Chapter 1599: Must Become Stronger

Having failed to shake off the mission—and not even managed to snag a single dragon fruit—Xia Qing was chased out of the lab by her idol. She closed the door, turned around, and walked down the bright white corridor with steady steps and a blank expression.

Zhang Jingwu in the monitoring room watched through the camera screen as Xia Qing's bruised face came into view. Luo Weiyi, a member of the Red Eleven special ops team beside him, sucked in a breath. "Yanlong trains Xia Qing this hard—could it be that she's taken a liking to her and wants to recruit her into the Jiaolong special ops team?"

"Impossible!" Xie Hang, the technical soldier handling monitoring beside Zhang Jingwu, said firmly. "Xia Qing is our Hui-3 Base's top sniper, a Lord, and a mid-level cadre. Her roots are here—she'd never follow Yanlong off to fight sea beasts."

Luo Weiyi also thought it was unlikely. "Then why is she going this hard? Xia Qing is a Lord—her main job is farming. Even when she goes on missions, she's the long-range sniper. It's not like she's competing in close combat."

Zhang Jingwu spoke up. "There's no harm in improving her close-combat ability."

"That's true…" Luo Weiyi's voice dropped. Everyone wanted to get stronger, but the price was too high. Given Xia Qing's current ability and status, she had absolutely no reason to put herself through this. But she did it anyway—serves her right that her life keeps getting better. "Her ankle must be injured—otherwise she wouldn't be walking this slowly."

In the corridor, Xia Qing, moving a little slower than usual, raised her hand and took the one-way-transparent protective mask from her waist. Just as she was about to put it on her head, she saw the door to Zhang Song's office open.

From Xia Qing's eyes and movements, Zhang Song deduced that Zhang San had assigned her another task she didn't want to do, and immediately asked eagerly, "Sister Qing, heading back to the territory?"

A mission Xia Qing didn't like—he loved it! He could do it for her!

Looking at the eager Zhang Song, Xia Qing's expression softened a little. "Mm."

Xia Qing's attitude told Zhang Song that the task Zhang San had assigned could only be done by Xia Qing herself. Knowing when to quit while he was ahead, he said, "Alright, take care on your way, Sister Qing."

Xia Qing nodded, put on the protective mask, and walked out of the lab building. Leaving Territory Seven and sitting in her battered-looking off-road vehicle, the pain all over her body intensified.

The pain in her left ankle could be ignored—the main issues were her head and her fingers, which made it impossible to do fine work like typing.

If it were any other task, Xia Qing would definitely have tossed it to Zhang Song. But the matter involving Zhang Shi and Ye Yiyi—the fewer people who knew, the better—so Xia Qing couldn't let Zhang Song help.

Not only couldn't she ask Zhang Song, she couldn't ask Broken-Waist Wolf to write it for her either, because her idol didn't allow it…

Xia Qing sighed, started the car, and drove back for over a kilometer. Seeing Hearing Zhu Li walk out from under the Territory Six road sign, she raised her hand to peel off the one-way-transparent film of her protective mask and stopped the car.

"Sister Qing, finished talking work with Third Brother?" Hearing Zhu Li saw the injuries on Xia Qing's face and, her eyes full of admiration, handed over a handwritten data sheet. "This is the soil microbial activity test report for the territories in our Northern Zone One over the past ten days. Compared with last year's data from Territory One for the same period and our territory's data for the same period last month, the activity of thirteen anaerobic bacteria that affect planting has clearly increased."

At this time last year, the Soil Research Institute of the Territory Management Department hadn't been established yet, so the only comparison available was the test data recorded by technicians within Territory One.

Xia Qing took the sheet and skimmed through it quickly. "My territory's situation is about the same."

Hearing Zhu Li stated the reason she'd stopped Xia Qing. "Sister Qing, the technicians from our department and the fertilizer plant worked together to improve the organic fertilizer formula, but the fertilizer plant's technical conditions are limited—they can't quickly produce the new fertilizer in the short term to put into trials. Sister Tao said this isn't something she can decide on, so she told me to come straight to you."

