Chapter 1042: Higher-Grade Use Yishi

At the words "Use Yishi," both Beard Feng and Eryong's eyes lit up, while Xia Qing's face remained calm.

Hidden at her sniper's perch, she had guessed the vagrant sitting by the cave entrance whittling a stick might be wearing a Use Yishi on him.

During the Harmful Rain period, the concentration of Harmful elements in the atmosphere exceeded safe levels. The fact that this vagrant dared to remove his protective mask and breathe freely proved there had to be something beside him that could shield against Harmful elements.

And that something was very likely a Use Yishi.

Yi Stones are precious minerals that only appeared on Blue Star after the Great Biological Evolution. Their formation conditions, like those of unpolluted spring water, remain unknown — still a mystery to this day.

Therefore, searching for Yi Stones in the Evolution Forest cannot rely on any technological means; it all comes down to luck. Relatively speaking, vagrants living in the Evolution Forest have a much higher chance of encountering Yi Stones than humans who go there on missions.

After Xia Qing took the stone — a broad-bean-sized, black-and-white spiral-striped stone set into a buckle clasp by the vagrant — she was pleasantly surprised as well. "Judging by the pattern distribution, this Use Yishi's grade is higher than the mid-grade Use Yishi Captain Yang traded me. You three, step back 1.5 meters and check the Harmful element concentration on your air toxin detectors."

Based on the stone's size, if its effective shielding diameter against Harmful elements is 1.5 meters, it's mid-grade; beyond that distance, it's a higher grade.

This March, the main combat members of the Azure Dragon Squad underwent an equipment upgrade. The air toxin detectors currently equipped by Beard Feng's squad can detect the atmospheric Harmful element content at their location.

To avoid interference, Xia Qing placed the Use Yishi she wore — which had an effective protection diameter of 1 meter — into its protective casing.

Stepping back, Beard Feng checked his detector. "Harmful element content below 0.5‰ — it's effective!"

Eryong took another step back. "Effective at 2 meters too!"

Jingkuan took another step back. "2.5 meters, Harmful element content at 18‰. Sister Qing, what grade is this?"

No wonder the patterns are so even and beautiful! Xia Qing's eyes gleamed. "Above mid-grade, close to high-grade!"

Jingkuan and Eryong immediately grinned from ear to ear. The comparatively calmer Beard Feng quickly asked, "Sister Qing, do you have a spare Use Yishi protective case? Let's protect the Use Yishi?"

This was scarce, high-value material that had to be properly preserved.

Having just given away four small Yi Stones that afternoon, Xia Qing took out the empty protective case, placed this trophy inside, and set it beside the nutrient solution.

Then, all four pairs of eyes turned to the two satchels on this Evolver.

Beard Feng nervously and expectantly swallowed. "Sister Qing, shall we open them and take a look?"

"Alright." Xia Qing reminded the three squad members beside her, "The two vagrant corpses I sent to Territory Seven last time also had two satchels each. One satchel held the poisons and anesthetics they made; the other held antidotes, food, water, and other supplies. Third Brother said that without protective measures, don't open the lids of the bamboo tubes containing poison in their satchels."

"Understood." The three members of Beard Feng's squad nodded immediately.

After spraying disinfectant on the satchels, Xia Qing opened the first one and found inside eight small bamboo storage tubes secured with beast hide, their tops marked with numbers in black charcoal — these were the poison bamboo tubes Zhang San had described.

Apart from these eight tubes, there were no other supplies in the first satchel.

The four then opened the second satchel and found inside a small bottle of water, four ordinary nutrient solutions, three pieces of jerky, four withered tree roots the size of fingers, a bag of single-soldier rations officially issued by Hui-1, a points card with 2,540 points, twenty bullets, and a small emergency medical kit.

Then, in a hidden compartment at the bottom of the satchel, they discovered another intact Use Yishi, the size of a pigeon egg, with its skin unbroken!

At this, even Xia Qing's face showed an excited expression.

She had originally assumed each of these vagrants wore just a small Use Yishi piece — she hadn't expected them to be richer than she'd thought!

Xia Qing had originally assumed that, like herself, each of these vagrants wore a small Use Yishi piece to block Harmful elements, and at most the squad leader might have one or two spares — so that the Yi Stones on all seven of them combined would amount to one whole stone. Added to the weapons and points card she'd captured, that should have been on par with the haul the Head Wolf took away. That was why Xia Qing had no objection to the Head Wolf giving her only one share of the prey.

She hadn't expected the very first vagrant to be wearing an entire Use Yishi — possibly of even higher grade. The value of her share from this team-up might exceed even that of the squad-leading Head Wolf.

After tallying all the supplies, a little more or less wouldn't matter, but if it was unreasonably more, Xia Qing would have to mention it to the Head Wolf and see what it thought.

But based on Xia Qing's understanding of the Head Wolf, it probably wouldn't fuss over a few stones.

As for Broken-Waist Wolf, it had also been eyeing the antelope and the two bags of wriggling worms in the cabin at the time.

Even Xia Qing, whose greenhouse was stuffed full of Yi Stones, showed a delighted expression — let alone Beard Feng's squad, who didn't have a single Use Yishi among them. The corners of all three men's mouths were practically stretching to the backs of their heads.

Finally, Xia Qing took out two backpacks. "There are four backpacks in that cave. The two near the cave entrance belong to the vagrant who scattered worms into the valley — I saw a vagrant open a backpack and take things out from inside. These two backpacks belong to the two corpses you brought back. Which one should we open?"

Both backpacks were hand-sewn from beast hide, identical in size, workmanship, and style.

Backpacks not carried on one's person generally don't contain high-value supplies. So Beard Feng casually pointed at one. "This one."

"Alright."

After having Eryong spray disinfectant on the backpack, Xia Qing unfastened the beast-bone button on its flap, lifted the flap, untied the tightly bound strap, pulled the backpack open, and began pulling things out.

A protective suit, a pair of protective boots, several changes of clothes, climbing rope, rations, jerky, dried vegetables, four military-issued yellow-lamp fish meat cans, two bags of single-soldier rations, a bundle of tree roots of unknown purpose, a sewing kit…

The four even crushed and checked every bone button on the backpack's pockets, confirming that the most valuable item inside was a card with 2,300 points hidden in the shaft of the protective boots.

The value of that small bundle of unidentifiable tree roots would require a professional assessment.

Finally, the four opened a luggage bag and found it contained a tent, rope, and other supplies — of even lower value.

After laying out all the supplies belonging to this vagrant, Xia Qing asked, "The tree roots in the satchel and the backpack come from the same kind of plant — they should be natural food the vagrants gathered from the Evolution Forest. Captain Hu, what do you want?"

Beard Feng had already made his choice. "We want the Use Yishi and that satchel of poison. Can the Use Yishi be split?"

A high-grade Use Yishi was an extremely rare, high-value resource. From a personal standpoint, Beard Feng wouldn't have proposed splitting the Use Yishi. But he was a squad leader of the Azure Dragon Squad — he had to consider the squad's interests.

The Azure Dragon Squad was Hui-3's premier squad; it had to shoulder greater responsibility and safeguard the safety of Hui-3 Base. In the future, they might have to deal with vagrants deeper in the Evolution Forest and guard against them entering Hui-3's Evolution Forest to plunder supplies again. Only by understanding their methods could the squad take preventive measures in advance. That was why Beard Feng needed that bag of poison.