Chapter 206: Soybean and Pig Trotter Soup

After arriving at the abandoned cave entrance in Valley Three, she didn't even need to call out—the injured wolf with the hurt waist slowly shuffled out of the cave on its own. Its injuries had clearly improved, which made Xia Qing very happy. Once this wolf's wounds healed too, she wouldn't have to keep bringing it medicine.

At this stage, the injured wolf only needed oral medication—five milliliters a day, mixed into spring water for it to drink. Xia Qing mixed the medicine with spring water and pushed it in front of the injured wolf. "It's all yours. Drink it all."

After the injured wolf licked the basin clean, Xia Qing poured in another basin more than half full of spring water and stepped aside. Only one black wolf had come out of the cave to drink—this was the fewest number of wolves left behind to guard since the injured wolf had moved into the cave.

After the black wolf came over to drink, just as Xia Qing was about to pick up the basin, she heard the sound of something heavy being dragged in the distance—probably a wolf carrying prey back.

Today, Xia Qing hadn't yet received any prey the pack had sent for the sick wolf. She leaned against the wall and waited patiently.

Half a minute later, the broken-legged wolf appeared at the mouth of Valley One with a wild boar half-grown in size clamped in its jaws, and walked into the Wild Boar Breeding Center. The boar it was carrying weighed at least a hundred jin—no wonder it made such a racket.

The broken-legged wolf dragging the boar spotted Xia Qing, immediately raised its head to hold the boar high, ran quickly to the cave entrance, and stood there with its head lifted, staring fiercely at Xia Qing.

Showing off. This is absolutely showing off!

Still, being able to hunt a boar this big really does earn the right to show off.

Xia Qing asked in a pleasant voice, "Is this prey for the sick wolf and me?"

The broken-legged wolf didn't put the boar down, staring at Xia Qing with its head raised, wildness brimming in its eyes.

Understood…

This idiot must have seen that every time she accepted prey, she first praised the lead wolf that delivered it before taking it, so it figured praise was the "ritual" for trading prey.

Xia Qing worked up her emotions, then softly and gently delivered her admiration. "Broken-Leg, I didn't expect that after you recovered, not only would your leaping be amazing, but your bite force would be this strong too—and you can even take down prey this big. I'm impressed, deeply impressed."

All the wild boars on Mountain Forty-Nine had been eaten by this pack, so for the broken-legged wolf to hunt a boar and carry it over, its bite force was pretty impressive.

Only after hearing the praise did the broken-legged wolf put the boar down, run off to drink its fill of spring water, and head into the cave without giving Xia Qing another glance. The brain-evolved wolf used a front paw to push the boar toward Xia Qing, signaling her to take it.

"Thank you." Delivering such a huge boar—the broken-legged wolf was really generous.

While sealing up the boar, Xia Qing chatted casually with the brain-evolved wolf. "The Queen isn't here—has she gone to look for herbs? The place where the herbs grow must be very dangerous. I hope the Queen returns safely…"

After sealing the boar, Xia Qing picked up the bag and gave the brain-evolved wolf her instructions. "I'm heading back to the territory. This boar is enough for three days, so you don't need to send prey for the next two days."

The green-light prey was far more important than checking on the red squirrel's movements, so Xia Qing picked up the sealed bag and hurried back to the territory.

Why carry it in a bag? Because the boar was too big to fit in her small backpack. If she'd known the broken-legged wolf would be this generous, Xia Qing would definitely have brought a big pack when she came to deliver medicine.

After returning to the territory, Xia Qing divided the edible portions into three parts:

Half a side of pork, the pig's head, and most of the offal—forty jin in total—went to Territory Seven, paying off more than half of the seventy jin of green-light meat she owed Territory Seven in one go; half a side of ribs, half a pig heart, one pig liver, and one pig trotter went with Hu Zifeng back for Luo Pei to build up his body. The remaining portion Xia Qing kept for herself and the sick wolf to eat.