There are four rice varieties the territory plans to plant next year: H-12 bred by Hui-3 Base, J-2 bred by Territory Seven, LD-8 from the Blaze Battle Team, and WD-6 from Hui-9. After trial planting by the Soil Research Institute, all four varieties were found to perform poorly against the evolved soil anaerobic bacteria.

After meetings and research, the Territory Alliance decided on a two-pronged approach: breeding and fertilization research would advance simultaneously. Breeding was the responsibility of Zhang Tao from Territory Seven, Yuan Yan from Territory Five, and Shi Mu from Territory Ten. Fertilizer ratio research was jointly advanced by the Organic Fertilizer Plant and the Soil Research Department.

Recently, the new-type evolved plant Broken-Waist Wolf brought back from the Evolution Forest performed excellently against both the evolved soil anaerobic bacteria and excess 'Qiang' elements. After studying the plant samples, both teams gained inspiration.

To use Territory Seven's equipment, Zhang San's approval was required.

Zhang Tao's team hadn't made much progress recently, and Zhang San was in a foul mood because an inspection tour was coming. Going to him now to request the use of the most advanced instruments and equipment for fermenting fertilizer—anyone who went would get a scolding. From experience, everyone knew that if someone else went, they'd get scolded and might still not get approval; if Xia Qing went, she'd get scolded but would definitely get approval.

Xia Qing nodded. "Make an electronic spreadsheet today, listing in detail the equipment you need to borrow, the purpose, the time and location of use, whether you need to borrow researchers, the types of consumables, and so on. Send it to me, and I'll take it to Third Brother this afternoon."

Hearing Zhu Li's now slightly rounder little face broke into a happy smile. "Got it, I'll list it right away and send it to you before noon. Thank you, Sister Qing."

Xia Qing's voice was gentle. "No need to be so polite. You're working to solve the bottleneck problems in farming for everyone—it's hard work."

"It's not hard, it's what we should do! Sister Qing, hurry back and rest a bit." To have this kind of opportunity, what's a little hardship?

Compared with the life over two years ago, when she was huddled in the storeroom of a little shop in the outer city of the Safe Zone, not even daring to step outside, Hearing Zhu Li felt that life now was so good it felt like a dream.

Besides, Xia Qing, who was countless times stronger than her, was still getting her face battered every day trying to become stronger. Hearing Zhu Li's little bit of hardship wasn't even worth a fart.

Hearing Zhu Li was desperate to get stronger, because if she didn't, she wouldn't be able to keep up with Xia Qing's pace and would gradually become a marginalized member of the Territory Alliance.

Xia Qing walked forward a stretch, listened to the difficulties Qi Fu and Yuan Yan were currently facing, then went further and took Zhao Ze's hand-drawn construction blueprints. Then, with Tang Huai—who had come over on his own initiative to help Center Nine clear Territory Two—actively helping, she unlocked the door and returned to her own territory.

Xia Qing handed the sheet Hearing Zhu Li had given her to Broken-Waist Wolf, who was in the middle of soil testing. "Broken-Waist, this is the soil test data from the other territories in our Northern Zone One. The last three columns are last year's test data from Territory One. Compare and analyze our territory's data against theirs."

Broken-Waist Wolf, wearing rubber gloves, a white lab coat, and a mask, happily took the sheet. The moment he saw the handwriting on it, his expression immediately turned serious.

Xia Qing understood what this guy was concerned about. "The human who wrote this sheet is… alright, I'll talk to Hearing Zhu Li later and tell her that any sheets submitted to you from now on must be in electronic format…"

After assigning Broken-Waist Wolf his task, Xia Qing first made a round of the greenhouses, then cleaned her two-story little house from top to bottom, threw the dirty clothes into the washing machine, and only when she truly couldn't find anything else to do did she sit down at the desk, open her laptop, and begin writing the treatment plan.

This plan had to be written carefully—otherwise her idol would kick her out and make her rewrite it. Want to borrow equipment from the Soil Research Department? Not a chance!