Chapter 925: Trust and Trade Among the Lords

When Xia Qing saw it was Zheng Chen and not Ji Li coming for the supplies, she kept her expression calm and treated him as usual.

After all, Idol had once said Zheng Chen was more dependable than Ji Li. Even when Xia Qing mentioned that Zheng Chen seemed to be paying her a lot of attention, Idol just snorted and replied:

“That just means he isn’t blind. As long as you aren’t, that’s fine.”

As a level nine-and-a-half Vision Evolutionary, Xia Qing obviously wasn’t blind. She greeted him, “Brother Zheng, these are wild berries. Here are two Green Lantern roosters and five pounds of potatoes. Could you bring them back for Brother Ya? And when he gets the chance, have him make some chicken soup for Third Brother.”

“Sure.” Zheng Chen took the lidded bamboo cup filled with the deep purple wild berries, smiling as he asked, “Did you make this cup yourself?”

“Yeah,” Xia Qing replied flatly.

Since Third Brother vouched for Zheng Chen’s reliability, it was clear that Zheng Chen would stay in Territory Seven for quite some time. No matter his intentions or how hard he tried to get close, Xia Qing made her attitude perfectly clear.

His habit of offering help for no reason made Xia Qing instinctively wary, especially since she was hiding so many secrets.

With Xia Qing being so quiet, it actually prompted the usually reticent Zheng Chen to say a bit more. “Didn’t expect you to be good at woodworking too. What do you want in exchange for these supplies?”

His question meant that, like Ji Li, Zheng Chen had also been given partial proxy rights over Territory Seven by Zhang San.

Xia Qing answered calmly, “Enough soil fungicide for four acres.”

Zheng Chen had already guessed this after hearing over the Lords’ channel that Xia Qing harvested crops today. So he brought the fungicide with him.

As he handed over four bags of fungicide, Zheng Chen explained, “Your supplies are worth more than the fungicide. I’ll record the extra value in the trading ledger.”

Outside of Xia Qing’s direct deals with Zhang San, all Territory Seven transactions went into a ledger kept by Ji Li. Now that Zheng Chen had proxy rights, he could check and update the ledger too.

After Zheng Chen left, Xia Qing returned to her own territory and spotted Er with a patch of monkey-hide on him. She ruffled his head and asked gently, “You worked hard today, Er. Goofball did pretty well too. Hey Goofball, what do you want to eat? Chili peppers?”

Goofball stared blankly at Xia Qing, not moving an inch.

“Cucumbers?”

Still no reaction.

“Sweet potatoes?”

Fear flashed in Goofball’s eyes and he clung tightly to Er.

Good, at least he knows to be scared. Xia Qing continued, “Tomatoes?”

Goofball’s eyes instantly brightened. His little black mouth popped open right under his big round nose. “Ah—”

Not bad for a primate—after just a month and a half, Goofball already perfectly remembered the name of his favorite vegetable.

Xia Qing walked into Greenhouse Two, picked a plump, red tomato, and used gestures while talking, “You helped me work, so this is your reward.”

“All food inside the territory’s greenhouse belongs to me. If you dare steal it again, I’ll break your arm.” Once Xia Qing was sure Goofball understood, she tucked the tomato into his tiny black paw.

Seeing that Er looked even happier than Goofball after getting the tomato, Xia Qing decided to let him keep Goofball in the territory. “Er, Goofball can stay here, but you have to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t steal any food.”

Er nuzzled up to Xia Qing, then headed off to patrol again with Goofball eating the tomato on his back.

Xia Qing yawned, washed the dishes, took a shower, and went straight to bed.

At 9 pm, the Handsome Huge Wolf lay on the hillside in Section Three of Hill Forty-Nine. After watching the noisy territory east of Xia Qing’s land for a while, it turned and left.

Perched on a tall tree just outside the eastern barrier of Territory Seventeen, Broken Back wolf glanced at the departing Handsome Huge Wolf, then looked down and licked his own cub, making it stop gawking and focus on the noisy thing inside the human territory that could eat plants and spit them out again.

