Chapter 272: Universal Planting System (11)

Xie Yang did not know that there was this turn of events after she left.

She hummed a tune all the way, driving the Flying Vehicle back home.

The little one was likely tired; he was not as excited on the return trip as he had been on the way there, and before long, he was lulled to sleep by Xie Yang's soft singing.

After he fell asleep, Xie Yang initiated the deployment plan for the Giant Cactus—

Stopping every few dozen kilometers to plant a Giant Cactus.

Fortunately, Garbage Star is not like a Habitable Star—where surveillance covers the entire globe; here, let alone surveillance, one couldn't even find a few living people. Who would care whether a planet used exclusively for dumping trash is safe or not?

This provided her with great convenience.

Flying and planting all the way, by the time she got home, she had already deployed no fewer than twenty Giant Cactuses.

She planted her own one by the Ice Lake, which happened to be within a two-hundred-meter range.

From now on, she would not need to wear a heavy protective suit for the distance between her home and the Ice Lake.

The transplant was successful; Xie Yang didn't feel much through her protective mask, but the little one, having woken up from his nap, still had his eyes closed while his little nose sniffed around involuntarily, as if he sensed a fresh, unprecedented scent of vegetation in the air.

Xie Yang watched this scene with a smile, letting him discover it for himself.

She had the Sub-system find the spice seeds she needed and prepare a batch of soil for her.

Additionally, she entrusted the Main System to help exchange a batch of plant nutrient agents in the System Mall, the kind that ripens plants in minutes.

After unloading the goods, she first went to Xiya's house to return the Flying Vehicle.

Having borrowed it for a day, she couldn't show up empty-handed, so Xie Yang picked out the best-looking large pork bone and a large pig trotter to bring for Xiya's family to taste.

As for the offal, she decided against it; even if she gave it to them, they probably wouldn't know how to cook it.

Unexpectedly—

"Tingting, you're back?"

Hearing the sound of the Flying Vehicle landing, Xiya excitedly greeted her from inside the house, but the next second, Xiya's footsteps paused, and Xiya's little face scrunched up:

"Ugh—what is that? It stinks, it stinks! It smells even worse than the weird-tasting Nutrient Solution we drink at home!"

Xie Yang: "..."

You kid! If you knew that the things you are disgusted by are the very raw materials for the Basic Nutrient Solution you drink every day, you wouldn't say that.

Xiya Ma was also puzzled as to why Xie Yang would bring back these foul-smelling scraps:

"Others have gone to scavenge before, but that place is just too smelly, and after bringing them back, no one knew how to handle them, which ended up making the house stink, so later on, no one went to pick them up anymore."

No matter what Xie Yang said, she waved her hand to indicate she didn't want them.

Xie Yang had no choice but to carry the pig trotter and bone she had brought back home.

"Mom, don't be angry." The sensitive little one gathered his courage, "Zai Zai will eat! Zai Zai likes them!"

"..."

My son, if you didn't have that look of facing death on your face when you said that, I might actually believe you.

Back home, she soaked the seeds she had scavenged from the Zone 1 Garbage Dump in water, hoping the seeds with micro-activity would sprout.

As for the inactive seeds, it was purely a matter of luck; it was basically impossible for them to sprout.

The water used for soaking was not the daily water processed through multiple stages and supplied in limited quantities by the Garbage Star Administration, but natural water from the Sub-system's Planting Space, which had high oxygen content and could better activate the enzymes in the seeds, prompting them to end their dormancy, break their skins, and sprout.

While soaking the seeds, she input commands into the Robot, having it clear a plot of about half a mu behind the house.

The heavily compacted wasteland, after being repeatedly deep-plowed by the Robot, finally looked a bit like planting soil.

But the soil quality was too dry; if not for Xie Yang having the Sub-system as a cheat, the meager rationed water for the mother and son would never have been enough to soak it through.

Relying on the sporadic rain throughout the year was far from enough.

If the soil itself couldn't absorb enough moisture, how could it provide water and nutrients to the crops planted in it?

That would be asking too much of it!

Thanks to the Sub-system's Planting Space having an inexhaustible waterfall lake, with rushing water falling from the sky to fill the misty, vast lake—the water level never dropping no matter how much she used—Xie Yang didn't hesitate to praise it.

The Bobo Ball-mimicking Sub-system was so praised that it beamed with joy.

【Host, use as much as you want! Besides water and soil, what else do you need? Oh, spice seeds, and those substitutes for the inactive seeds, right? I'll find them for you right now.】

Soon, Xie Yang had a handful of seeds in her hand, which were the spice seeds she needed, as well as seeds for Bitter Vegetable, Sea Coconut, Ice Drought Flower, and other similar or identical ones.

She soaked these seeds in water one by one.

Seeds provided by the Sub-system sprout quickly; in less than half a day, she could plant them in the soil.

She covered the surface of the deep-plowed, thoroughly watered soil with a layer of fertile, oily black soil from the Sub-system space, and for the spice sprouts, she also used the plant ripening agent she had helped the Main System exchange for.

So much so that the next morning, Xie Yang heard the young, surprised exclamation of her beast-cub son—

"Mom, Mom! Come look! Green fur is growing in the ground!"

"..."

After finishing the work with the seeds and the land yesterday, it had already gotten dark, and she hadn't had time to process the three big bags of meat.

The temperature difference between day and night on Garbage Star is large; even in the height of summer, daytime temperatures soar to forty degrees, while at night they hover only around fifteen or sixteen degrees. The meat wouldn't spoil if left out for one night, but it definitely wouldn't last long.

So today, she didn't plan on going anywhere; she would stay home and focus on processing this meat.

Ever since the little one discovered the fresh green sprouts emerging from the ground, he was so fascinated that he wouldn't go anywhere else, just guarding that patch of land, occasionally leaning in to sniff the sprouts.

His little nose was almost touching the little sprouts, and his little claws lifted involuntarily, as if he wanted to experience the feeling of touching them.

When Xie Yang looked up while busy and saw this scene, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Zai Zai, don't keep touching them, okay? The little sprouts are still very tender and easily hurt."

Upon hearing this, the little one quickly withdrew his little hands, took a few steps back, and turned to assure Xie Yang: "Mom, Zai Zai will remember."

"Good baby! Mom will make you something delicious!"

"..."

Thinking of his mother using that pile of stinky stuff to make food, the little one couldn't help but shiver, his bright, light-brown eyes revealing a hint of resistance.

Xie Yang held back her laughter and stopped teasing him; she knew he would find out once it was made, and not only would it not taste bad, it would actually be quite delicious.

Taking advantage of the little one not being around, Xie Yang let loose and got busy:

She scrubbed the pig offal and the beef and mutton tripe clean using a plant fruit provided by the Sub-system called "Bread Fruit."

Once roasted, the Bread Flower fruit tasted almost exactly like toasted bread, which made her wonder if the toasted bread she received as a game reward while surviving in the Disaster Game was actually made from this fruit?

It was just that those toasted breads had no special effects, while the Bread Fruit produced from the Sub-system Space could make a person fall into an illusory dream for three days and three nights, a bit like the aftereffects of accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms.

But raw Bread Fruit did not have this effect, and after being ground into powder, it was quite similar to flour, so Xie Yang used it as flour to scrub the hard-to-clean offal.