Chapter 872: The Summer Harvest and the Price of Hope

June 1st, Northwest outskirts of Hui Three Safe Zone. Hui Three Pharmaceutical releases two new medicines—Nutrient Source and Scar Cleanse. The crowd rushes the pharmacy doors, warping them with their enthusiasm to grab the new products.

Shift the scene southeast, across ruined buildings destroyed by Devastation Explosion, to the Administration Hall in the southern Outer City. Today, Hui Three finally delivers on its promise: after distributing two spinach seeds in spring, it passes those seeds to the Planting Center, and super nutrient shakes are sold to citizens at a 40% discount.

Before Hui Three introduced x-2, the premium nutrient shake market in Huicheng was monopolized by Fire Phoenix. Each vial cost a staggering 2,000 credits.

Today’s batch of premium nutrient shakes from Hui Three is made mainly from x-2 spinach stalks. Price per bottle: 500 credits. With the discount, it drops to just 300.

That price makes Blazing Fire Squad spit blood, while every combat team in Hui Three claps with joy. Many have sent people to wait inside the hall, eager to buy the discounted shakes from citizens and resell them at a higher rate.

Anyone eligible to buy at 40% off can flip the shake for an easy 200 credits profit.

Two hundred credits—a regular person’s salary for two or three months in the Safe Zone. No wonder the line stretches for hundreds of meters, laughter and optimism shining in every face.

June marks harvest season. Out in the territories beyond the Safe Zone, every lord is bone-tired but grinning. The harder the work now, the greater the bounty.

After two weeks’ labor, Xia Qing’s territory produced 1,468 jin of Green Lantern food: half an acre of winter wheat and one acre of spring wheat.

That harvest was possible because the Green Lantern wheat fields were shielded by Yi Stone during Devastation Rain, Devastation Snow, and the returning rains—no crops mutated.

After setting aside 120 jin as seed and trading 60 jin to allies, Xia Qing’s left with over 1,200 jin for herself. After months of nothing but Green Lantern rice, she can finally binge on Green Lantern flour.

The acre-plus of winter wheat that survived the gales yielded 256 jin more, and with the yellow lantern wheat—both the wind-toppled and spring-sown half-acre—she brought in 802 jin of Yellow Lantern wheat.

Compared to allies with dozens—even hundreds—of acres, not to mention Territory One’s massive wheat fields, Xia Qing’s harvest seems meager. But in her domain, only one mouth actually eats grain.

Old Goat? Its staple is grass.

Er? Prefers meat and eggs.

Grain is a treasure. Ordinary lords who lack storage and muscle dry their wheat and mung beans, selling thirty percent to Hui Three officials that day, half to the Squad Alliance.

The Squad Alliance pays 0.5 to 2 credits more per jin than the Hui Three officials.

This year, Hui Three official rates are: 22 credits per jin for Yellow Lantern wheat and regular mung beans, 65 for Green Lantern mung beans.

Yellow Lantern wheat is down 3 credits from last year, Yellow Lantern mung beans are the same. Green Lantern mung beans saw the biggest drop, from 250 down to just 65 credits.

From a big-picture view, cheaper grain means the territory policy is working—production’s up. That’s a good thing.

But for the lords, lower prices mean less profit. Not so lucky for them. Still, at these prices no one runs at a loss, so after a few grumbles everyone’s back to work.

Grain that isn’t sold is kept as seed or food for the territory—stored at a fee in Territory One’s Food Depot.

Xia Qing, with her two Storage Rooms, does just like everyone else.

She sells 500 jin of Yellow Lantern wheat, stores 300 more in Territory One’s depot, along with 100 jin of Green Lantern wheat and 50 jin of Green Lantern mung beans.

Add in two home-kept sacks, and that’s the harvest total Xia Qing announces to the world.

Given her planting scale, that’s exactly what she’d get—unless she relied on Yi Stone.

Only Hu Zifeng’s Squad, who works often in Section Three, knows Xia Qing has secret grain stashes. As for conditions and safety, they aren’t worried at all.

Anyone who can spend dozens of Yi Stones to shield five acres of farmland could easily use them to extend grain storage. Everyone knows where those stones came from, too: Xia Qing joined the New Year’s hunt for the rogue captain and core fighters of Su Feng Squad and earned them as her share.

Xia Qing played a key role in the takedown of Tang Zhengsu and his crew. She earned those Yi Stones. No envy from Hu Zifeng’s Squad, but you’d be pressed to find anyone on Blue Star who’d spend such precious goods protecting their fields the way she does.

Is the grain at Xia Qing’s place safe? Hu Zifeng’s Squad couldn’t care less.

Even if Xia Qing goes out, her stash is guarded by the terrifyingly strong Old Goat and Er. Forget humans—even rats, snakes, or mosquitoes don’t stand a chance at sneaking in.

Mosquitoes sound like an exaggeration?

Not at all! Over forty swallows, all vicious bug hunters fiercely loyal to the territory, make their home under Xia Qing’s eaves. They’re natural enemies of anything that flies.

Outside of Tang Huai, who raises bugs, pretty much everyone in the area—including Lord of Eight, Xin Yu, who keeps falcons—is jealous of Xia Qing for her swallow protection squad.

Right now, the flock of little swallows perches in a tidy line along her eaves, chirping as they keep their sharp eyes on the hundred-plus birds circling overhead.

Inside the yard, three lords are hard at work.

A pile of tough mung bean pods that Xia Qing picked two days ago and spread out on a rain cover is now jet black and snapping open one after another.

With so many beans, there’s no time to pick them one by one.

So, Xia Qing grabs the blower she traded with Jiang Ying for, assembles it with a bicycle, then lures Old Goat onto the bike using a ration bar, and gets it pedaling to power the blower.

Then, Xia Qing uses a dustpan to scoop up mung beans, letting the blower blast away the empty pods.

Meanwhile, Wolfdog Number Two keeps watch on the flock overhead. Any bird foolhardy enough to swoop down for a free snack gets turned into wolf supper.

Now that Er’s back to full strength, it can leap several meters high. One wolf is all it takes to keep the whole yard under control.

Er makes catching birds look effortless—devouring them, intimidating.

A stray mung bean lands outside the rain cover, catching the eye of a scruffy baby red squirrel. It darts from its nest, snatches up the bean, and runs home again—not the least bit afraid of the ferocious wolfdog.

Er gives the bold red squirrel a single glance, then returns to bird duty.

After another dustpanful of mung beans, Xia Qing pats the bulging pockets of her protective suit, filled with beans and wheat, and starts to wonder if Little Fei Mao has caught the same brain drain as the dopey one still hanging from the clothesline.

While its mother and nestmate are up at dawn and asleep after midnight, busy collecting Xia Qing’s scattered grains and stuffing several tree hollows, this silly cub always seems tangled up in something.

But of all things—it ditched the tree hollow and moved into the pocket of Xia Qing’s protective suit…

Does that count as paying back its debt?