers down below, making sure no one strayed into this abandoned village.

Old Goat guarded its precious toon tree at the top of the slope, chasing away anyone daring enough to steal a leaf. Guan Tong was off in Section Three’s buffer forest pulling out more scourge grass, while Xia Qing, a tiny squirrel tucked in her pocket, was busy uprooting Huanggan-39 in Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine.

Suddenly, she paused. After tying up a bunch of Huanggan-39, she turned to look northeast.

Just then, Li Kai, the one guarding the Hidden Valley, sent a message in the territory alliance chat: the X-2 in the Hidden Valley’s Territory Six had reached natural maturity.

A moment later, Xia Qing’s Bluetooth headphones read out a second message from the chat: “Zhu Li from Territory Six says: Brother Li, did the spinach seeds exploding hurt anyone?”

Xia Qing’s new phone, the one she’d bought for missions during disaster years, had several crucial new features—including the auto message reader she was using now.

Now, when a message came in on task, nobody had to pull out their phone in a dangerous location. It made their work a lot safer.

“Li Kai from Territory Fifteen says: The ground cover worked, nobody got hurt. Tang Heng from Territory Twelve says: Sister Li, if you’re busy, should I send someone to collect the spinach seeds and stalks?”

For secrecy, even in the group chat, the lords never used words like “valley” or “hidden valley”—they just called it “over there” or “the fields.”

An agreement signed within the alliance meant that once the X-2 crops in the Hidden Valley were ready, the spinach seeds and stalks would be exchanged at market price with the Tang Family. That’s why Tang Heng offered to send a team.

“Zhu Li from Territory Twelve says: @Tang Heng from Territory Twelve, can I go along with the team you’re sending over?”

It was dangerous to leave their territory right after Devastation Rain. Kuang Qingwei was an ordinary person, but Zhu Li was already a third-tier evolved fighter. Months of hard training meant she could join any team headed up to Hill Fifty-Five’s Hidden Valley.

Spinach seeds were high-value crops. Zhu Li couldn’t rest easy unless she went herself, and Tang Heng also preferred it that way.

They settled on a time almost immediately. The harvest team would gather at the east gate under the pretense of checking on the devastation-evolved bamboo on Hill Fifty-Five, then slip out to harvest spinach seeds.

Meanwhile, Lord Tan Qi from Territory Fifteen messaged Zhu Li in the group, asking for seven leaves of spinach to make juice for X Nutrient Shake to feed her chickens.

Yan Long had left the territory yesterday, and Ji Li soon delivered six two-month-old Green Lantern Chickens—five hens and a rooster—a gift from Yan Long to Tan Qi.

When a sudden disaster struck last night, Tan Qi found her prized chickens droopy and weak first thing this morning. She immediately reached out to her allies for help, and it was Ji Li from Territory Seven who let her know which pesticide to use and also suggested the X Nutrient Shake.

Every X-2 crop in the territories had already been harvested and sold to Azure Dragon Squad six days ago—the day the Safe Zone posted the market price for spinach. That meant no leaves from the X-2 crop were left anywhere inside.

News of the spinach seeds maturing in the Hidden Valley gave a much-needed boost of confidence to everyone in the alliance.

But in the southern section of Section Three, Lord Wen Nengjie from Seventeen felt something was off. He spoke up on the lords’ channel: “Hey, why did everyone go quiet all of a sudden? Brother Huai?”

Tang Huai pressed his button. “Some dumb yellow lantern mealworms laid eggs on the wooden rack last night. I’m sorting them out right now.”

“Congrats, Brother Huai, looks like you’ve got another batch of insects coming,” Wen Nengjie replied, still uneasy. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the group was hiding something big from him. He started yanking grass faster, determined to pull something out of Xia Qing later that evening before leaving Section Three.

Everyone really was keeping a secret from him. After all, he wasn’t part of the territory alliance.

While allies chatted away in the group about how many spinach seeds to plant next month, Xia Qing quietly kept working, her little honey badger by her side, pulling out more Huanggan-39 in Section Three. She never joined in the talk.

The spinach grown in the Hidden Valley just didn’t match the quality of that grown in their own fields with High Evolution Element Soil. That had already been proven.

Why was that the case? For one, temperatures and humidity in the valley this season weren’t as good as in the territories. Second, the soil in the valley wasn’t the same high-quality stuff, even though they used plenty of fertilizer. Third, the batch of spinach planted in early March matured right when the second Devastation Rain hit, so even without Yi Stones, nothing hurt its quality.

Wasn’t the spring water from the Hidden Valley better than river water from their own territories?

Absolutely.

But to grow X-2 well, the lords only ever watered their dozens of spinach plants with filtered spring water from the Hidden Valley. If their storage of filtered spring water fell short, the lords would rather drink filtered river water themselves and save the best for the X-2 crops.

Even so, the lords still chose to keep growing X-2 in the valley.

The reason was obvious.

According to the base broadcasts, X-2 could be planted three times a year:

The first batch, planted in late February or early March, could be harvested for spinach seeds by the end of May, which took about two months to grow. The second batch, planted in June, wouldn’t mature until late September or early October, needing more than three months. The third batch, planted in October, took over five months to mature—meaning it’d be ready next February.

So, the second batch of X-2 would go through the third Devastation Rain in its late growth stage. That’s when the Yi Stones in the Hidden Valley really showed their worth.

As the lords chatted on, the same idea popped up for everyone: could the territory alliance negotiate with Azure Dragon Squad to lease out a few Yi Stones during the rainy season, so they could protect their most important evolved crops and poultry?