Little Wolf stopped watching the Handsome Huge Wolf. Instead, he hugged the branch beneath him and kept studying the humans as the wind rocked the tree.

Handsome Huge Wolf sprinted all the way to Hill Fifty-Five only to find Alpha had taken the cubs out hunting. Still feeling unsatisfied after beating Black Wolf—the strongest among the wolves left behind—it turned west, off to challenge the Western Wolf King.

But halfway there, Handsome Huge Wolf was blocked by three strong, male evolved leopards.

These three leopards had formed an alliance and were looking ambitiously for a territory rich in game.

One wolf and three leopards locked eyes for half a minute, then roared ferociously at each other, neither side backing down. That was all it took for a fierce turf war to begin.

When the sun rose, a battered and tired Handsome Huge Wolf, still clinging to his territory, licked his wounds and took down a hefty herbivore—more than a dozen kilos—and dug in for breakfast as the sun climbed higher.

As the sun rose, steam lifted from the ground, revealing the breathtaking, multicolored Evolved Forest. All over, life-and-death battles for survival raged on.

Inside Section One of the North, the early-rising humans already bustled in the fields.

Energized, Xia Qing swung her mini-mattock, dug up a corn plant with its main root, and set it behind her.

For an Advanced Strength-Based Evolutionary like Xia Qing, this type of manual labor was child’s play. Before long, a neat row of corn stalks—each over three meters tall—lay on the ground behind her.

Goofball and Er took the corn cobs off the stalks and dropped them into the baskets nearby.

Once both baskets were full, Old Goat, who’d been snacking on corn leaves, ducked down, wedged himself between the full baskets, then hefted them up in one smooth motion.

“Baa!”

Hearing Old Goat’s call, Xia Qing straightened, turned back, and grinned. “Old Goat, you’re amazing! And Er and Goofball, you two filled the baskets so quick—awesome job!”

Old Goat, fully satisfied, hauled more than four hundred pounds of corn cobs back home and dropped them in the yard. Then, with a single hoof, he tipped the baskets over, dumped the corn out, and returned to Greenhouse Three for another round.

No sooner had Old Goat left than two heads—a big and a small—poked out of the weeds piled on the southern ruins of the yard. The pair rubbed their tiny paws, eyes glued hungrily to the supplies just inside the insect net.

With one person, one wolf, one goat, and one monkey, the Green Lantern corn from half an acre was harvested in no time. Xia Qing slipped the last little bag of corn into the basket and led her companions to Greenhouse Six, ready to knock the sunflower seeds loose from their disks.

That last small bag held twelve quality corn cobs, each with a Devastation Element content between 3.5 and 4 parts per thousand—these were the standard improved varieties from the half-acre Green Lantern corn field.

After four months of growing, 85% of the Y-3 Green Lantern corn cobs measured between 4 and 5 parts per thousand Devastation Element, still matching the quality of regular Green Lantern corn. One percent showed better quality as standard improved types, and fourteen percent clocked in between 5 and 6 parts per thousand—these became Yellow Lantern corn.

These great results came from protecting the corn with Yi Stone during the Devastation Rain period.

Xia Qing planned to leave a patch and a half of corn growing on the terraces for a few more days, waiting until they fully ripened, just like the rice.

The faint scent from those ripening crops shouldn’t attract any birds overhead.

Still, on the off-chance a bird swarm really did hit, Xia Qing would have Chen Cheng and the others stand guard at the terrace edge to be absolutely safe.

Knocking out sunflower seeds takes real skill. Old Goat’s hooves and Er’s claws were no help. Goofball’s tiny black paws could tug some out, but he was much too slow—so most of the work fell to Xia Qing.

As the seeds fell onto the rain cover with a soft patter, their scent quickly attracted hundreds of little birds, who squawked and made a racket outside Greenhouse Six. Only after Er leapt up and caught a few did those noisy pests finally scatter.

When the seeds were finally hauled home and stashed away in the storage room, Xia Qing sat down inside the insect net and started peeling a few corn cobs. And that’s when she got a call from Luo Pei.