Chapter 1062: Grinding Affection Points

Holding more than half an apple, Zhang San said amiably, "Yang Jin's character is decent."

To detoxify Luo Pei, Yang Jin offered four kinds of green-light fruits and other supplies in exchange for the uncontaminated spring water within Xia Qing's territory. During the Calamity years, green-light fruit saplings were highly valuable, and saplings of palatable varieties cost at least double those of ordinary green-light trees.

Yang Jin was famously shrewd. By the rules of trade, he only needed to offer green-light fruit saplings to meet the terms, yet what he gave were premium green-light saplings.

When Xia Qing traded with Yang Jin, one party was a level-four Evolver who controlled a scarce, premium resource and had no backing, while the other was the captain of the Green Dragon Squad, desperate for that very resource—their strength was worlds apart. Under such circumstances, Yang Jin neither seized Xia Qing's resource nor cheated her, so Zhang San gave him the assessment of "decent character."

Holding a small piece of apple, Xia Qing nodded happily. "He's a wonderful trading and cooperation partner. Third Brother, of those thirty green-light jujube pits I brought you last year, how many saplings did you grow?"

Zhang San took another bite of the crisp, juicy green-light apple and answered, "Eight saplings, eighty to a hundred centimeters tall, all with qiang element content below 4‰."

"You're still the best. I planted thirty-nine pits and only got seven saplings. In June, four of them caught leaf spot disease, and now only three are left. Seeing Xin Yu grew two, and not a single pit from Territory Five sprouted."

Last year the jujube trees in Territory Three bore over a hundred fruits. After the hailstorm knocked them down, Xia Qing shared a few with Beard Feng's squad, traded some to her idol and Seeing Xin Yu, and brought several when she visited Qi Fu, who had been injured in the head by hail. After everyone ate the flesh, they carefully stored the pits and planted them in fertile soil this spring.

As expected, the most successful cultivation came from the big shot standing at the very top of humanity's pyramid!

Zhang San corrected her, "It was Zhang Tao and Zhang He who cultivated them."

"You still have a great eye—every team member you pick is top-notch."

Zhang San was speechless. "Does staying quiet about praise make you uncomfortable? Is that a hereditary disease in your family too?"

Well…

Xia Qing took a bite of apple and answered seriously, "It should count as maternal inheritance. My dad is a bit weaker in that area."

Xia Qing's grandmother and mother, no matter how terrible the situation, could always see the bright, optimistic side. In their mouths, Xia Qing was the most beautiful, clever, hardworking, lucky… human on all of Blue Star, which made her confidence balloon when she was little.

When she grew a little older and realized these were her grandmother and mother's personal opinions rather than facts, those views had already carved themselves deep into her brain and couldn't be erased.

If she hadn't been steeped in so many positive ideas by her family from childhood, giving her a confident, self-reliant, resilient character, she probably couldn't have walked alone, step by step, through the hardest years after her parents died.

Zhang San took another bite of apple. "Your parents only had you?"

Xia Qing nodded.

"They should have had a few more." Stuffing the last piece of apple into his mouth, Zhang San instructed, "I'll hand the seeds from this apple to Zhang Tao to cultivate. As for the ones on the trees in your territory, wait until they're fully ripe before picking."

Picking fruit only after it is fully ripe raises the germination rate of the seeds. Last year's low germination rate of the green-light jujubes was related to the fact that the fruits were knocked down by hail before they were fully ripe.

Xia Qing pulled out a box of pickled eggs from her backpack. "Third Brother, these are green-light eggs I pickled, already seasoned. Paired with Ping-jie's steamed buns, they're absolutely divine."

Zhang San shook his head. "Can't eat any more. We'll talk tonight."

She'd barely eaten half an apple and already couldn't eat a meal?! Xia Qing urged, "Your stomach is too small. You need to eat more to stretch it, so you can draw enough energy from food."

Her idol didn't move his body much, but his research burned through brainpower, which needed even more energy. Although her idol never mentioned it, Xia Qing knew he often got headaches too, which was why he traded so many green-light walnuts, chestnuts, and pine nuts—brain-boosting nuts—with her.

