Chapter 1229: Xia Qing, You Have to Keep Striving Too

Inside Territory Three, after hearing Xia Qing share a top-secret matter of the Territory Alliance, Luo Pei asked, "You went in to farm first, and only built the laboratory later?"

Knowing Xia Qing's caution, if Zhang San had built the laboratory inside first, she wouldn't have let her allies know about the valley's existence. Even if she couldn't bear to give up the three mu of fields inside the valley, she would have farmed them herself.

If she had known earlier that Zhang Shi would move into the valley, Xia Qing truly wouldn't have told her allies about the valley's existence. "The laboratory was indeed built later. Brother Luo, the spring water there is excellent quality—soaking medicinal baths in it is very good for the body."

Whenever Zhang San now prescribes medicated soaks for Xia Qing, he always tells her whether to use the hot spring or the pollution-free spring water.

Luo Pei didn't ask what experimental projects were inside the valley, nor did he plan to take spring water out for his own use. "Territory One is full of people and watchful eyes—I won't mention the valley to Yin Jie. Next time I'm back, if I have time, I'll go in and take a look."

Xia Qing hadn't agreed to let Territory One join the Territory Alliance back then for the same reason—Territory One had too many people, which made keeping secrets difficult. That hot spring inside, which becomes premium drinking water after filtration, might not be very tempting to the three bosses of the Azure Dragon Squad, but they were all firsthand witnesses of the underground laboratory incident in Huiyi, and they had all seen Zhang Shi. If they entered the valley, it would increase the risk of Zhang Shi and her mother being exposed.

If the microorganisms in Blue Star's soil hadn't evolved again, Xia Qing wouldn't have urgently needed to integrate the high-quality human resources of the northern District One territories to tackle this critical challenge together, and she wouldn't have invited Territory One to join the alliance.

As for Zhang Shi, Xia Qing had already given her a heads-up—if Luo Pei went to the valley, Zhang Shi would stay in the laboratory doing experiments and wouldn't meet with him.

By inviting Luo Pei into her territory now and telling him the Territory Alliance's top secret, Xia Qing was consulting with him on how Territory One should keep the secret.

Luo Pei's risk-prevention awareness was extremely strong—without her even bringing it up, he voluntarily gave up the ally benefit of drawing water from the valley, which saved Xia Qing the trouble. Truly worthy of being Hui City 's most popular top sniper—he really knows how to play along!

Luo Pei asked again, "Does Beard Feng and the others know?"

Xia Qing shook her head. "They don't know. Captain Yang went in to help me fetch supplies the day I discovered the valley—the laboratory hadn't been built yet at that time."

Hearing how Xia Qing addressed Yang Jin, Luo Pei felt like laughing. "The fewer people who know about this, the better. I won't mention it to those two."

Xia Qing smiled. "Thanks, Brother Luo. I'll kill a chicken—shall we have chicken stewed with mushrooms tonight?"

Xia Qing had summoned Huo Zhun over because she definitely had something to discuss. Luo Pei didn't want to stay and take up her time. "I still have things to do. Let's get together again when A-Jin comes back. You joined the soil research lab—can you handle it all?"

Xia Qing nodded. "I can handle it. I have a laboratory right in my own territory, so I don't need to go to Territory Twelve to test soil. I just need to keep real-time track of the research progress."

Luo Pei finally admonished his disciple, "Tan Qi, Zhu Li and the others are all studying hard—you can't slack off either. Before the catastrophe, you hadn't finished high school, had you?"

"No." Xia Qing answered sincerely. "I don't need to take the college entrance exam to get a diploma, because I was personally trained by you and Sange. My abilities don't need a diploma to prove them."

Luo Pei took a moment to digest it, still hardly daring to believe it. "Sange taught you?"

Xia Qing nodded. "Yes, I follow Sange to study courses and read papers. For Zhang Tao, Zhang Song, and Zhang He, I ask them questions directly and get professional, systematic answers. I've now joined the research project Sange is leading—I'm one of the two principal researchers."

Joined Zhang San's project—and as a principal researcher?

For a moment, Luo Pei didn't know what to say to express his pride and shock. He raised his hand and patted his disciple's shoulder, then left Territory Three in a daze.

