Chapter 1137: Ranking Fifth Place

She wasn't keeping them to eat herself. "After trading some of this python's meat to our allies, I'll store the rest along with that medium yellow-light python in the Number One Territory food storage warehouse, as reserve meat for the Ninth Center cafeteria."

After the Ninth Center expanded, the number of formal employees grew from 320 to 560, with dependents increasing to 170 — among them 37 children between 12 and 15 years old, 73 children between 3 and 12, and 13 children under three. In other words, after this expansion, the Ninth Center had 78 more children under 15 than before.

The low number of dependents was because Yuehai Battalion had arranged jobs for all dependents between 15 and 65 who were able to work — in plain terms, veterans could bring their families in when they took a position. This was one of the reasons the Ninth Center was so attractive to retired soldiers.

Of the veterans who signed on for this round of hiring at the Ninth Center, the ones with the strongest desire to move in were almost all people with families. The 10 employees Xia Qing poached from the Safe Zone Planting Management Department were no exception — every single one had either elders to care for or young children.

The Ninth Planting Center, which had a school right inside its compound, was a safer place than the Safe Zone for these veterans with school-age children — especially for the evolver veterans.

Because security here was tight, and the kids could attend school without ever leaving the Center. Evolver employees living here with their children didn't have to worry about their kids being snatched, drained of blood, eaten, or sold.

So among the 240 formal employees hired this round, the number of evolvers reached an astonishing 67, bringing the Ninth Center's total evolver count up to 115.

Although 39 of those 115 evolvers had disabilities, the sheer number of evolvers the Ninth Center possessed still shocked the entire Hui-3 Base.

Why the shock?

Because this little farming outfit outside the Safe Zone had leapt up to fifth place on Hui-3's ranking of evolver counts.

First place on the evolver-count ranking went, of course, to the Hui-3 military, with 910; second was the Azure Dragon Squad with 260; third was the Aurora Squad with 193; fourth was the Endgame Squad with 130 evolvers.

As a result, every department in the Safe Zone — especially the four outside-planting centers that were currently hiring — was green with envy toward the Ninth Planting Center.

But none of those departments dared to pick a fight with the Ninth Center, because none of them wanted to become the next Zhao Baolin — the fool who provoked the Ninth Center's director, top sniper Xia Qing, who likes to be straightforward, and turned himself into a living joke across the Safe Zone.

As director of a Ninth Center now numbering 730 people, Xia Qing had a lot more to think about.

Over seven hundred mouths meant a huge demand for food, so the two-thousand-plus jin of meat Xia Qing had stockpiled for her employees was nowhere near enough.

Once the bird tide passed, she was going to make a trip to Crocodile Lake on Mountain 52. After the wolf pack drove the snake colony out of Mountain 55, the crocodile population in Crocodile Lake had exploded, disrupting the ecological balance — some of them needed to be culled by hand.

Anyone else going to hunt crocodiles would get attacked by the wolf pack, but Xia Qing had no such worries at all.

Of course, the python meat and crocodile meat delivered to the Ninth Center would be charged for. Xia Qing might be the Ninth Center's director, but public was public and private was private — she wasn't going to dip into her own medicine pouch to subsidize the Ninth Center.

The base had taken the dietary needs of employees at the five outside-planting centers into account, building cafeterias to the military's Class One standard and allocating funds. The food conditions couldn't compare to before the Calamity, but no one would go hungry.

But these were Calamity years — even with credits, you couldn't always buy edible meat. If you wanted meat, you had to earn it.

As the wolf pack's Number Four combatant, Ninth Center director Xia Qing lifted her tea and took a leisurely long sip.

Mm, good tea. Third Brother should like it.

Yang Jin laughed. "Director Xia is truly dutiful — no wonder so many evolvers are busting down the doors to work at the Ninth Center."

Xia Qing replied modestly, "Apart from me, everyone in the Ninth Center is an ordinary evolver, and 40% of them have disabilities. Apart from farming, they can't really do anything else."

Seeing that Xia Qing was giving nothing away even in front of him, Yang Jin's smile grew even brighter. "Sister Qing wants to raise the Ninth Center's overall combat strength, so I won't compete with you for the snake meat. But could you part with some of that hardness-evolved snake's skin?"

Xia Qing shook her head. "The hardness-evolved snake skin has already been divided up. I can 'trade' you half of the snake bones."

Already divided? Yang Jin raised an eyebrow. "Could you use the scraps to make a pair of gloves each for me, Brother Luo, and Xie Yu?"

Well… Xia Qing nodded and laid out her terms. "The processing fee and materials fee can be paid in this kind of tea leaves — together with the tea leaves you just promised me, one jin total."

Yang Jin's eyes went wide. "Sister Qing, what I said just now was: you give me all the snake meat, and I'll give you half a jin of tea leaves."

Xia Qing leaned forward, beaming like a flower. "I never said the snake meat I traded you was worth half a jin of tea leaves either — it's the three pairs of gloves plus the meat that make one jin. If Captain Yang thinks it's not a fair deal, we don't have to trade. With your squad's strength, bagging a few high-grade hardened pythons would be a piece of cake."

Xia Qing was simply dazzling like this. Yang Jin's mind went completely blank; he leaned back in his chair to collect himself before answering with a laugh, "Fine, one jin of tea leaves."

Xia Qing confirmed the terms. "One jin of Hui-7 premium green-light Maojian."

"Deal."

With that deal wrapped up, Yang Jin moved on to the next. "Yi Snakes are so precious — Sister Qing must have caught a few live ones, right? The cost of raising them can't be low. How about we cooperate?"

Xia Qing had brought out the Yi Snake meat today precisely because she wanted to cooperate with the Azure Dragon Squad. Once word leaked that there were Yi Snakes in Python Lake, she alone could never protect the Yi Snakes in the lake — or the northern wolf pack and Xiong Qun.

But the specifics of the cooperation were something Xia Qing couldn't decide yet. "The live snakes I brought back are all at Third Brother's place. As for how to breed them, that's up to Third Brother."

No need to tell Yang Jin that all four snakes were male. By next spring, when the Yi Snakes returned to Python Lake, Xia Qing was determined to catch a female.

If she still couldn't catch one, she'd take the four Marine Force Special Team veterans from Territory Number Eleven down into the lake to get one!

"Alright, I'll reserve a cooperation slot for now. Once Third Brother comes up with a plan, we'll talk specifics."

After the deal was done, Yang Jin took out everything from Xia Qing's previous trade with him — one jin of hazel mushrooms, a notebook, two phones, two pairs of new-material running shoes specially made for strength evolvers — plus the one jin of tea leaves just traded, and piled them on the table.

Those two pairs of new-material running shoes looked no different from ordinary protective boots in color or style, except the soles were two centimeters thicker, and each shoe weighed at least two jin more than a standard protective boot.

The new-material soles had better elasticity, but at that weight, no one but a strength evolver could handle them.

If Xia Qing had had these shoes earlier, she might actually have been able to outrun that bad-tempered giant bear and snatched those two Yi Snakes!

But in this world, there are no "ifs." After carefully checking the supplies, Xia Qing put them away and asked about the situation with Hui-1 officialdom and Blaze.