Chapter 1111: Peeling Chestnuts

Because Yang Jin's speed was extraordinarily fast and didn't attract a single hornet, the mission was completed very smoothly, and it wasn't even 7:30 in the morning yet.

After Xia Qing finished breakfast and fed the living creatures in her territory, Xin Yu, who was delivering her automatic door, drove into the south gate of Territory Three. Xin Yu came to deliver the door in person because she wanted to peel chestnuts and chat with Xia Qing.

The three bags of chestnuts Xia Qing brought back today were all picked from yellow-light chestnut trees.

This year, a total of 4 green-light and 17 yellow-light chestnut trees in the chestnut grove bore fruit. The day before yesterday, Daya operated the mechanical arm to harvest the green-light chestnuts. Because Xia Qing was busy on her end, Daya carried the chestnuts straight back to Territory Seven.

Under Xia Qing's care, this year's chestnut grove yielded 40 jin more than last year, harvesting a total of 370 jin of green-light chestnuts. After negotiating by phone with her idol, Xia Qing set aside 200 jin of green-light chestnuts for him and brought back 170 jin herself.

According to the exchange agreement the two of them made last year, Xia Qing must give Zhang San 400 jin of green-light chestnuts per year for five years. If the green-light chestnuts in a given year are insufficient, yellow-light chestnuts can be used to make up the difference, with 4 jin of yellow-light equaling 1 jin of green-light. Therefore, Xia Qing still needs to send her idol another 800 jin of yellow-light chestnuts this year.

Why negotiate by phone? Because her idol said he didn't want to see her recently. Even if Xia Qing went to Territory Seven, she wouldn't be able to enter her idol's laboratory. Xia Qing never expected that moving just one machine out of the laboratory would make her idol this angry.

The green-light chestnuts have already been harvested. The three bags of chestnuts Xia Qing carried back today are all yellow-light. Because these chestnuts cannot be used as seeds, they just need to be shelled and sun-dried for two days to remove moisture before being stored in the storage room.

Xin Yu brought over a small stool and sat inside the insect-proof shed Xia Qing had set up with bamboo poles and insect-proof netting in the yard, learning to peel chestnuts from Xia Qing.

Xia Qing demonstrated for her, "Although the chestnuts are already mature and the stickiness of the spiky shell has decreased, it will still stick to your gloves. So you can't peel them by hand. You have to use two pliers to grip the crack here, pull it apart to both sides, then flip it like this and shake the chestnuts into the basket."

Xia Qing had just poured five chestnuts into the basket when a little squirrel poked its head out of her pocket, jumped into the basket, grabbed a chestnut, climbed up onto her shoulder, and after skillfully turning the chestnut a few times with its little paws, cracked open the reddish-brown shell with its big front teeth and started eating.

Molli, perched on Xin Yu's shoulder, got anxious. She hopped around flapping her wings and shouted, "Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu! Xia Qing, Xia Qing!"

Not bad, progress—at least she can get one character of her name right. Xia Qing tossed a chestnut from the basket over to her. "Guagua, good job."

Molli flew up and caught the chestnut in her beak, landed on the ground, firmly pinned it under one claw, then used her sharp beak to peck open the chestnut shell and began pecking at the chestnut meat.

After feeding Xin Yu's raven, Xia Qing gave another chestnut to Daigua, who was sitting on a small stool beside her, then opened the insect-proof netting and tossed one out.

A red streak of lightning swept past, caught the chestnut before it hit the ground, and vanished without a trace, leaving the flock of birds waiting in the tree for a free meal cursing in frustration.

However, not a single bird dared to land and peck through the insect-proof shed to steal the fragrant chestnuts, because a fierce wolfhound lay outside the net shed. It was the guardian deity of Territory Three, the bane of birds, and the birds that often came to Territory Three were all very afraid of it.

Seeing that the five chestnuts Xia Qing had peeled were reduced to just one in the blink of an eye, Xin Yu smiled and picked up the pliers. Although she wasn't as strong as Xia Qing, she could still handle this small task.

