Chapter 293: A Fine Flower Stuck in Cow Dung

Squatting beside her washing vegetables, Xia Qing pricked up both ears and listened intently as Tang Huai explained the recipe, wishing she could just open her phone and record it.

Tang Huai looked up and happened to see Xia Qing's face lit by the firelight, and froze.

Hu Zi Feng, who was whittling a stick nearby, darkened his expression, thrust the stick right under Tang Huai's nose, and asked in a nasty tone, "Use this to skewer eggplant slices?"

Tang Huai came back to himself, looked Hu Zi Feng up and down with disgust, and said, "Are you stupid? This is for skewering fish. For vegetables, you need one half as thin as this. Xia Qing, Ya-ge, can you take spicy food?"

Xia Qing, who was washing vegetables and noting down ingredients, didn't even look up. "Yes."

Daya, who had finished cleaning the fish, was drying his hands by the fire and replied cheerfully, "As long as it's not insanely hot, I can eat it."

"Splash—"

Hearing movement under the water, Xia Qing waited until Tang Huai turned his head before she turned to look at the reservoir. Soon, Yan Long walked out of the water carrying two mutated eels over two meters long that somehow hadn't been electrocuted to death.

The big lamp by the reservoir had already gone out. Under the glow of the two fires steaming crabs and grilling fish, Yan Long stepping ashore from the pitch-black water, gripping the still-wriggling mutated eels, gave off the feeling of an incomparably sharp, bloodthirsty cold weapon—so fierce it made Xia Qing want to scream.

After Yan Long handed the two eels to Daya, she reached up and took off her goggles and diving cap, clearly not planning to go back in the water. Xia Qing immediately waved her over. "Sister Yan, the water must be cold, right? Come warm yourself by the fire."

Come here—she wanted a close-up look at this top-tier evolver who was as sharp as a blade and easy on the eyes!

"The crabs are ready!"

After Tang Huai lifted the lid off the pot, Yan Long, who was sitting beside Xia Qing, turned her gaze to the crabs wrapped in steam and, unusually, offered a compliment: "Smells good."

Tang Huai grinned broadly, delighted that his cooking had earned the approval of a Level-Nine olfactory evolver.

He grabbed a pair of scissors, snipped the crab legs and claws onto a plate, and set it on a stone serving as a table. "After mutation, the crabs' claws and legs are even colder in nature, so you have to dip them in baijiu. Sis here and Xia Qing, you two wait a moment."

After saying that, Tang Huai very skillfully and neatly snipped open and pried off the crab's carapace, then removed the inedible parts—the heart, gills, mouth, stomach, lungs, intestines, and so on—and with one snip of the scissors cut the crab in half, handing it to Xia Qing and Yan Long. "You can eat now."

Then Tang Huai nimbly cleaned and halved the second crab—one half for Daya, one half for himself.

Hu Zi Feng? Sorry, there were only two crabs, none for him. Gnaw on a claw.

Hu Zi Feng glared at Tang Huai but didn't argue with him.

The green-grade mutated crab roe and meat were truly delicious; Xia Qing was happily digging in when Tang Huai handed her and Yan Long several skewers of grilled vegetables. "Eat them together, it tastes even better."

After saying that, Tang Huai tucked a crab leg in his mouth and went off to flip the grilled fish. Xia Qing suddenly felt this guy was a lot more pleasant to be around once they were outside Territory Two.

Xia Qing bit into a green bean sprinkled with barbecue seasoning and instantly felt she had been elevated. So delicious she couldn't even be bothered to speak.

Tang Huai usually looked like a clueless idiot, but who knew his cooking was actually pretty good.

When Tang Huai came over with the fragrant grilled fish and divided it up among everyone, then grinned and discussed with Xia Qing, asking her to break off some corn to roast as a staple, Xia Qing readily agreed, took a skewer of grilled eggplant in her mouth, and went to the corn shed to break off five yellow-grade ears of corn.

