Chapter 18: Feng Wen's Crying

Xia Qing helplessly scratched at her short hair. "Boss Sheep, eating grass should be your specialty, right?"

"Clip-clop, clip-clop."

Hearing Boss Sheep moving, Xia Qing turned her head and saw it heading straight for the chair she'd just finished. She rushed over and lifted the chair up. "Don't—this really can't take one kick from you. I barely managed to finish it."

Seeing Boss Sheep tilt its head up and stare fixedly at the bamboo chair, Xia Qing suddenly got what it wanted. "You want one too? Sure, there's plenty of bamboo. I'll make one for you right now."

Xia Qing carried the bamboo chair to the tool room north of the kitchen to look through materials and tools.

From the outside, this little building looked like it had three rooms per floor, but it actually had five. The east and west rooms were divided into north and south sections, and the two north rooms both had back windows, so the lighting was decent.

The southwest room on the first floor was the kitchen, and the northeast rooms on the first and second floors were both restrooms and bathrooms. Xia Qing used the northwest room—the one north of the kitchen—as the tool room, where she kept all sorts of tools she'd brought out of the safe zone, along with useful supplies she'd gathered in her territory these past few days.

Because she planned to make new furniture, she'd cut plenty of bamboo.

Xia Qing carried out a few bamboo poles, and after a round of sawing and drilling, she made Boss Sheep a legless tatami bamboo plank bed. She set it where it usually lay and sat on it herself to test it. "This one's yours. Lying on it won't be cold or damp. Boss, come try it out?"

Boss Sheep seemed to understand it was for it. It squinted at the tatami for a while before stepping onto it, lying down on the side far from Xia Qing.

Xia Qing wanted to scoot over and pet the sheep, but she was afraid of making it angry and having it wreck the house. So she went back to the tool room and hauled out a big bundle of thin, long grass that was half-dried, and started weaving a seat cushion. After the disaster, living supplies were scarce, and most people had been forced to learn to make this kind of household item that didn't require spending points to exchange for.

Xia Qing quickly wove a round seat cushion and placed it on the tatami, but when she went to get the book on raising sheep, she found Boss Sheep had already claimed the cushion.

It squinted and pressed a hoof on the cushion, as if daring anyone to defy it—ready to throw down on the spot to settle who was boss.

Xia Qing...

"Such a tiny cushion, don't you find it uncomfortable?"

"Fine, I'll make you one too."

Xia Qing put the book back, hauled out two more bundles of grass, and quickly wove a rough grass mat to spread over the bamboo tatami. Sure enough, Boss Sheep claimed the grass mat and stopped fighting her for the cushion.

Xia Qing sat on the cushion, listened to the rain for a while as she read, and her stomach started growling—it was time for lunch. She'd had no gains today, so Xia Qing couldn't bear to eat rice or noodles. She only took out two compressed rations and washed them down with hot water.

She'd only eaten real meals for two days, and Xia Qing already felt the compressed rations scratch her throat. But she didn't waste a bit—even the crumbs went into her mouth. After gulping down several mouthfuls of warm spring water to wash it down, she noticed Boss Sheep had walked up to her and was sniffing with its nose raised.

It stood there, its sheep head higher than Xia Qing sitting on the little bamboo chair. Xia Qing didn't want to be looked down on by a sheep, so she dragged her chair back a bit. "You're full too?"

Boss Sheep raised its nose and sniffed again, bringing its head close to Xia Qing's hand.

Xia Qing laughed. "You like the taste of compressed rations?"

Thinking about it, it made sense. The disaster had caused Blue Star's agricultural system to collapse. Now, whether leaves or grass roots, as long as it was an edible organism, humans would process it into food. Most of the compressed rations were made of plant roots, stems, and leaves, plus a bit of the salt humans needed. Of course a sheep would like it.

Xia Qing went to the kitchen and chopped up a handful of evolved perilla, then opened a sealed compressed ration, crumbled it into the grass, and brought it to Boss Sheep. "Eat up, this is your concentrate."

Boss Sheep lowered its head and sniffed, then started eating big mouthfuls as expected.

Watching it eat so eagerly, a brilliant idea suddenly popped into Xia Qing's head. "Eat my rations and you have to work for me. Once the rain stops, you'll pull the plow and till the fields."

