Chapter 130: Di-Ren Fruit

Before the catastrophe, egrets were a protected species, and Xia Qing had never eaten one. So she didn't know whether egret meat was already delicious to begin with or only became tasty after evolving, but this stewed egret was far better than the stewed chicken she had eaten with Xu Juan at a restaurant in the Safe Zone.

Of course, it might also be because that one was a yellow-light pheasant while this one was a green-light egret.

After Xia Qing had even finished the meat broth, she slumped in her chair, thoroughly satisfied, and told Sheep Boss, "Your friends are really generous."

Sheep Boss had also eaten its fill and was lying on the tatami, eyes narrowed in rest.

Why wasn't it squeezing in with the two wolves? Xia Qing guessed it was because it was hot outside now and cool inside.

After sitting in a food coma for a while, Xia Qing sent Hu Zi Feng a message, asking him to send someone over in half an hour to guard Territory Three, and to be careful not to approach her courtyard because there were wolves.

After clearing away the bowls and chopsticks, Xia Qing put on her protective suit, took her weapons, and hurried to her private training ground to train. The lead wolf was this powerful, yet the wolf pack had still lost to the snake pack and Xiong Qun. Since Xia Qing lived here, she would sooner or later encounter other animal groups, so she had to intensify her training and boost her strength.

When passing through the isolation belt, Xia Qing ran into the inspection team on patrol. She noticed that today the entire inspection team had come out of the cave, and hadn't brought Tan Junjie's daughter Tan Qi along.

Logically, the inspection team wouldn't be patrolling here at this time. It seemed Luo Pei had told Tan Junjie about the wolves entering Territory Three last night, so the inspection team had stepped up patrols.

She wondered whether the three wolves carrying the egret earlier might have been smelled by the olfactory evolvers on the inspection team.

Learning from past lessons, Xia Qing had this time carefully washed her protective suit and sprayed deodorizer before coming out. She was very clean, with no wolf scent on her, and felt completely at ease.

When the inspection team came closer and learned that Xia Qing had taken on the mission to clear Mountain Forty-Nine, they went to rendezvous with the combat team. Tan Junjie asked, "Nothing unusual in the territory?"

Xia Qing didn't know how Luo Pei had explained things to Tan Junjie, so she answered briefly, "Everything's normal."

After the inspection team left, Xia Qing listened quietly for a while and confirmed that Su Ming and the others didn't know about the appearance of the wolf pack. Only then did she pass through the isolation belt into Section Three of Mountain Forty-Nine, training while clearing aggressive evolved creatures.

Two hours later, while resting under a tree, Xia Qing stared at the green pine cones on the pine tree.

Many pine trees in her private training ground had grown pine cones. Xia Qing had tested the qiang element content of the cone-bearing pines and marked out twenty-eight yellow-light trees and four green-light ones.

Pine nuts mature between November and December, so there's no rush to pick the cones, but the wild fruits that ripen this season should be harvested in a batch.

"Buzz."

Hearing her phone vibrate, Xia Qing had her smart voice assistant read the message. Learning that Luo Pei was looking for her, she instructed, "Silly Hat, Silly Hat, send my location to Brother Luo."

"Okay." Silly Hat replied cheerfully in a sweet, childish voice, "I've sent Master's address to Brother Luo."

Xia Qing waited on the spot for less than ten minutes before Luo Pei hurried over and handed her a bag of raw materials for making a yi-stone protective shell. "It just so happens my territory's warehouse had this stuff, so I packed you a bag. I'll send you the instructions for making the protective shell in a bit."

"Thanks, Brother Luo." Xia Qing took the heavy bag weighing over thirty jin with both hands.

Luo Pei handed her another small bag. "These are green-light wild di-ren that the combat team clearing the mountain forest today found. They're sweet and sour. I saw that girls like Chang Li and the others all like them, so I packed some for you."

"Thanks, Brother Luo." Xia Qing took it directly without ruining the mood by mentioning exchanging with points.

Luo Pei told Xia Qing the investigation results. "That speed-evolved wolf entered the Section Three valley of Mountain Forty-Nine through the passage between Mountains Forty-Nine and Fifty, then entered your territory from the valley."

Section Three of Mountain Forty-Nine was Xia Qing's private training ground. According to the original mountain-rental contract between Xia Qing and the Azure Dragon Combat Team, Section Three was not part of the leased area, so the evolved forest in Section Three had to be cleared by Xia Qing, and its defense was also her own responsibility.

