Chapter 153: Heaven-Defying Luck

Water caltrop is a food that can serve as a staple; after the squad finished packing their supplies, they immediately headed over to check.

Without confirming whether the plants were aggressive, no one dared to make a move directly.

"Scout the underwater situation," Beard Feng ordered.

The squad's auditory, visual, and olfactory evolvers immediately began scouting.

"There's a fishy stench, suspected to be large animals or a large gathering of animals underwater."

"There are dense sounds underwater, it shouldn't be large animals."

"Plants are blocking the view, can't observe."

From this, it could be preliminarily determined that small animals had gathered beneath the water caltrop plants. Beard Feng ordered, "Check the protective suits again, confirm no damage, no exposed skin, and that the protective mask filters are usable."

Xia Qing immediately began checking, confirming her protective suit had no problems.

Beard Feng continued to give orders, "Chen Cheng, Chen Zheng, Jing Kuan, use the nets to scoop up the water caltrops from below; Xia Qing, Eryong, Peng Jian hold off the first wave of attack; Liangzi, Dajiang the second wave. Begin!"

Hearing the order, Xia Qing stepped forward while Shi Du retreated behind Beard Feng. Chen Zheng's trio cast their nets to scoop up the water caltrop plants.

The moment the nets went down, the calm water surface exploded—countless water arrows shot out in all directions from the roots of the water caltrops. This kind of attack method was all too familiar to everyone.

Beard Feng ordered, "They're evolved apple snails, pull the nets back and let them go."

Evolved apple snails are non-toxic; their attack method is spraying water arrows that can damage animals' eyes. Evolved apple snails reproduce very quickly; wherever they gather, large numbers of waterfowl and amphibious animals will also gather—no wonder there were so many waterfowl here.

After shaking off the evolved apple snails, water snakes, and leeches, the aquatic plants were hauled to the shore. Shi Du immediately picked up the plant with fan-shaped leaves and happily showed everyone the pale purplish-red, curved ox-horn-shaped fruit growing on its roots. "It really is water caltrop, but they're not ripe yet."

Xia Qing suggested, "How about we pick out the edible ones and bring them back to raise in the territory's weir pond?"

"That works."

There was still time now, so Beard Feng arranged the squad members into groups: one team was responsible for cleaning the evolved apple snails and other animals out of the water caltrop plants, then carrying the plants to shore; one team was responsible for testing the plants' harmful element content; one team was responsible for standing guard.

After working for over an hour, they tested out thirty green-light water caltrops and eighty-six yellow-light water caltrops—a very pleasing harvest. They took the edible ones with them and threw the inedible ones back into the pond to let them continue growing.

Peng Jian, the visual evolver who had gone to scout the surroundings, returned to report, "Eight hundred meters to the west in the swamp, there's another patch of water caltrops, about the same area as here."

Shi Du was so happy he almost jumped up, "Captain Hu, let's come back again tomorrow?"

"Sure." That patch was also added to the cleanup scope. Beard Feng went back to claim the cleanup mission—earning points while also gathering edible plants, killing two birds with one stone.

The mission squad, laden with harvest, packed up and headed back. Strength evolvers Xia Qing and Shi Du were responsible for carrying the packs, while the others provided protection.

The hunted venomous snakes, pythons, venomous spiders, muskrats, leeches, and so on weighed over seven hundred jin in total. Shi Du carried three hundred jin, Xia Qing carried over four hundred jin, protected by the other squad members in the middle of the formation.

Shi Du exclaimed in amazement, "Sister Qing, you must be level five by now, right?"

Level-six strength evolver Xia Qing answered quietly, "I haven't tested since leaving the safe zone, but I think it's about right."

Beard Feng, carrying a bag of geese, silently thought to himself: Not "about right"—level-five strength evolver Guan Tong is far inferior to your Sister Qing.

Guan Tong was a level-five strength evolver; Xia Qing being about the same as him would also make her level five, and one more evolution past level five would be level six. Level six belonged to the high-level evolvers; high-level evolvers not only enjoyed better treatment, their bodily functions and lifespan would also improve. Xia Qing was only twenty-five this year, she still had ten years to raise her evolution ability.

Shi Du was happy for Xia Qing, "Sister Qing, eat more green-light food, you'll definitely trade up to a gold badge sooner or later."

Ordinary people wore yellow identity badges, regular evolvers wore green identity badges, high-level evolvers wore gold identity badges.

Xia Qing nodded, "You should also eat more green-light food and train more, you'll definitely improve too."

Shi Du nodded vigorously, then asked about the damage to Xia Qing's territory in this natural disaster.