After licking its food bowl clean, Boss Sheep ran to the sheep pen and drank a few mouthfuls of water, then came back and lay down on the grass mat. The distance between it and Xia Qing was a tiny bit closer than before it had eaten the rations.

Xia Qing found the tatami quite comfortable, so she simply flipped over and kept reading about how to raise sheep. After flipping through the book once, Xia Qing turned her head and found Boss Sheep had already closed its eyes and fallen asleep.

Her hands itched to pet the sheep, but the moment she reached out and touched its wool, Boss Sheep jumped up, which startled Xia Qing too. Human and sheep stared at each other for a moment. Xia Qing didn't want to argue with a sheep, so she backed down first. "The rain stopped. Want to go out and look around?"

After saying that, Xia Qing put on her protective suit on her own and went outside. She found the grass in the yard had only grown to ankle height, clearly growing much slower than last night. That was because this morning's rain had a lower qiang element content than last night's.

That was a good thing.

Xia Qing went to the west courtyard to check on the transplanted ginger and garlic. Because she was afraid some grass might have thorns, be poisonous, or have evolved animal-like traits that could entangle her or bite her, she had to figure out the path while clearing these annoying grasses as she walked. A distance of just a few dozen steps took her over ten minutes.

Although they hadn't been directly drenched by the rain, during last night's red-level qiang rain, the qiang element content in the air had spiked dramatically, which could also trigger biological qiang evolution. Xia Qing pulled back the rainproof cloth and, sure enough, found one ginger plant and two garlic plants had undergone qiang evolution—not only had they grown much taller, but the color and shape of their leaves had changed too. Xia Qing pulled out the qiang-evolved seedlings. Rather than being disappointed, she was quite happy, because after two rounds of qiang rain, most of the ginger and garlic had actually survived.

After covering the rainproof cloth back up, she casually cleared the qiang-evolved grass in the west courtyard, not giving it a chance to evolve dangerous attack power. But before she could finish clearing, the rain started again, and Xia Qing had to head back inside and keep holing up.

The rain came and went for three days—one red highest-danger-level, two orange-level, one yellow-level, and the rest blue-level. After three days of qiang rain, Xia Qing's territory was completely covered in plants. The best situation was in the yard and paths she'd repeatedly cleared, where the grass only reached calf height; in places she hadn't cleared, the grass had grown over two meters tall, completely swallowing Xia Qing up.

After the sun came out, the qiang element content in the air dropped while the yi element content rose. Correspondingly, qiang-evolved organisms' growth slowed, which was favorable for the growth and activity of yi-evolved organisms.

Bathed in warm sunlight, Xia Qing patted the only spot of white among the boundless, multicolored qiang-evolved plants—Boss Sheep—and felt her spirits lift. "Boss, let's get to work."

Using compressed rations as bait, Xia Qing finally got to touch the sheep's wool—the thing that made her happiest during the three days of qiang rain. "Let's go! First we'll clear a path. We need to fetch water and pick perilla and Chinese toon buds."

Post-rain mushrooms? Xia Qing wasn't ready to be poisoned to death yet.

Boss Sheep clearly had no interest in putting its dry hooves into the wet, soft grass. It stood under the front porch and didn't move. Xia Qing, wearing her protective suit, didn't force it—she didn't have that kind of ability either. "Once sis has points to spare, I'll exchange for a protective suit made from an evolved dog for you; and when I'm even richer, I'll custom-order one in sheep style."

Xia Qing strapped on a sprayer, hooked a sickle and a machete to her belt, and set out.

The yard had already been cleared six or seven times back and forth, so there wasn't much danger, but once she stepped outside the yard, it was hard to say. Because the grass was so tall it blocked her vision, Xia Qing relied entirely on her evolved, excellent hearing to detect the slightest movements within two hundred meters. She sprayed insecticide while pulling grass, and before she'd even left the village, she got a call from Zhong Tao.

After picking up, before Xia Qing could hear Zhong Tao speak, a sharp cry came through.

That voice was all too familiar to Xia Qing—it was Feng Wen, who'd lived in the same dorm as her for over four years.

Feng Wen crying like this—was it because her brother Feng Teng had gotten into trouble, or because something had happened to Yang Jin, the captain of the Azure Dragon team she liked?