After seeing her master off, Xia Qing grabbed Daigua, who had been hiding by the beekeeping greenhouse sniffing the fragrance, and hauled him over to Greenhouse 11 to work. She herself went to Greenhouse 1 to check on the spinach's growth, pulling weeds and loosening the soil.

Because it had been protected by Yishi the whole time, the anaerobic bacteria in the spinach terraced field's soil hadn't evolved, and the spinach was growing very well.

Huo Zhun and Guan Tong, who was helping her guard the territory, used the threshing wooden tub Xia Qing had made to beat the rice and thresh it. They knocked off before dark.

Even though it was only half a mu of land, Xia Qing harvested seven sacks of unhusked rice—a pretty impressive yield.

Huo Zhun brushed the dust and rice leaves off his protective suit and asked, "Sister Qing, this variety with heavier panicles and bigger grains is WD-6, right?"

Xia Qing nodded. Although only half a mu of Green Light rice was planted in Greenhouse 11, there were two varieties. One was J-2, cultivated by Zhang Tao's group in Territory Seven; the other was WD-6, a hybrid rice bred in Huiwu that Yang Jin had traded to her. "WD-6 is a hybrid rice—its yield is about 15% higher than J-2, but it's less stable, only lasting three generations. Still, it's better than our base's H-12."

Having been discharged from the military and entered the territory half a year ago, Huo Zhun was now a genuine farmer. Hearing the yield was so much higher, he immediately proposed a trade. "Sister Qing, we harvested this rice early this time, so the germination rate is definitely going to be lower than a normal harvest. Can I trade for two extra jin of WD-6 seeds? I'll give you three jin of Green Light wheat."

The allies all knew Xia Qing had planted WD-6, and Xia Qing had also agreed that after the harvest, each ally could trade for five jin at a 1:1 ratio using rice or wheat with equivalent Qiang element content. Now Huo Zhun was proposing to trade for two extra jin at a 1.5:1 ratio—plenty of sincerity.

In the lords' view, against the advantage of high yield, taste could be completely ignored. Because no matter how bad the taste of purely natural Green Light grain was, it was still far better than the rations they'd been gnawing on for eight or nine years.

Greenhouse 2 on Xia Qing's hillside had a terraced field of WD-6 planted in it, which hadn't been harvested yet—that was her breeding field. The rice harvested in Greenhouse 11 was all for eating, so of course Xia Qing agreed to the trade.

After Guan Tong left Territory Three, Xia Qing finally got down to business with Huo Zhun. "I need to fly a helicopter to Mountain 22 tomorrow morning—the round trip will take nearly a full day. Does Brother Huo have time?"

Teaming up with Xia Qing meant earning points and showing his face in front of the wolf packs—of course Huo Zhun had time. After accepting the mission, he carried the rice seeds and the 1 jin of Green Light sweet potatoes he'd earned from threshing rice today, cheerfully climbed over the south iron-net wall of Territory Three, and returned to his own territory.

Why only 1 jin? Because by the time he arrived, Guan Tong was already threshing the rice.

After Huo Zhun left, Boss Sheep took his two little brothers to District 3 of Mountain 49 and had a fight with Flat Top. Then the three lords returned to their territory, hauled today's harvested rice on their shoulders, called Daigua—who was picking up dropped rice panicles in Greenhouse 11—took the little yellow ox that was grazing off to the side, and headed home for dinner in the evening sun.

When Luo Pei asked her today whether she could handle everything after joining the soil research department, Xia Qing didn't tell him her plan. She intended to purchase a soil microorganism analyzer and put it in the laboratory for regular soil testing. When she wasn't busy, she'd do it herself; when she was busy, she'd hire Broken-Waist Wolf or Daigua to do it.

Of course, the soil testing and improvement for the breeding terraces in Greenhouses 1 and 2—no matter how busy she was, Xia Qing had to do it herself, because that was the most important thing in her territory.

Broken-Waist Wolf would definitely be happy to take this job. Daigua might look slow, but as long as you gave him a small jar of honey, his brain would instantly light up and he'd work harder than anyone. A soil-testing task like this—teach him three or five times, and he'd definitely learn it and be able to handle it.

The problem now was that Daigua was a temp worker—his working hours weren't fixed, and he'd leave whenever he wanted. Broken-Waist Wolf was getting smarter and smarter and definitely wouldn't work for free; his fee might not be low either.