Chapter 213: Selenium-Rich Peanuts

By the end of August, the peanut leaves had turned yellow and the lower ones began to fall off, indicating that the peanuts were ripe and ready for harvest.

Although the micro-tiller in Xia Qing's garage came with a harvester attachment, she still brought a basket, a washbasin, a large water bucket, and shouldered an iron shovel to go down and harvest the peanuts.

Because the peanut terraces were on Gao Po, with only a little over two hundred peanut plants in the field, and the green-light peanuts were still aggressive, under these conditions the harvester attachment was less useful than the iron shovel.

Xia Qing first used the iron shovel to loosen the soil around the peanut roots, then grabbed the peanut vine and pulled it upward with a shake, and the peanuts left the soil where they had grown for five months, revealing the tan-colored peanut pods hanging from the pegs.

"One, two, three, hmm…" Xia Qing, counting the peanut pods, found that two peanuts had fallen off their pegs. She dug those two peanuts out of the soil and continued counting, "Six, seven, eight… twenty-five!"

One peanut plant had actually grown sixteen mature tan-colored pods, six lighter-colored tender pods, and three underdeveloped small pods—more than what the agricultural planting book she had collected said.

A bumper harvest, an absolute bumper harvest!

Xia Qing stripped the peanut pods off, putting the mature ones in one basket, the tender and small ones in another basket, and setting the peanut vines aside, then began digging up the second plant.

After harvesting the hundred and seventy yellow-light peanut plants, Xia Qing took her iron shovel and turned to the sparsely growing insect-eating green-light peanuts in the field.

Those thirty-five plants were all tough nuts to crack. Xia Qing wasn't afraid of the leaf-vein needles; she was afraid that if the peanut vines got too agitated, they would launch indiscriminate attacks and stab the hard-won peanuts full of holes like a sieve.

Regarding how to harvest green-light peanuts, Xia Qing had specifically consulted Luo Pei.

If not saving seed, one could simply burn the peanut vines to death with fire before harvesting; if seed needed to be saved, one had to first cut off the above-ground portion of the peanut vine, then quickly dig the peanut roots out of the soil, shake off the dirt, and soak them in high-concentration salt water.

After the salt water killed the peanut roots, the peanut pods could be picked off and rinsed clean with fresh water.

The moment to pit strength against speed had arrived.

Xia Qing poured most of a basin of purified water and a large handful of coarse salt into the washbasin, put fresh water into the nearby washbasin, then tossed a bug to the peanut.

While the peanut was eating the bug, Xia Qing swung her blade with her right hand and chopped off the peanut vine, which was harder than ordinary wood, with a sharp "Crack!"

The cut upper stem and leaves of the peanut vine gradually lost their vitality and went limp, releasing the bug. Just as the peanut root released its ability and drilled out leaf-vein needles as thick as tree roots from the cut, Xia Qing swiftly shoveled the peanut root out of the soil with the large iron shovel, then clamped it with the specially made long-handled iron tongs, shook off the dirt, and threw it into the salt water.

When first put in, the aggressively attacking leaf-vein needles growing from the peanut root were still clanging against the iron basin. After a dozen or so seconds, the peanut root stopped responding.

Xia Qing immediately picked off the peanut pods on top, tossed them into the nearby bucket of clean water to rinse off the salt water, and put them into the basket.

Then, Xia Qing went to dig up the peanut pods that had fallen into the soil. With the attacking root system and vines already cleared, digging through the soil to find the peanuts posed no danger.

After harvesting the first green-light peanut plant, Xia Qing counted and found it had grown twenty-six pods, each one plump—truly worthy of being grown on a diet of bugs.

Xia Qing shared her joy with her companions, "Look, they're really big."

Ram Boss and Sick Wolf showed no interest in the peanuts in Xia Qing's hand; both were staring at the peanut root in the water basin.