Xia Qing asked, "Does Brother Luo know which valley the wolves took?"

Luo Pei answered, "Valley One."

Section Three contained two long, narrow valleys. The two valleys formed a "Y" shape, meeting at the Wild Boar Breeding Center, then extending southward through the gap between Territory Three and Territory Four. The stream at the valley bottom flows into the east-west river channel within Xia Qing's territory. Xia Qing named the valley running from northeast to southwest Valley One, and the one running from northwest to southeast Valley Two.

These two valleys lead directly south into Xia Qing's territory. If wolves can come through, of course other large evolved animals can too.

Xia Qing quickly made up her mind. "Once the wolves have healed, I'll dig a few traps at the place they must pass through on the way from Valley One into the territory. As for the northern passage, I'll have to trouble Brother Luo."

After Luo Pei left, Xia Qing put away the bag of soil and gravel, and opened the paper bag containing the di-ren fruit. According to the agreement she had signed with the Azure Dragon Combat Team, if the Azure Dragon Combat Team discovered green-light plants on Mountain Forty-Nine, they were supposed to notify her. So a few days ago Xia Qing had received photos from Luo Pei and learned that this small, thorny wild fruit was green-light and edible.

This small wild fruit also grew in the Section Three forest and in her own buffer forest. The plant is a low-growing small shrub. Xia Qing had noticed it when it was flowering a few months ago—it was quite pretty. But the fruit it produced after flowering was covered in a layer of thorns, and didn't look edible, which is why Xia Qing had never picked any.

She hadn't expected that once ripe it would be purplish-red, and actually looked quite appetizing. Xia Qing tried one and found it sweet and sour. Though the flavor wasn't as good as green-light strawberries, it was indeed not bad. She packed away the fruit, shouldered the soil, and sprinted at full speed toward the area in Section Three where the di-ren plants were most concentrated. Upon arrival, she found that plenty of the di-ren fruit here had also turned purple and red.

Ripe fruit dotted the emerald-green leaves densely. If not for the insects crawling on top munching away, it would actually be quite a pleasant sight.

Despite being eaten by insects, the di-ren plants didn't launch any attacks, indicating that this plant probably hadn't yet evolved animal-like characteristics.

Xia Qing didn't dare let her guard down. After testing and confirming the plants had no aggressive traits, she took out her qiang element detector and began testing the plants' qiang element content. Di-ren plants grow prostrate on the ground, with branches over thirty centimeters long, making it very hard to tell one from another, so testing the plants took quite a bit of time.

After testing this large patch of di-ren plants, Xia Qing actually found two green-light and six yellow-light plants, and some of the fruit on them had ripened without yet being bitten by insects.

She marked the edible plants with cloth strips, picked off the edible fruit, sealed it up, stuffed it into her backpack, and hurried to the next di-ren growing area in Section Three to continue testing and picking.

In just over three hours, Xia Qing had detected a total of six green-light and twenty yellow-light plants.

According to the laws of plant evolution, ninety-nine percent of the fruit on a green-light plant is green-light, with the remaining one percent possibly being yellow-light or red-light; on a yellow-light plant, ninety-nine percent is yellow-light, with one percent being green-light or red-light; the same logic applies to red-light plants. Therefore, once everyone tests a plant and finds it edible, they collect all the fruit, even if that means eating the less-than-one-percent red-light ones along with it—the small additional amount of qiang element won't put a heavy burden on the body.

From over twenty di-ren plants, Xia Qing picked more than three jin of fruit. After returning home, washing, and eating less than half a jin, Xia Qing took the dried green-light egret meat out of the dehydrator, washed the wire mesh tray, arranged all the di-ren fruit on the mesh, and put it into the dehydrator to dry.

If not dried, after one night these fruits would rot and spoil, becoming inedible.

After Sheep Boss came back, Xia Qing handed over the two fruits she'd saved for it. Sheep Boss only sniffed them, not even bothering to open its mouth for a taste.

"You don't know what's good." Xia Qing flicked Sheep Boss's hard forehead. She thought about feeding the fruit Sheep Boss had rejected to the injured wolves, but worried the two honored guests might get an upset stomach, so she didn't dare try.

After sealing up the dried egret meat, Xia Qing opened the food box. Looking at the increasingly full contents inside, she thought about the potatoes about to ripen in the fields, the sweet potatoes maturing in a few months, and the wild fruit and pine cones on the mountain. Xia Qing decided to build a storage cellar in her territory to stockpile food.