Chapter 208: Peanuts Turn Dark

In mid-February, Xia Qing's territory left the Safe Zone, and in mid-March, after discovering peanut seedlings in the terraced fields on Gao Po, she treated them like treasures and tended them with great care.

The energy she poured into the peanuts was dozens of times more than what she gave to the twenty-plus soybean plants on the lower slope. Especially after those thirty-five Green Lantern peanut seedlings entered their flowering stage, Xia Qing not only watered, fertilized, loosened the soil, and weeded them, but also had to catch insects to feed the seedlings every day, hoping the peanuts would grow plentiful and large.

However, just like the soybean seedlings on the lower slope, these peanut seedlings were plant varieties that went undiscovered when the combat team cleared this territory last winter.

If that patch of soybeans was winter food gathered by small animals, later abandoned and sprouted because they couldn't gnaw through them, then could this patch of peanuts also be…

Really, that would be too vexing!

Seeing Xia Qing crouching in the shed without moving for a long while, Sheep Boss walked in from outside the shed, and Sick Wolf followed, wanting to see what was going on.

Surrounded by one sheep and one wolf, Xia Qing stared fixedly at the peanuts. "Boss, Wolf Lao Er, want some peanuts? How about we pull one up and try it?"

Whether they're edible can't be figured out by pondering—pull one up and taste it, and you'll know.

The peanut plants were very dangerous; Sheep Boss, a grazer, had zero interest in this kind of plant; Sick Wolf, a carnivore, also had no interest in these plants that Xia Qing had repeatedly and strictly forbidden it from approaching.

Though she got no response from her companions, Xia Qing still brought a shovel, picked a Yellow Lantern peanut plant farthest from the Green Lantern peanut plants, and started digging.

The leaves on the lower half of the peanut plant had already begun to yellow. Xia Qing had originally planned to harvest the peanuts at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, so digging up a few now for testing would either put her mind at ease or kill her hope.

Unlike the excitement when harvesting potatoes, Xia Qing dug this time full of trepidation, and very slowly. Even when she saw the peanut pods in the soil were no smaller than a thumb, she didn't feel excited.

After repeated probing, she confirmed that although this peanut plant had evolved some animal-like traits, when she rustled its fruits, it only trembled a few times and couldn't launch an attack like the Green Lantern peanut plants could. Reassured, Xia Qing reached out and plucked a peanut pod.

On Blue Star there was a riddle with peanuts as the answer, sung like this: Hemp house, red curtain, inside lives a white fatty.

After the Great Biological Evolution, Xia Qing had carried out many collection missions outside the Safe Zone, and never once collected peanuts in the Evolution Forest. So when she saw such a normal peanut pod again after ten years, her heart began to race once more.

She pinched the peanut pod and found that although it was much harder than pre-evolution peanut pods, its hardness was lower than that of the evolved iron soybean pods—Xia Qing could crack it open by hand, which excited her even more.

To be cautious, Xia Qing chose to use a knife to pry open the peanut pod.

After prying it open, Xia Qing's leaping little heart sank again.

After opening the evolved hemp house, inside were two peanut kernels, but the kernels weren't wearing red curtains—they were wearing black curtains.

The color of this black curtain was only a shade lighter than that Black Feather rooster. The Black Feather rooster was pure black, black and shiny; these evolved peanuts were purplish-black, with a moist sheen.

But no matter how moist, it was still black—Xia Qing teared up.

Sheep Boss watching didn't understand Xia Qing's complicated feelings. It lowered its head to sniff the peanut pod on the ground, ate it in one bite, then nudged Xia Qing with its big spiral-horned head, signaling her to dig faster.

Dig? Impossible.

After Xia Qing discovered that although these two kernels were a strange color, the "fatties" inside were white and the hardness was acceptable, she immediately filled the hole back in and let this Yellow Lantern peanut plant keep growing.

She brought the peanut kernels home and used a Yi Element Detector to test their elemental content.

Same as the test results for the Yellow Lantern peanut plant, this peanut kernel had a Yi Element content of 0.08%, a Qiang Element content of 0.8%, and the content of several other harmful substances wasn't high either, falling within the standard range for selectable plants.

Although they were black, they weren't poisonous peanuts. Xia Qing's suspended heart finally settled, and she popped the remaining peanut kernel into her mouth to taste it.

Although it was a Yellow Lantern peanut and a bit hard, it had a sweet taste within the astringency, and the texture was actually not bad. Now completely reassured, Xia Qing went to the underground storage room to install the interior wall panels that had already been transported from Territory Seven.

Installing interior wall panels was meticulous work; Xia Qing was busy for five days before finishing. The two storage rooms after installation became the highest-security hidden spaces within the territory.

Xia Qing put the grenade launcher, shells, and bullets into the grain storage room beneath the tool room. Because the temperature and humidity requirements for weapon preservation were similar to those for storing wheat, putting them in the storage room could extend the service life of the firearms.

The basement beneath the wasteland village had no temperature and humidity control equipment, no hanging Yi Stones, and no interior wall panels. Although it had exhaust fans installed, the temperature and humidity control still didn't meet standards, and she didn't know what the cellars in other territories were like.

"Lao Qi, Xia Qing, are you there? How are your cellars holding up?" Just as Xia Qing was wondering about the other territories, Zhong Tao's voice came through the walkie-talkie.

Xia Qing pressed the walkie-talkie. "Uncle Zhong, I was just coming over to check the cellar. Here the humidity is 60%, temperature 24."

Qi Fu answered, "I checked this morning, about the same as Xia Qing's—this won't do."

Zhong Tao was also worried. "The cellar storage won't work, we have to think of another way."

If they couldn't store things in their territories, they could only sell them or spend points to store them in the Safe Zone's storage warehouse. Neither option was one the lords wanted to choose.

Xia Qing could feel their current anxiety, but she didn't speak up. Because she would never expose the food storage room in her territory that had cost a fortune to build, just to help other lords ease or eliminate their anxiety.

On the lords' channel, the clear voice of Hearing Zhu Li, wife of Kuang Qingwei, Lord of Territory Six, rang out. "It's time to make dinner again—what's everyone eating tonight? If you ask me, since our grain and potatoes won't keep long anyway, we might as well eat them up quickly."

Qi Fu's wife Yuan Yan also came online. "We've got a lot of people, we don't dare eat freely—tonight we're having vegetable porridge. Xia Qing, Sister-in-law Zhong, what about you?"

Zhong's mother replied cheerfully, "We're having pumpkin-filled dumplings tonight."

After smoothly solving the problem of pumpkin vines growing wildly, pumpkins in every territory had grown well, and pumpkins had made it onto the lords' dining tables.

Hearing about pumpkin-filled dumplings made Xia Qing crave them too. "I haven't decided what to eat yet. Auntie Zhong, how do you season the pumpkin filling?"

Zhong's mother explained in detail to Xia Qing: "Wash the pumpkin clean. If you have a grater, grate it directly into shreds. If not, first cut it into two-millimeter-thick slices, then cut into shreds, then dice. Add salt to draw out the moisture and squeeze it dry, then chop in a few green onions, season with Sichuan pepper oil, salt, soy sauce, and sesame oil, and it's ready to wrap."

"Got it, thank you, Auntie Zhong." Xia Qing thanked her and decided to have pumpkin-filled dumplings tonight.

But what she wanted to eat wasn't pumpkin-and-green-onion filling, but pumpkin-and-pork filling.