Xia Qing fished the dead peanut root out of the salt water and put it into a sealed bag, to prevent the peanut root from contacting soil and coming back to life, then began harvesting the second plant.

The thirty-five green-light peanut plants yielded a total of 875 peanut pods; most pods contained two peanut kernels, a few had grown three or one, for a grand total of 1,650 green-light peanuts harvested.

Of these green-light peanuts, Xia Qing planned to eat a few for a taste and dry the rest for seed. The yellow-light peanuts were also mostly saved for seed, with a small portion to eat.

This "small portion," of course, referred to the half basket of slightly tender ones.

Xia Qing took off her gloves and protective mask, wiped the sweat from her face, and drank some water. Although there weren't many peanuts, the harvesting process was still quite physically taxing.

Xia Qing shelled a tender peanut, tossed the two plump kernels into her mouth, fed the pod to Ram Boss, and happily sent Zhang San a message:

Third Brother, my peanuts are harvested. Although the peanut skin is black, the flavor is decent. Would you like me to bring you some yellow-light peanuts to boil?

The reason she told Zhang San was that last month, when Zhang San had gotten up in the middle of the night to perform surgery on the broken-backed wolf, Xia Qing had told him that after harvesting the yellow-light peanuts from her territory, she would give him half to fry and eat.

Now that the peanuts were harvested, Xia Qing naturally had to keep her promise.

While waiting for Zhang San's reply, Xia Qing habitually opened the location software and was surprised to find that the red squirrel had actually stopped at a position fifteen meters from her.

Was the little guy here to watch her harvest peanuts?

Xia Qing observed from the corner of her eye and quickly spotted the little guy hiding in the tree, staring at the peanut basket with shiny black round eyes.

It was obvious that the red squirrel recognized this kind of nut.

A flash of inspiration struck Xia Qing: Could the evolved peanuts and evolved soybeans in Territory Three have been brought in by this little guy?

This possibility was actually quite high.

First, the red squirrel's nest was in the big pine tree in District Three, an area that wasn't included in last winter's clearing range, so it hadn't moved; second, although Xia Qing didn't know how large a squirrel's territory was, the terraces in Territory Three weren't far from the red squirrel's nest and should belong to its territory; third, squirrels have the habit of storing nuts for winter, and they hide nuts in different places to avoid having them all taken at once.

So, the peanuts and soybeans might both have been ones it had hidden on the hillside and hadn't finished eating.

Xia Qing took two peanut pods, walked out of the greenhouse, placed them on a rock, and called to the red squirrel that had already fled far away, "Try them, the flavor's decent. If you like them, I'll bring you some more."

After putting down the peanuts, Xia Qing received a call from Zhang San, "You said the peanut skin is black—are you talking about the rough outer skin, or the thin skin wrapping the peanut kernel?"

Xia Qing answered, "The thin skin wrapping the peanut kernel."

Zhang San was silent for a few seconds, "Before the catastrophe, had you never eaten black-skinned peanuts?"

???

Xia Qing's face was full of question marks, "There were black-skinned peanuts before the catastrophe?"

When the catastrophe struck, Xia Qing was only fifteen years old. Her daily life consisted of carrying her schoolbag to and from school and to and from interest classes; beyond that, she didn't worry about anything, and truly didn't know peanuts could be black.

Zhang San replied, "Black-skinned peanuts are also called selenium-rich peanuts. Our territory here has selenium-rich soil, so it wouldn't be strange for someone to have grown selenium-rich peanuts before the catastrophe. How much did you harvest?"

Selenium-rich peanuts? Xia Qing's eyes lit up, "Thirty-five green-light plants, a hundred and seventy yellow-light plants. I'm planning to save the green-light peanuts for seed and bring you half of the yellow-light ones?"

Although Zhang San was petty-minded, he never took other people's things for free. He wanted the selenium-rich peanuts, so he named his price directly, "Two hundred green-light kernels, four hundred yellow-light kernels, and I'll trade you with five jin of green-light wheat seed."