Chapter 1181: The Beauty

"Right, I'm planning to put a piece of yi-stone inside to improve the water quality."

Besides her companions, Xia Qing had one human friend she could introduce the water tank's true function to—Yang Jin.

Because Xia Qing's four large-scale harvests of yi-stone were all connected to Yang Jin, Yang Jin knew she had a lot of yi-stone.

The New Year gift pack was harvested by her, under the identity of Night Heron, after participating in the mission to snipe the fleeing Su Feng team members; after taking that pack of yi-stone, she didn't participate in distributing the other spoils; promoting the X-2 seeds was something Yang Jin went to negotiate with the base leader, and the yi-stone exchanged back was also partly given to Yang Jin; the later two times digging out the wanderers' mountain caves, Xia Qing teamed up with the Azure Dragon Squad, and distributed supplies with them after the mission ended.

So when Yang Jin came over and saw the water tank, he immediately thought of Xia Qing putting yi-stone in it.

Since he asked, Xia Qing just told him straight.

Yang Jin nodded, "This way it can both improve the quality of the seeds and enhance the quality and taste of the edible vegetables—very cost-effective. For winter freeze protection of the water tank, do you add antifreeze, or drain the water inside directly?"

"Drain it, and refill when using it the next year. This is a new-material water tank; even if the temperature drops to minus fifty degrees, it won't crack from freezing, and it's not afraid of being gnawed by rodents."

Listening to Xia Qing's light and cheerful tone, and looking at her deliberately calm face, Yang Jin's headache even eased, and his smile grew brighter, "There's one more feature—even if buried in soil, aggressive mutant evolved plant root systems can't violently destroy the water tank."

This feature wasn't protection given to the water tank by the new material, but Xia Qing's Class B magnetoception evolution ability. As long as Xia Qing was here, any aggressive mutant evolved plant would be taken out the moment it surfaced, unable to act arrogant at all.

Yang Jin sighed, "Your evolution abilities are practically tailor-made for farming."

Xia Qing, who combined strength evolution needed for farm work, visual evolution needed for checking crop growth status, auditory evolution needed for screening harmful organisms in the soil, and magnetoception evolution needed for clearing aggressive mutant evolved organisms, was heaven's chosen farmer.

And the most important point—she really loved farming. When what a person is good at happens to be what they love doing, that person must be happy.

So Xia Qing was happy.

Yang Jin's words hit Xia Qing right in the heart. Xia Qing felt that Yang Jin at this moment was even more pleasing to the eye and warmer than the evening glow in the western sky, so she decided to invite Yang Jin for a meal, "Has Captain Yang eaten dinner?"

Yang Jin's smile grew even brighter, "Not yet. What does Sister Qing want to eat tonight?"

"Tonight we're eating ready-made food. I'll go home to get the food."

Xia Qing brought steamed buns, braised meat, and tea soup from home, and used the small kitchen by the meeting room to stir-fry tomato and egg, and spicy-sour cucumber. In less than ten minutes, she put together a dinner of three dishes and a soup, with both meat and vegetables.

Yang Jin, who was assisting, didn't dare ask whether Xia Qing had noticed his headache, so she didn't let him cook.

Because he was afraid that asking this question would make Xia Qing realize that the way they got along now was more intimate than a cooperative relationship, and she would pull back.

Of course, Xia Qing might also have realized this point, but she felt this way of getting along was pretty good. If that was the case, Yang Jin would be more than happy.

This cooperation was proposed by him, but the pace was entirely controlled by Xia Qing. As long as she didn't retreat, Yang Jin would accompany her, walking slowly.

He wasn't in a hurry, not at all.

Being together for two months, although Yang Jin still hadn't been invited into the inner circle, he finally got to eat Xia Qing's cooking and drank the tea soup that the Beard Edge Squad had drunk countless times. He ate until he felt dizzy, and his head didn't hurt anymore.

While washing the dishes, Yang Jin told Xia Qing about what had happened in Hui-1 over the past three days.