While peeling chestnuts, Xin Yu chatted casually with Xia Qing, "What are these spiky chestnut husks used for—composting or drying them for firewood?"

Xia Qing peeled chestnuts skillfully. "They're useful. I noticed that the places where I put the spiky husks last year didn't have many calamity weeds sprouting through them during this year's three calamity rains. Third Brother tested them and found that the husks contain a chemical substance that can inhibit the growth of other plants. This substance also works on calamity weeds."

Xin Yu was very interested. "Allelopathy?"

Although Xin Yu didn't continue attending school after the catastrophe, she had been studying at home with a private tutor. So even though she didn't have a junior high school diploma, the knowledge she had mastered was by no means little. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to lead the Chonglian research team in animal domestication research.

"Right, it's allelopathy. However, as the chemical elements in the spiky husks volatilize, this effect will become weaker and weaker." Xia Qing continued to explain, "Third Brother said that this allelopathic element effective against calamity weeds is one of the reasons chestnut trees can maintain high quality. However, this chemical substance has an even stronger inhibitory effect on ordinary plants, so it has no extraction value."

Xin Yu nodded. "We can't demand too much from evolved plants. The fact that the fruit can be eaten directly and tastes pretty good is already very rare."

Xia Qing took the chestnut burr Daigua handed her, split it open, and gave it back to her so she could dig out the chestnut herself. "Indeed. Now so many fruits are inedible."

Xin Yu shared some new information she had with Xia Qing. "Liehuo's pollution-free spring water was destroyed. The losses they suffered from this attack exceeded previous estimates, and this is also a huge loss for Hui-1."

"Mieshi will definitely be severely sanctioned, and Hui-8 will also be held accountable." Pollution-free water sources were scarce and precious resources for every base. Once damaged, they could not be repaired. Destroying a pollution-free water source was a serious crime.

Deep in the Evolution Forest, there must still be pollution-free springs unexplored by humans, but the springs deep inside were often occupied by evolved fierce beasts, making extraction extremely risky.

Besides pollution-free springs, there were also some green-light water sources in the Evolution Forest with calamity element content below 5‰, such as the green-light water source where evolved brook moss was growing that Xia Qing discovered on her way back to the territory from Mountain 26.

That water source was too far from the safe zone, and the area nearby was the territory of large fierce beasts. The cost of transporting water by helicopter was higher than the cost of building a water plant in the safe zone to produce distilled water or high-quality filtered water, so it didn't have much development value.

"Those Mieshi lunatics aren't even afraid of death, let alone taking sanctions seriously." Xin Yu brought up another piece of news. "The case involving Peng Yuancai has been traced back to Hui-1 Base Commander Chen Dianming. Chen Dianming will most likely fall from power. Fire Phoenix has close ties with Chen Dianming. Once Chen Dianming is caught, Fire Phoenix won't be able to wash themselves clean either."

Xia Qing understood. "If the deputy base commander can't bear this big pot, then the base commander has to take it personally. I expect news of Chen Dianming's suicide will spread soon."

Xin Yu used the pliers to pull open the chestnut shell, flipped it so the chestnuts faced down, and gave it a firm shake. Four brown-red chestnuts fell into the bamboo basket. Then she sighed. "It all depends on how strong the cleanup effort from above is this time."

If investigated thoroughly, even the Hui City Chief Base Commander would have to fall.

However, this incident is far less egregious than the Hui-1 underground laboratory incident back then, and is still not enough to force Hui City to change its chief base commander again.

If the Hui City Chief Base commander doesn't change, and the various management departments and research institutes at the chief base level aren't thoroughly purged, just swapping out a base commander won't have any real effect.

If the Hui City Chief Base management cannot be shaken, the Yu family father and son of Chonglian won't be seriously hurt, because since the Yu father and son took control of Chonglian, they haven't been stingy about sending benefits to these people.