Half a pig heart and one pig liver were boiled until done and fed directly to the wolf; the ribs and meat were washed clean with spring water, sealed, and stored in the underground storage room of the storeroom.

To preserve the potatoes, Xia Qing had set the temperature of this storage room to four degrees, and with the added protection of the Yi Stone, this storage room matched the conditions of an ordinary household refrigerator's cold compartment from before the Catastrophe.

Sealed and stored in the grain storage room, the ribs and meat would keep for three days without spoiling.

After returning to the kitchen, Xia Qing cleaned the last remaining pig trotter, chopped it into small pieces, put it into a clay pot together with uncontaminated spring water, ginger, and scallions, brought it to a rolling boil over high heat, then simmered it on low.

She watched the bubbling, steaming water for a few seconds, then picked up the recipe book on the shelf and flipped through it, before going down to the storage room beneath the tool room to grab a small handful of yellow-light soybeans, washing them clean and adding them to the clay pot.

With the soybeans added, this pot of soup was now soybean and pig trotter soup. Though Xia Qing couldn't guarantee that once the trotter was stewed tender, she'd actually be able to bite through the soybeans.

In spring, Xia Qing had discovered a total of twenty-five yellow-light soybean seedlings within her territory. During the second Calamity Rain, three underwent Calamity evolution; the remaining twenty-two plants flowered successfully and grew pods.

Wild edible plants all have their own ways of protecting themselves. Xia Qing waited until the pods turned from fuzzy green to brownish-yellow and the soybean plants' leaves began to yellow and fall, then after several cautious tests confirmed the soybeans had no aggressive properties, she finally began harvesting them.

After pulling up the soybean plants and picking the pods without incident, she dried them for three days—and none of the pods split open or burst on their own. The moment Xia Qing handled them, she was stunned. These damn pods looked perfectly normal, yet they were hard as iron. Xia Qing, a Level Six strength evolver, couldn't crush the pods open by hand to shell out the beans.

Xia Qing had gone on plenty of collection missions outside the Safe Zone with her squad before, but in the ten years since the Catastrophe, this was her first time encountering pods this hard. It took her a good while with a knife and a hammer before she finally shelled the soybeans out.

No wonder these evolved soybeans had survived all the way to the tenth year of the Catastrophe—at this hardness, any non-rodent evolved animal wouldn't even be able to chip a tooth mark on the beans.

The pods from the twenty-two soybean plants yielded a total of one and a half jin of soybeans. Xia Qing had originally planned to save all of them as seed, but the day before yesterday she got a big piece of news from Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui, and changed her mind.

The Lord Management Department of Hui Three Base had made the agricultural trade fair format innovative, optimized, and regular. Every lord could report their specialty products and needs to the patrol车队; if two lords' needs matched up, they could carry out a trade.

On the list Zhong Tao had compiled, Xia Qing noticed a lord wanted to trade four jin of yellow-light soybeans for seven jin of green-light mung beans. On the surface, this was an unreasonable trade, so there was no checkmark next to it—meaning no one had agreed to trade with this lord yet.

But in Xia Qing's view, this trade was perfectly reasonable. When she went outside the Safe Zone, she took six jin of yellow-light mung bean seeds, which sprouted into twenty-seven green-light mung bean seedlings; in early June she harvested one jin of green-light mung beans. In late June, Xia Qing planted half a jin of green-light mung beans.

This time, Xia Qing had planting experience and the cultivation techniques Zhang San had given her, so the mung beans' germination rate was higher than the first time, and they were growing well too. If the mung beans could safely get through the third Calamity Rain, she'd harvest at least a hundred jin of green-light mung beans. Xia Qing was very willing to put up seven jin in exchange for four jin of yellow-light soybeans.

Yesterday, Zhong Tao messaged her saying that lord had agreed to wait until Xia Qing harvested her green-light mung beans before making the trade.

So, with green-light and yellow-light seeds in hand, Xia Qing decided to taste what the iron-hard soybeans grown in her territory actually tasted like.