Chapter 231: As Long As You Live, There Is Hope

Perhaps sulking from being scolded, even though the clouds had thinned enough to show the stars, the Calamity Rain stubbornly held on until five in the morning before stopping completely.

The third Calamity Rain of the tenth year of the Catastrophe lasted a full seventy-three hours.

This was the longest Calamity Rain by total duration since the Great Biological Evolution of Blue Star, and also the longest red-level rainstorm by total duration.

The humans who survived, though utterly exhausted, all felt grateful.

After clearing the Calamity-evolved crops and pulling back the rainproof tarp of the greenhouse to let the surviving crops breathe, Beard Peak Squad returned to Territory One.

Xia Qing didn't even have the strength to walk home, and lay beside the blazing pile of evolved water rats, panting heavily.

Why lie here? Because the fire's heat drove away the evolved insects and fungi in the Calamity Grass—this was the safest spot.

Squish, squish, squish…

The familiar rhythm made Xia Qing slowly turn her head. Through her face shield, she saw her mud-covered companion carrying two dewy spinach plants in its mouth, walking toward her along the muddy path.

Xia Qing struggled to sit up on the fire-dried Calamity Grass and removed her silver-white protective mask.

The acrid stench of burning evolved beasts hit her face, but Xia Qing truly had no energy to move somewhere else.

She took the spinach Ram Boss was carrying, washed it clean with spring water from her canteen. Xia Qing ate the leaves; Ram Boss ate the stems and roots.

Yes, raw.

The mud person and the mud ram didn't mind each other at all. Leaning together to rest for quite a while, Xia Qing finally got up. "Boss, head home first. I'll pick some veggies and make you something good."

Following Ram Boss's hoofprints to the Gao Po spinach terraces, Xia Qing's suspended heart finally settled. The thorny barrier meant to keep the ram out at the terrace edge had been pushed aside, but Ram Boss had only pulled two spinach plants and left the rest alone.

After Xia Qing re-secured the thorny barrier, she saw Ram Boss trot up the slope carrying a small bug-catching basket in its mouth, stomping a big grasshopper dead with one hoof and dropping it into the basket.

The fish, snakes, and chickens at home all needed feeding—Ram Boss was really capable!

Xia Qing was touched, swallowed all her lectures back down, and delivered praise more torrential than the river.

After the Calamity Rain, bugs were maddeningly plentiful. In no time, the person and the ram had caught a whole basket of insects.

On the way home, looking at the farm fields wrecked beyond recognition by the Calamity Rain, Xia Qing couldn't help aching with heartache.

Only three plots suffered little damage: the Gao Po spinach protected by the Yishi lost two plants—the ones Ram Boss had just pulled; the Gao Po sweet potato terraces and Green-Light rice protected by the Yishi suffered no losses.

The remaining losses were heavy. The low-slope sweet potato terraces lost twenty sweet potato seedlings; the pumpkins, having entered late growth stage, lost comparatively little, but still a fifth; other vegetables lost between a third and a half.

The cotton in mature stage lost ten percent—a full 715 plants. In the second Calamity Rain, the cotton was still in growth stage and only lost 220 plants, which shows how fierce this Calamity Rain was.

The corn in growth stage lost a third, a whopping 1050 plants; the Yellow-Light mung beans in the cultivated field also lost a third, 2000 plants; the Green-Light mung beans in the terraces fared slightly better, but still lost 560 plants.

Overall, the terraces lost less than the cultivated fields, Green-Light plants lost a smaller proportion than Yellow-Light, and plants grown from spring-water-soaked seeds lost less than those from filtered-water-soaked seeds.

One more thing: the plants grown from the two jin of corn seeds Luo Pei gave lost less than those grown from the two jin Xia Qing bought at the Safe Zone.

Although so many hard-grown crops were lost, the one stroke of luck amid the misfortune was that no human (or beast) in her territory died.

If not for the mutual aid between territories in the final stage, which cleared twenty-five high-risk Calamity-evolved yellow corkwood trees, this territory would have been blanketed by A-grade toxic gas, and every breathing animal would have had to shut its mouth.