"After Fire Phoenix finished the phone call with you, it was to probe whether you and I—or rather, to probe whether Third Brother and the Azure Dragon Squad had formed an alliance—and also wanted to use the Blue Blood Alliance to scare me, to make me stop hounding the blue-skinned wanderers. From your reply, Fire Phoenix concluded Third Brother hadn't allied with Azure Dragon, so she had Liao Wen contact Fierce Fire's mole in Hui-1 Research Institute, to pass a message to the current director Yan Pan, hoping Yan Pan would help Fierce Fire through the crisis."

Yang Jin shook the hot, washed bowl dry and handed it to Xia Qing.

Xia Qing put the bowl back in the sterilization cabinet and asked, "Which side is Yan Pan on?"

Hui-1 Research Institute was in chaos. The director Yan Qiyuan, who had always been at odds with Zhang San, stepped down not long after the underground experiment project was exposed, and Vice Director Tang Lian took charge of all affairs at the research institute.

The Red-1 investigation team entered Hui-1 last month, investigated the case of Peng Yuancai escaping from prison after his death last month, and arrested Tang Lian. Then, Yan Qiyuan's nephew Yan Pan unexpectedly became the new director!

"Yan Pan's main focus is on quality crop breeding research, he rarely appears in public, and doesn't have much contact with any side. For now, I can't tell which side he's on. But I confirmed he doesn't have any handle in Fierce Fire's hands, because this time he didn't speak up for Fierce Fire."

Yang Jin took a sip of warm tea and continued introducing the results of this trip to Hui-1.

"Several of Fierce Fire's lines have been cut off. To protect themselves, they had to hand over the cultivation methods for 10 quality crops, and donate 2 million points to the Hui City Foundation, to be used to improve the survival quality of women and children. Besides that, all personnel, projects, and equipment of Fierce Fire's medical research were transported back to Hui-1 Safe Zone, distributed to the research institute and Hui-1 Pharmaceutical Factory, and from now on they can only engage in crop breeding research. This cut off forty percent of Fierce Fire's income."

Good!

Xia Qing took a sip of tea and asked, "Are the blue-skinned wanderers connected to the Blue Blood Alliance?"

"This batch of wanderers themselves has nothing to do with Blue Blood, but Fire Phoenix has close ties with Blue Blood."

Yang Jin laid it all out for Xia Qing, "Blue Blood is a radical faction evolved person interest alliance; most of the evolved people who join Blue Blood do so to sell or obtain illegal supplies. I have informants inside Blue Blood. Once Blue Star has any news of plotting against you or the Northern Zone-1 territory, I'll notify you immediately."

"Thanks." Xia Qing turned her teacup, lowered her eyes in thought.

Yang Jin, with brain domain and visual evolution, immediately understood what she was thinking, "Besides the materials I've given you, Blue Blood has offline contact points in each base safe zone, and an online trading darknet spread across all of Blue Star. Hui-3's offline contact point is on the grocery street in the north outer city of the safe zone. You'd better pretend you don't know; if you want to go into their darknet to look around, I can give you an account. The illegal supplies on it are indeed very tempting, but it's also full of bloody, violent, twisted, anti-human information. The negative emotions you accumulate from five minutes of looking might need you to hoe weeds in two greenhouses and then have a fight with Boss Sheep to work off."

Only by seeing darkness and evil with one's own eyes can one know how to deal with them. Xia Qing raised her eyes to look at Yang Jin, "Please trouble Captain Yang to give me an account."

Yang Jin, who had already anticipated she would choose this, leaned forward, his smile even brighter, "What they do is all illegal business, the entry qualification screening is very strict, and to access this kind of darknet, you need specially modified equipment, otherwise your real information will be traced. Equipment and account together, sixty thousand points, lowest price."

Xia Qing......

After speaking, Yang Jin raised his hand to press his temple, looking pitiful and listless, "Of course, if it can be exchanged for Green Light Mountain walnuts, that would be even better. I'm not hiding it from Sister Qing, I've been overusing my brain these past few days, my head aches terribly."

Xia Qing......

Very good, worthy of being Broken-Waist's own brother. The beauty trap alone wasn't enough, and now he added a self-harm scheme!