Chapter 243: Gathering Chestnuts

Xia Qing isn't an olfactory evolver, but by using her phone along with sight and hearing, she can still track the red squirrel. Xia Qing

Although she couldn't match the red squirrel's speed, the squirrel only ran back and forth between the chestnut tree and its nest. All she had to do was follow the squirrel's route, use her phone to lock down the chestnut tree's exact location, and search her way there bit by bit.

Although the vegetation in Valley One was dense, only the gravel beside the stream was walkable, and even there she only needed to fend off leeches and other aquatic creatures.

Four minutes after setting out, Xia Qing saw the red dot on her phone app stop at a spot over twenty-eight hundred meters to the northeast. Now she was completely at ease. Because twenty-eight hundred meters was still within Zone Three—the chestnut tree was growing on her territory!

Eight minutes later, the phone showed the red squirrel running back, and Xia Qing ducked into the trees.

Soon the red squirrel shot past like a streak of red light and landed on a maple tree not far from Xia Qing. Water droplets clinging to the maple leaves were shaken loose by the squirrel and fell like rain onto the dense grass below.

Perched on a branch, the red squirrel had a big chestnut clamped in its mouth and more clutched in its little paws—Xia Qing's eyes lit up at the sight.

After the red squirrel passed, she followed the stream for less than two hundred meters and found a vast patch of wild chrysanthemums blooming with striking, almost gaudy beauty.

Xia Qing raised her arm to check the air toxin detector and found that C-grade toxic gas permeated the area. Getting closer to the chrysanthemums would only raise the concentration, and the bees buzzing over the flowers were another nuisance.

She could only take a detour.

Xia Qing hopped to the other side of the stream and walked a dozen meters, only to find a large patch of low-growing herbaceous evolved plant with long needle-shaped leaves. Plenty of insect corpses were skewered on the leaf-needles—one look told her it was best not to provoke them.

Neither the wild chrysanthemums nor the needle-leaf grass could be crossed, and venturing into the dense forest on either side carried too high a danger rating. If Xia Qing kept following this route, she'd either have to leap from tree to tree like the squirrel, or wade through the water.

After dodging the red squirrel once more, Xia Qing decided to abandon the valley and go around via the hillside. She had roughly locked down the chestnut tree's location, and once she got there, with her Level Nine visual evolution ability, as long as the chestnuts weren't growing underground, she'd definitely find them.

Xia Qing hacked her way uphill through dagger grass and shrubs, fighting off evolved insects the whole way. But before she'd even crested the slope, she saw the red squirrel come bounding back with chestnuts again.

Trapped amid all kinds of dangers, Xia Qing desperately wanted to turn back and ransack the place—ransack the squirrel's home!

After finally scrambling up the slope, she found that while the valley was hard to traverse, the hillside was better but still not clear sailing. After dodging three evolved vines and a large patch of explosive evolved caltrops, Xia Qing finally made it around to the top of the slope above where the red squirrel was gathering chestnuts.

By then, the red squirrel, having hauled chestnuts back and forth over a dozen trips, was already lounging comfortably and safely in its nest.

Although it had taken so long, Xia Qing was delighted. Because along the way she'd discovered that her vague, hard-to-describe "ability" to sense when something was off about a plant wasn't limited to sunflowers.

In those two hours, Xia Qing had sensed that two saplings, a patch of grass, and a patch of shrubs were off. She'd marked all four spots to come back and check when she had time.

Standing at the top of the slope and looking down, Xia Qing realized she couldn't see the chestnut trees from this position—she had to go down.

From her spot to the valley floor, the drop looked to be about two hundred meters. The steep slope was dotted with pines of various sizes, and the shrubs and grass beneath them weren't that dense, but because of the steep grade and damp ground, it was easy to slip and lose balance. If an evolved animal or plant attacked at such a moment, she'd be in a very passive position and could easily get hurt.

There was also one very unusual thing: there were very few insects here. The period right after Dagger Rain was when insects were at their most rampant, so something nearby was likely capable of killing or driving them off.

That meant going down might bring her other gains, but it also meant she'd face greater risks.

"If only I had a scout bird," Xia Qing muttered, and began looking for a way down the slope.

Soon she found a game trail worn by wild beasts. Following it down to the halfway point, Xia Qing spotted boar and wolf tracks, as well as signs of a boar struggling and being dragged.

The forty-something-jin boar the alpha wolf had carried off to Territory Three must have been caught here. Carrying a whole boar and still able to cross a valley riddled with dangers—the alpha wolf's ability was no joke, and Xia Qing was impressed.

Continuing down the game trail, Xia Qing found the hoofprints of a large boar. But she'd come to pick chestnuts on this trip and had no time to chase the boar along its tracks.

After reaching the valley floor, Xia Qing quickly spotted the chestnut trees—not just one, but over twenty of them, big and small!

On most of the chestnut trees hung spiny burs encasing the chestnuts!

We're rich, we're rich!

Seeing the chestnut trees, Xia Qing also understood why there were so few insects in this area.

If it weren't for the fist-sized spiny burs on the trees across the stream that had already split open to reveal the chestnuts inside, Xia Qing wouldn't have believed they were chestnut trees.

The leaves and spiny burs of these evolved chestnut trees were stuck full of insects, big and small. Xia Qing could see mosquitoes, lacewings, caterpillars, flies, grasshoppers, and mulberry longhorn beetles trapped and unable to free themselves, their bodies gnawed and mangled, still struggling in despair.

Unlike the peanuts on her territory, the ones gnawing the leaves and the insects stuck to them here weren't the chestnut trees themselves, but the evolved hornets buzzing around the trees—hornets longer than a human finger.

The evolved hornets' stingers were sharp, their venom potent, and when attacking they released a scent that was very hard to wash off. Once an intruder was marked with that scent, other evolved hornets would chase the intruder and take turns attacking until they tore the intruder apart and devoured them.

"Weak" humans were also among their targets.

Because hornets don't produce honey and catching them was useless, whenever squads ran missions and encountered large swarms of hornets, they always gave them a wide berth.

It wasn't that they couldn't beat them—it just wasn't worth provoking these lunatics.

But today, Xia Qing couldn't go around them. Although her Level Three wilderness protective suit was very sturdy, being surrounded by hundreds or thousands of hornets wildly practicing their bayonet drills with their stingers—who could guarantee the suit wouldn't be pierced?

So, toughing out the hornets in her protective suit to pick chestnuts was out of the question.

Then how did the red squirrel manage to gather chestnuts?

After watching for a while, Xia Qing understood. The chestnuts the red squirrel carried back were picked up from under the tree. As soon as a chestnut fell, several little squirrels would dash in, grab one, and bolt.

The squirrels were fast, so they could escape the hornets' attacks.

She wasn't as fast as the squirrels, and she wasn't just picking up leftovers—she wanted to take the whole haul, not just this year but next year too.

To make sure she still had chestnuts to eat next year, Xia Qing couldn't wipe out this hornet swarm. Because clearly, the chestnut trees and the hornets had formed a symbiotic relationship—without the hornets gnawing away the insects stuck to the leaves, the chestnut trees wouldn't survive long either.

Smoking them out wouldn't work either, because the chestnut grove was large, and if the smoke set the trees on fire, that would be a disaster.

If she didn't want to go home empty-handed today, her only option was to try the potion she'd just traded with Zhang San yesterday—one that prevented attacks by evolved insects.