Chapter 198: Herbs

Zhang San lazily yawned, "The aquatic kind is for detoxifying Luo Pei, the terrestrial kind is for regulating the sick wolf's gut. One herb plant with roots and leaves is ten thousand points. I'm not in a hurry—take your time looking."

For Brother Luo and the sick wolf? Xia Qing replied solemnly, "I will definitely work hard to make the wolf pack understand the importance of these two kinds of grass, so they can go search as soon as possible. Does Third Brother have these two herbs? Dried ones are fine too—let the wolf pack sniff them, and they should be able to find them faster."

If I had them, would I still need to look? Zhang San replied weakly, "I only have pictures."

Xia Qing understood and moved on to the next trade. "Third Brother, if the wolf pack can find more than six herbs, can I trade the extras with you for the interior wall panels of the physical storage room? Or, once the green-light meat the wolf pack delivers exceeds seventy jin, I'll trade it with you using green-light meat."

Zhang San nodded, "Ten plants. If they're fresh with roots and can be planted alive, five. I don't want green-light python meat."

The interior wall panels cost a hundred thousand points to make? That's quite expensive. But panels that can reduce energy consumption and improve storage room security are indeed worth that price.

"Alright, thank you, Third Brother. Green-light python meat really isn't tasty—I'll keep it for myself." Xia Qing carefully packed up the medicine bottles and asked, "Can I take the interior wall panels back and install them first?"

"Sure, talk to Ji Li." Since Zhang San had agreed to the trade, he wasn't worried about Xia Qing welching on the deal.

As she prepared to take her leave, watching her idol yawn, Xia Qing felt a pang in her heart. Why? Because her idol in the white coat was barely looking human anymore.

If she changed his skin color and stuck a big syringe in his hand, he could cosplay the zombie doctor from Plants vs. Zombies.

Once her idol becomes a zombie, who will she trade supplies with? Xia Qing searched through all the food in her territory and actually found something presentable. "Third Brother, I went to Evolution Forest on a mission a while back and got a green-light water chestnut. It can be boiled and eaten now—shall I bring it over later?"

Zhang San wasn't very interested. "Water chestnuts aren't tasty. Anything else?"

Xia Qing...

Being picky about green-light food—no wonder her idol has gotten this thin.

Carrying the three wolves out of the operating room with Yan Long, Xia Qing glanced at the standardized greenhouse full of plants in Territory Seven and suspected Zhang San had anorexia. Otherwise, surrounded by so many vegetables and meat, how could he have gotten so skinny?

Returning to the abandoned cave entrance and setting down the wooden boards, Yan Long asked, "That head wolf missing a chunk of ear—is it a brain-domain evolver?"

The head wolf was currently standing at the top of the cave, staring in their direction. Xia Qing didn't dare call it "the one missing an ear," afraid the head wolf would pounce over and give her a swipe. "It's very smart—probably."

Yan Long continued, "What Lord Zhang gave you is a picture book used by humans to train evolved beasts to find plants. Show it to that wolf—it can understand."

Although Yan Long's voice was very calm, Xia Qing still sensed urgency in her words. Perhaps Yan Long had come out to help carry the wolves this time precisely because she hoped Xia Qing would help search for the herbs.

It seemed Yan Long and Luo Pei had a good relationship—perhaps the two of them had once been comrades who fought together.

After Yan Long left, Xia Qing finally pulled off the old bedsheet covering the wooden boards, revealing the three wolves lying in a neat row.

Xia Qing pulled the two hind legs of the broken-leg wolf, from which the splints had been removed. "My lord, the broken-leg wolf's hind legs have fully healed."

See? Bringing herbs and yi stones to trade with me was a very wise choice.

After the demonstration, Xia Qing lifted the broken-leg wolf aside, then pointed at the cylindrical protective gear on the brain-domain evolved injured wolf's waist, which was half its original length. "This wolf's injury is also improving, but it still needs to take medicine. Come back for a recheck in twenty days."

Then Xia Qing carefully picked up the broken-waist wolf and set it aside as well, before gently stroking the sick wolf's sunken belly and ribs that could be counted one by one. Her tone was heavy. "This wolf's digestive tract is damaged and needs at least three months of medication. Humans don't have this medicine—my lord will need to find it in Evolution Forest."

Xia Qing picked up the sick wolf and placed it beside the broken-waist wolf, then took out the pictures Zhang San had given her and a medicine bottle from her backpack, displaying them to the wolf pack standing not far away. "My lord, if you find these two herbs, you can trade them for medicine to treat the wolves."

After showing each picture, Xia Qing placed the medicine bottle beside the sick wolf's belly, then took out a box of pushpins obtained from Territory Seven and firmly pinned the pictures to the thick wooden board.

The board had two sides, each pinned with pictures of one plant in various forms. Then Xia Qing used two large stones to prop the board steadily inside the cave. "My lord, if you see these two herbs, dig them up—roots and all."

Finding a plant near the cave entrance that was about the same height at maturity as that terrestrial herb, Xia Qing dug it out of the soil and showed it to the head wolf. "Like this—with the roots. With your clever brain, my lord, you should be able to find them quickly, right?"

The head wolf glanced at the plant in Xia Qing's hand, then went to sniff the three companions lying on the ground under anesthesia. The other wolves were all play-fighting; only the brain-domain evolved injured wolf kept staring at the plant in Xia Qing's hand.

Xia Qing shifted her target and showed the plant to the brain-domain evolved injured wolf. "The two herbs on the board—dig them up with their roots. You can go look once you're better too, but you must be careful. Places where these herbs grow all have aggressive evolved beasts."

After the introduction, Xia Qing wrapped the sick wolf in the old bedsheet and picked it up. "My lord, I'm taking this sick wolf back to the territory. You must all be careful when searching for medicine."

The sick wolf's gut is weak—at this stage it can only eat cooked meat and can't stay in the cave to recover.

Xia Qing brought the sick wolf back to the territory, and Ram Boss came running over. Xia Qing stopped, pulled back the old bedsheet to reveal the sick wolf's head. "I brought your friend back—it can't move right now. You stay home and protect it. I'm going to the fields to work."

Farming—there was always endless work to do. Weak seedlings needed fertilizer, bugs needed killing, dry fields needed watering, and after watering came weeding and loosening the soil.

Last week, Ram Boss and Guan Tong had watered all the cultivated land and terraced fields once. Now, except for the tall cotton field and the spinach field Xia Qing tended carefully, a layer of small weeds had sprouted in all the other fields and needed to be removed as soon as possible.

Otherwise, in a few days, the weeds in the vegetable plots would swallow up the seedlings.

On the hillside of Territory Three there were twenty-five terraced fields, each about fifty square meters, totaling about 1.7 mu; in the cultivated land at the foot of the mountain there were five greenhouses, totaling five mu.

Xia Qing had been in the territory half a year. Excluding the few small sheds scattered in the cultivated land and Ram Boss's three plots of pasture grass, she had opened up a total of 6.7 mu of fields.

This land-reclamation figure, among Territories One through Ten—excluding Territory Eight which never interacted with anyone—ranked second to last. Last place was Territory Two, which didn't farm seriously and only liked digging for bugs.