Now the disaster was over, and they were all still alive—that mattered more than anything. As long as you're alive, it means victory, and there's hope.

After Xia Qing brought Ram Boss home, she first removed the protective masks from the wolf pack and gave them uncontaminated spring water, then went inside to wash Ram Boss clean, quickly rinsed herself off and changed into clean clothes, immediately prepared fine feed for Ram Boss, and only then went to check the underground storage room.

The storage room was intact, and the food inside was intact.

Thank herself, thank herself for the five years of sweat she shed in the Safe Zone construction team;

Thank the wolf pack, thank the wolf pack for the Yishi they brought;

Thank Zhang San, thank her idol for the equipment and interior wall panels sold to her.

There was no fresh meat left in the storage room. Xia Qing cooked dried meat for the sick wolf, fed some insects to the lively spring-water fish, then carried the chicken coop that had been sitting in the tool shed for four days out under the eaves.

The chicken run had been destroyed and needed rebuilding—first let these guys out for some air.

The black-feathered rooster, four days without seeing the sun, flapped its wings and stretched its neck, letting out the first crow of its chicken life.

"Cock-a-doodle, doodle—"

"Not bad, kid." Xia Qing's voice was hoarse, and she sighed.

The rooster could crow now—the secret that she had chickens in her territory couldn't be hidden anymore. Xia Qing poured some evolved insects into the feeding trough, and without her calling, the chickens and little geese rushed over to eat, scrambling for food.

When pouring bugs into the snake box, a snake shot out of the wooden crate at extreme speed, and Xia Qing slapped it onto the ground with one palm.

Before she could act further, Broken-Leg Wolf ran over and sliced the snake in two with one claw—fast, accurate, ruthless.

"Broken-Leg, impressive, I admire you!" Xia Qing praised, then tested and found the snake already showed a red light. Without protective measures, some of her edible snakes had become inedible and lost their minds, going berserk.

Berserk snakes have no sense, feel no pain, and fight until the last drop of blood is spilled before stopping.

So, they had to be cleared out as soon as possible.

Xia Qing simply brought a bag, tested every snake in the snake box, removed all the ones that had turned red-light or gone berserk, stuffed the rest back in, and kept raising them.

Because the discovery came too late, only a third of the edible snakes remained—some twenty-plus. Xia Qing was heartbroken.

The Calamity Rain had just ended; Zhong Tao and the others couldn't come for at least five or six days, so the pulled-out snakes could only be burned or buried.

Just as Xia Qing was about to dispose of the red-light snakes, Broken-Leg Wolf picked one up in its mouth and started eating.

Wolves that hadn't eaten for four days would eat any meat—this saved Xia Qing the trouble.

After a simple breakfast and another tube of fresh-pressed premium nutrient solution, Xia Qing didn't even bother sleeping and started clearing the Calamity Grass in the yard.

It wasn't that she was diligent—truth was, this Calamity Rain had lasted too long. The first wave of Calamity Grass had already started heading and seeding. If the Calamity Grass seeds matured and fell, the density of Calamity Grass sprouting in her territory during the next Calamity Rain would be maddeningly terrifying.

So, until all the Calamity Grass was removed, the farmer couldn't rest.

After pulling out all the Calamity Grass in the yard, Xia Qing drove out the micro-tiller, attached the grass-cutting wheel, and began clearing the Calamity Grass in the territory.

Time was tight—no time to worry about the roots. Cut the Calamity Grass first; the roots could wait.

The micro-tiller's grass-cutting blades had been modified by Xia Qing, with four additional grass-cutting wheels added, tripling the cutting efficiency. Though it burned more fuel, the work speed increased dramatically.

The putt-putt of the micro-tiller engine and the swish-swish of cutting grass carried over to Territory Two. Tang Huai, who had just fallen asleep, was woken up and broke down: "Is this woman made of iron? Doesn't she need to sleep?"