Chapter 1362: Asleep

No one knew better than Xia Qing how wonderfully soft Sheep Boss's coat felt, so seeing little Ye Yiyi's gloved little hands slowly exploring among Sheep Boss's curly, fluffy wool didn't surprise her at all. She only asked gently, "Yiyi, do you want to take off your gloves and touch it? Boss is very clean—no parasites."

The insect-repellent spray used on the long-haired animals of Territory Three was something Xia Qing had traded with Territory Seven for. It repelled and killed insects effectively, and was non-toxic, so Sheep Boss was very clean—taking off the gloves to touch was perfectly fine.

Little Ye Yiyi didn't need anyone's help—she undid the snaps at the wrist of her protective suit on her own, pulled off her protective gloves, and placed her little hands on Sheep Boss. Then this little girl's eyes slowly widened, so wide that Xia Qing was afraid her eyeballs would fall out.

Zhang Shiyi stood to one side, quietly observing the changes in Ye Yiyi's expression.

Sheep Boss tensed all its muscles, squinting unhappily at Xia Qing. Only when Xia Qing pulled a small piece of compressed ration from her pocket, broke off a bit and stuffed it into its mouth, then began skillfully grooming its coat, did Sheep Boss refrain from standing up and walking away.

Ye Yiyi, with both little hands buried in the wool, was captured by the fluffy, soft, warm feeling. Her little head leaned toward Sheep Boss bit by bit.

Watching her, Xia Qing gestured to Zhang Shiyi, using movements to ask whether she could remove Ye Yiyi's protective mask. Even if Xia Qing weren't a psychiatrist, she could see that contact with animals would help treat Ye Yiyi's illness.

Although soil anaerobic bacteria had evolved, making protective masks mandatory for outdoor activities, this was inside a greenhouse protected by insect netting. Most of the evolved anaerobic bacteria in the soil here had already been killed off by crab-shell fertilizer, so the danger level wasn't high.

Even in the worst-case scenario—if an infected little bug leapt over to try to bite someone—Xia Qing's evolved vision would let her pinch it dead before it could bite Ye Yiyi.

Zhang Shiyi naturally didn't object, and was the first to remove her own protective mask. She was a recovery-type Evolver, unafraid of evolved bugs; she wore the mask to conceal her identity. Removing it now was to show Ye Yiyi that taking off the mask here was safe.

After removing her protective mask, Zhang Shiyi had only taken one step toward Sheep Boss when she sensed its magnetic field fluctuation and stopped where she stood.

Xia Qing gestured for her to step back, then raised her own hand to remove Ye Yiyi's protective mask, and took off her own as well. The warm sunlight of a late-autumn afternoon and the scent of fresh grass rushed in—warm and comfortable.

But Ye Yiyi seemed completely oblivious to all this. She was already utterly captivated by Sheep Boss's thick coat, and after removing her mask she kept inching closer to Sheep Boss, finally burying her little face in Sheep Boss's dense, curly fleece.

Seeing that Sheep Boss was about to lose its temper, Xia Qing quickly stuffed a bit more ration into its mouth, petting and massaging it, silently coaxing it to stay still.

A few minutes later, Xia Qing, who was about to lose control of Sheep Boss, discovered that little Ye Yiyi, sprawled on Sheep Boss's body, had actually fallen asleep…

After Xia Qing picked her up and handed her to Zhang Shiyi, she gestured for Zhang Shiyi to take Ye Yiyi back. She had to stay in the pasture shed to coax the sheep. Zhang Shiyi thanked her, carried Ye Yiyi quickly back to the basement, and laid her on the bed. The child didn't even wake up—just rolled over, curled into a ball, and kept sleeping.

Only then did Zhang Shiyi breathe a sigh of relief, and hurriedly switched on the camera to check the situation at the pasture shed. The result: Xia Qing and the two animals were no longer in the shed. Switching cameras, Zhang Shiyi saw Xia Qing carrying the sheep on her back and leading the ox, ambling homeward…

After getting home, Xia Qing tied the little yellow ox in the sheep shed, went inside and fed Sheep Boss a cucumber to cheer it up, then rested in the house for half an hour herself before heading to the lab's artificial climate cultivation room to check on the growth of the spinach, strawberries, and other seedlings.

After confirming Zhang Han had been driven off, Xia Qing moved the Yi-element spinach she had hidden inside the rack building back to the artificial climate cultivation room, hoping they could successfully bolt and set seed in the temperature-controlled cultivation room.

Xia Qing examined and tested the microbial community, humidity, and fertilizer levels in each pot of soil with extra care—especially that one spinach plant she had transplanted alone into a large flowerpot, whose Yi-element content reached 8.1‰. If this spinach could successfully set seed and once again produce a cultivable optimized strain, then the Yi-element content of the next generation of spinach seeds would very likely exceed 8.5!

The prerequisite was that this spinach was a female plant.

Spinach is a dioecious plant. Even though Xia Qing had been growing spinach for two years, it was still very difficult to accurately determine a spinach plant's sex from its growth characteristics before flowering. So, after testing and confirming this plant's quality, Xia Qing pinched off a tender leaf and took it to Territory Seven, where she used a test kit to extract the plant's genomic DNA and confirmed the spinach's sex.

Female!

After confirming the plant's sex, Xia Qing carefully cultivated it for nearly three months. By the middle of next month, this spinach would bolt, flower, and set seed.

By then, the dung from that giant bee with a Yi-element content as high as 9.1 would also have finished fermenting. Xia Qing decided to dilute half of the giant bee dung into liquid fertilizer, add a small amount of high-grade Yi-stone chips, and apply it precisely to this spinach. According to growth patterns, this fertilization could no longer improve this spinach's quality—Xia Qing was fertilizing it to gamble on that 1% chance in its seeds.

The 1% anomaly is a widely confirmed rule following Blue Star plant evolution: 99% of a plant's seeds match the mother plant's quality, while 1% differ. This 1% might be a cultivable optimized strain clearly superior to the mother plant, a general optimized strain only slightly higher than the mother plant, or a deteriorated strain of lower quality than the mother plant.

The probability of these three types of anomalous seeds appearing is random—there is no pattern to speak of.

Xia Qing had used the best fertilizer she had stockpiled on this spinach. If it was a female plant, and it bolted, flowered, and set seed, and could produce a cultivable optimized strain, then Xia Qing's gamble would have paid off.

What if it failed? Then it failed—next batch, she'd gamble again.

She still had Yi-stone on hand. The giant hornet in the chestnut grove mountain crevice that had been infected with soil anaerobic bacteria had already been saved by her idol and had now entered semi-hibernation. If it survived this winter, it could continue producing dung next year; if it didn't, she'd keep looking for high-quality fertilizer.

Keep trying, and the day of success would come eventually.

After finishing her work, Xia Qing pulled up two toon seedlings and left the lab, feeding them to Sheep Boss, who had been waiting eagerly at the lab door.

Most of the seeds produced by the Green Lantern big toon tree this year had been sent by Xia Qing to Territory Seven for her idol to use in research. A small portion she had kept to sprout as toon seedlings for eating—this was Sheep Boss's very favorite food.

After getting the toon seedlings, Sheep Boss happily carried the basket and went with Xia Qing to haul the already machine-chopped dry hay by the greenhouse, filling the cold-protection trenches outside the greenhouse and hothouse.

Wolf Lao Er, who had retreated to the buffer forest because Zhang Shiyi and Ye Yiyi were staying in the territory, also joined the work crew, using its claws to rake the chopped grass into the cold-protection trenches.