"I'll stretch it tonight. I've finished testing the herb samples you brought back from Mountain Thirty-Seven. These are evolved Viola philippica leaves and stems; they can treat many inflammatory diseases." Zhang San handed the test report to Xia Qing. "That evolved tiger knows to use this herb on wounds—its brain-region evolution is fairly advanced."

Xia Qing pushed the fruit and eggs in front of her idol, took a paper towel to wipe her hands clean, then picked up the test report and examined it carefully.

Zhang San quietly looked at the fruit box in front of him for a few seconds, wiped his hands again, and kept eating.

Xia Qing didn't know much about herb quality, but the report her idol printed didn't only contain data on the herbs she brought back—it also had data on the same species cultivated in Territory Seven. It was clear at a glance that the former's numbers were a notch higher across the board. Xia Qing understood what her idol meant. "After the qiang rain, I'll head to Mountain Thirty-Seven to look for this evolved herb and dig some up with the roots."

Given the cultivation skills of Zhang Tao and Zhang He in Territory Seven, as long as she dug the herbs up with roots and soil, they would certainly be able to keep them alive.

If this herb grew in the northern territory, Xia Qing could hand the herb photos to the Waist-Snapping Wolf or Little White-Hair and let them gather it, but the western Evolution Forest was out. As luck would have it, every large predator Xia Qing knew inside the western Evolution Forest—from the Western Wolf King, Leopard Bro and Leopard Sis, to the Blind Tiger—had a terrible temper.

For now, the only one she might cooperate with was that black giant wolf in the western wolf pack that liked drinking medicinal potions. Unfortunately, it wasn't a brain-region evolver, so even if they got friendly, it couldn't handle such a delicate task.

After finishing the grapes, Zhang Tao started on the ground-cherries and reminded Xia Qing, "What you brought back were stems, with no root or soil, so we can't determine where the herb grows. Viola philippica likes well-lit, moist environments and isn't picky about soil, so it could be anywhere in the western Evolution Forest. The leaf color of the evolved variety in Hukou isn't noticeably different from the ordinary kind. Finding this evolved strain among the vast stretches of Viola philippica in the Evolution Forest is a huge task."

Xia Qing nodded. "This herb should grow in that evolved tiger's core territory. Third Brother, how big is an evolved tiger's core territory, roughly?"

Animals know the plants in their core territory best. Mountain Thirty-Seven is the border zone between the western wolf pack and the western tiger's territory, and that injured tiger was lured there by wanderers. So, to find the evolved Viola philippica, we first have to find that tiger's core territory.

Zhang San asked, "Is that evolved tiger female or male?"

Xia Qing had shaved the Blind Tiger and treated its wounds, so of course she knew its sex. "A tigress, over eight hundred jin, teeth not noticeably worn—shouldn't be very old."

Zhang San reasoned, "Without human or other accidental interference, a tigress's territory is usually right next to her mother's. This herb could be in this tigress's territory, or in her mother's. The large herbivores in the Evolution Forest now are more diverse and plentiful than before the Calamity, so a tigress's core territory should be between thirty and a hundred square kilometers."

A meat-eating tigress occupying a core territory six to twenty times the size of Xia Qing's territory—perfectly reasonable.

Tigers are solitary animals. To boost their safety, it's perfectly reasonable for them to claim a territory next to their mother's once grown up—that's exactly what the freeloading red squirrel brat does.

Animals need to breed, so a strong male tiger must live next to the tigress's territory. That means the Blind Tiger's mom's territory should border its dad's, and next to the Blind Tiger should be the territory of one or several strong males courting her—also perfectly reasonable…

A human herb-gatherer suddenly appearing in the middle of a whole group of tigers' core territories—not reasonable!

Xia Qing set down the test report and very seriously discussed with her idol, "Third Brother, could you give me some potions that speed up wound healing, boost resistance, and lower the qiang element content in my body? Once this qiang rain passes, I'll head to Mountain Thirty-Seven and grind for affection points in front of that tigress who's recuperating, so it'll be easier to negotiate herb trades later."

Zhang San…