Xia Qing's main purpose in taking the mission today was to ask how Territory Ten had dealt with the hailstorm. Since Shi Du brought it up first, she took the opportunity to ask, "The hail came too suddenly; even though Captain Hu and the others helped, I still couldn't cover all the greenhouses, and the pumpkin seedlings were smashed. How about you?"

Shi Du answered, "My dad got up early, saw the weather was off, and called me and my mom up to pull the rainproof cloth over things, so the crops weren't hit by the hail."

Hearing Shi Du say "pull" rather than "cover" the rainproof cloth, Xia Qing asked, "Your greenhouse rainproof cloth has been set up on the frames and never taken down?"

Shi Du explained, "When it's not raining, we pull all the rainproof cloth up to the top of the frames and cover it with sunshade netting."

As expected, there was a trick to it!

Xia Qing proposed an exchange, "Shi Du, when you go back, can you ask your dad if I can learn your technique for pulling the rainproof cloth in and out? If it's okay, help me film a video, and I'll trade you five jin of wheat for it."

Although Shi Du explained it simply, there was still insect netting on the frames, so quickly pulling the rainproof cloth in and out must involve a unique design—Xia Qing really needed this technique.

"What are you saying, Sister Qing, it's not patented technology, why would we need to trade! I'll go back and film it for you right away." Shi Du thought Xia Qing was great in every way, except that she was too polite and distant with everyone.

"Alright, sorry to trouble you." Xia Qing agreed, then asked about the damage to Territory One from the hailstorm.

Chen Cheng, walking beside her, answered, "We have a lot of people, most of the land we've cleared hasn't been planted yet, so there was almost no damage."

The group chatted as they walked; after over an hour they reached the exit of Mountain Forty-Nine, where they distributed the supplies harvested from this mission, then disbanded.

In front of Xia Qing and Shi Du, Beard Feng tested the fifteen goslings they had captured. Unexpectedly, there were eight green-light, four yellow-light, and three red-light ones.

"This is absolutely heaven-defying!" Chen Cheng was stunned.

Dajiang couldn't help sighing too, "We've been clearing evolved forests for so many years, this is the first time the animal green-light rate has been this high."

"Captain, let's not clear the swamp tomorrow, let's go all-out catching geese?" The team members chattered away.

Beard Feng took off his protective gear, revealing a smile like a proud old father; he could already picture himself carrying the green-light geese back, with little kittens acting cute and clingy toward him.

Green-light animals that could be eaten and bred—who could resist? Beard Feng asked Xia Qing and Shi Du, "Tomorrow we prepare thoroughly and set out an hour earlier?"

"Sure."

"Okay."

Shi Du and Xia Qing naturally agreed.

Next came distributing today's harvested supplies.

"Based on this mission's contribution, Xia Qing counts as one combat power, Shi Du counts as half, I'm the captain so I count as one and a half. Everyone report today's weapon consumption."

Everyone began reporting their weapon consumption.

Xia Qing reported, "Xia Qing, sixty sniper rounds, hit fifty-two evolved animals."

That hit rate was quite impressive; Shi Du gave Xia Qing a thumbs-up.

He could tell Xia Qing's gun was the same as Luo Pei's, it must have been traded for with the Green Dragon Squad. He also wanted to save up points to trade for a gun, learn shooting to improve his combat power, and catch up to Xia Qing's pace.

After Beard Feng finished recording, he began distributing today's edible animals and plants: Xia Qing got one green, one yellow, one red goose—three in total—and three green, eight yellow water caltrops—eleven plants in total; Shi Du got one yellow, one red goose—two in total—and one green, four yellow water caltrops—five plants in total; the rest went to Beard Feng's squad, and how they distributed it internally had nothing to do with Xia Qing and Shi Du.

Beard Feng closed his little notebook and said, "We'll go back and process today's prey harvested from the swamp, and calculate your points tomorrow. Tomorrow morning at eight, we meet here again."

Beard Feng's squad returned to Territory One, and Xia Qing and Shi Du took their share of the spoils and headed back to their respective territories.

When they reached the Territory Three signpost, Xia Qing gave Shi Du one green and five yellow edible water caltrop plants. "I'm on my own, I can't eat that much."

Shi Du understood Xia Qing was trading the water caltrops for his rainproof-canvas rigging technique. Seeing her expression that clearly said, "If you refuse, I'll beat you until you take them," he obediently accepted.

After Xia Qing entered Territory Three and Shi Du headed east, Zhou Xun, who had been tailing them inside Territory Two, quietly pleaded with Tang Huai, "Boss, let's go to the Evolution Forest and try our luck too?"

Hearing that Beard Feng's team had come back with eight Green Lantern Geese after just one trip, Tang Huai was of course tempted. "Let's head to Mountain Fifty tomorrow and try our luck."