Chapter 267: Universal Planting System (6)

The burly man dodged and hid, but he could not withstand the speed and force of the objects Xie Yang hurled at him.

He couldn't dodge them; he simply couldn't dodge them!

Where the hell did this freakish woman pop out from! Her Great Strength is simply absurd!

The legs of solid metal tables and chairs broke; are they really supposed to fly around so easily?

"Awoo—"

He took another hit from the club.

The burly man was in too much pain to hold on: "G-Grandmother! Please, spare me!"

When his underlings saw their boss had surrendered, they immediately knelt to beg for mercy.

They had long since reached their limit.

No matter how savage and overbearing they were, they were still people made of flesh and blood, not Robots built of steel.

If they took any more hits, their bones would all be dislocated.

Xie Yang toyed with the broken club in her hand, her expression cold: "Get lost!"

"Yes, yes, yes, we're leaving right now!"

No matter how frustrated the Red Tiger Gang boss felt inside, he was very smooth-tongued on the outside.

He took his underlings and vanished in an instant, a far cry from the swaggering, grand entrance they had made earlier.

Once they left, Xiya Ma came trotting over, holding the struggling Xiya, and looked Xie Yang over with worried eyes: "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thank you both." Xie Yang smiled at the mother and son.

Xiya had wanted to rush over to help fight when Xie Ting was pouncing on the flat-headed underling; although Xiya Ma had held her son back, she had run off in time to notify the Recycling Station manager.

The manager hated it when people fought in the garbage dump, as it added to their workload, so he sounded the warning bell as soon as he received the report.

Although Xie Yang's lesson with the club was far more effective than the warning bell, she saw and kept in mind the loyal actions of Xiya Ma and Xiya.

They were neighbors, after all; there would be plenty of opportunities to return this favor later.

She picked up the little one from the ground and kissed his tender little face through his mask, "Baby, you were so brave!"

"Mommy!"

The little one, who had been stunned, finally came to his senses and nestled affectionately into Xie Yang's arms.

Mommy called him baby again, and even praised him for being brave!

He turned his head happily to look at Xiya, clearly wanting to show off again.

Xie Yang hurriedly pulled his attention back: "Baby, would you help Mommy carry this?"

She handed the helmet to her son, shouldered the Robot, and used the garbage dump's mechanical forklift to load the rest, taking it to the Recycling Station to sell for a batch of Star Coins.

"Tingting Ma, you actually know how to drive this vehicle?"

Xiya Ma had not yet recovered from the shock of Xie Yang's Great Strength and the fact that she had single-handedly chased away a gang, and was extremely surprised to see her start the forklift after fumbling with it for a moment.

This antique forklift had been sitting in the garbage dump for many years; it was said to have been repaired by a manager two terms ago, and since he passed away from radiation sickness, no one else had been seen using it.

She had only heard someone mention it in passing, which is how she knew this strangely shaped mechanical vehicle was supposed to look like that, rather than being a haphazard repair job made of mismatched parts, but no one knew how to drive it.

She never expected that Tingting Ma, who had always looked down on life on the Garbage Star, would know how to drive it.

Xie Yang not only knew how to drive a forklift, she had also repaired them; although it had been several lifetimes and her maintenance skills were rusty, driving was like riding a bicycle—once learned, it felt carved into her bones, and she could do it as soon as she touched it.

Fortunately, the main material of the mechanical forklifts in the Interstellar Era was metal that did not rust easily, so even though it had not been turned on for many years, it was still usable, despite some stuttering during lifting and turning.

After she finished dragging her own pile of scrap, she helped Xiya Ma drag hers; work that would have taken half a day was finished in two trips with the help of the large forklift.

Seeing that Xie Yang knew how to drive the forklift, the Recycling Station manager looked at her with a hint of hidden wariness.

It was likely he was worried his position would be snatched away by Xie Yang.

Xie Yang thought for a moment and asked: "Sir, would you like to learn how to drive the forklift? There isn't enough time today, shall I come over early tomorrow to teach you?"

"Ah?" The manager was stunned, "Y-you're willing to teach me?"

Before he was assigned to this Recycling Station, he had heard that the manager two terms ago knew how to drive the forklift, but he wouldn't even let others watch when he drove it!

"This isn't some technology that needs to be kept secret." Xie Yang smiled, "It's just mechanical driving; it doesn't require any qualifications, anyone who wants to learn can learn."

The manager was tempted: "T-then, will you come teach me tomorrow? Don't worry! As long as you teach me, I'll pay you, I'll pay you one thousand... no! Two thousand Star Coins!"

The manager gritted his teeth and offered a very sincere reward.

Xie Yang shook her head: "There's no need for tuition, just keep an eye out for discarded seeds for me."

She had rummaged through the garbage dump for half the day, and hadn't even found a single clod of dirt, let alone seeds; it was all industrial waste.

"Discarded seeds?" The manager was puzzled, "What do you want those for? Those belong to ecological waste and are generally dumped specifically at the Zone 1 Garbage Dump; how could they possibly come to our District 31?"

"Zone 1?"

Xie Yang carefully searched through the memories left by the original owner; garbage was indeed dumped by zone.

"That's right, Zone 1 has a Shredder, and ecological waste is shredded and shipped to the Industrial Star to be made into fertilizer. Besides, even if you had the skill to scavenge and pick out viable ones from a pile of discarded seeds, they wouldn't grow here anyway. People tried many years ago, back when the radiation level on the Garbage Star wasn't even half of what it is now, and none of them succeeded."

Speaking of this, the manager shook his head and sighed: "If natural plants could be grown, it wouldn't be called a Garbage Star."

Xie Yang said sincerely: "Thank you for telling me this, sir, but I still want to try."

The manager: "Alright then, I'll keep an eye out for you. I do know someone in Zone 1, I'll go say a word to him right now. When the next batch of ecological waste arrives, I'll notify you, and you can go over and pick through it yourself."

"Thank you, sir!"

In exchange, she promised to come over tomorrow morning and guaranteed he would learn to drive the forklift by the afternoon.

The manager rubbed his hands together, slightly excited: "Good, good, good, then I'll be waiting for you."

On the way home, seeing the two little ones laughing and playing in the back seat, Xiya Ma asked Xie Yang in a low voice:

"Have you had a change of heart? Decided to live a good life here? You should have done this a long time ago."

Xie Yang raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.

She thought Xiya Ma would be curious about her extraordinary Great Strength, or curious about when she learned to drive a forklift, since she had spent plenty of time rummaging through the garbage dump over the past few years, and she had never seen her touch a forklift back then.

She hadn't expected it to be attributed directly to her having a change of heart.

It saved her from having to find another excuse.

"Right! A change of heart!"

"It's good that you've had a change of heart!"

Xiya Ma looked at her with relief, and she couldn't help but talk more:

"Actually, I also went through a period of listlessness, and even thought about ending it all... Later, I realized that although Garbage Star is inferior to Yilan Star in every way, since it is destined to be our home, why not try to look at it from other angles..."

"You're right!"

Looking down at the barren continent below where not a hint of green could be seen, Xie Yang smiled and said:

"Isn't the good thing about Yilan Star that the radiation level in the air is low? One day, when Garbage Star is surrounded by green plants and the radiation level drops to the habitable line, it can also become a Habitable Star that people flock to!"

Xiya Ma: "..."

No, sister, your ideal is very beautiful, it's just not very realistic.