One each, no fighting over them.

Hu Zi Feng snatched them from in front of Tang Huai. "I'll roast them."

Tang Huai snorted. "Can you? This is what Xia Qing worked hard to grow. Don't burn them."

Hu Zi Feng glared. "If you can, you do it?"

Tang Huai chuckled. "I'm busy, no time."

Then why the nonsense? Hu Zi Feng stopped paying attention to Tang Huai, who was clearly just looking for an argument, and started roasting the corn.

Roasting corn was very simple—just skewer it on a stick as a handle and turn it over the fire. Once the outer skin was charred, peel it off, dry out the excess moisture, and it was ready to eat.

By the time everyone finished the grilled fish and vegetables, the corn was just done. Xia Qing didn't brush on any barbecue seasoning; one bite and her mouth was full of corn fragrance.

That meal was so satisfying that after eating, the five of them sat by the fire reminiscing for a while before packing up and heading home.

Hu Zi Feng and Tang Huai helped the two people from Territory Seven carry the freezer back. Xia Qing packed her eight already-frozen-hard edible fish into a bag, took them home and put them in the fridge to keep frozen, then went back out to set up sound-triggered traps all around the territory before going home to sleep.

After the wolf pack left the territory, Sheep Boss voluntarily took on the night watch. Although it had night-vision goggles, it was still a sheep—and a white-furred one that stood out badly at night. Xia Qing couldn't put the whole burden of the night watch on it, so she started setting traps again.

Setting up traps like this wasn't a long-term solution. Fortunately, today's lightning strike had cleared out the reservoir in Territory Three, earning Xia Qing over 109,000 points. She planned to use those points to upgrade the territory's defenses.

This sum of money, now out in the open, should be enough to install cameras and a fence around her territory. Once that was done, her territory would be much safer.

Spending this large windfall entirely out in the open had another benefit—no need to worry about thieves eyeing it. Xia Qing yawned, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

Inside Territory Two, Tang Huai, lying in bed, was still savoring the wonderful experience of gathering fish and having a barbecue. "The food being good is secondary; mainly it's that feeling of relaxation, like going back ten years, and also…"

Tang Heng, lying on the other bed in the room, asked, "What?"

"Nothing, go to sleep." Tang Huai fake-yawned, turned over, and stared at the snow-white wall.

Also, the red toxin on Xia Qing's skin had faded quite a bit. Only up close did Tang Huai notice her eyelashes were especially long and her eyes very clear—looked closely, she was actually quite pretty.

Too bad her taste in men was lousy—she'd actually fallen for Hu Zi Feng. A fine flower stuck in cow dung, really.

Inside Territory Four, Zhao Ze and his mother were weeping in each other's arms.

In the half-year since coming out to farm, they hadn't had a single smooth stretch. Every natural disaster brought losses; Zhao Ze had even had his leg broken by something and spent months recovering. One relative had been sent to forced labor for plotting against Xia Qing, and several workers had died. The second crop in the greenhouse hadn't even reached a third of what was planted. After the autumn harvest, after paying the workers, they couldn't even afford the seeds and fertilizer for the next crop.

Can't afford fertilizer, the crops won't grow strong; crops don't grow strong, no harvest; no harvest, they go hungry—it was an unsolvable vicious cycle.

Just when Zhao Ze was in despair, heaven didn't seal off every road. A bolt of lightning struck the reservoir in Territory Three, electrocuting a huge number of fish. The river channel in Zhao Ze's territory was connected to Xia Qing's, so the lightning that hit the fish in the reservoir also flipped the fish in Territory Four's river belly-up. Combined with the fish that drifted over from Territory Three, Zhao Ze and his people spent over an hour hauling in 526 jin of fish, shrimp, and crabs from the river. Although only a little over six jin were edible, the sheer numbers made up for it!

Zhao Ze sold them to Territory One at 23 points per jin, earning 12,098 points in one go. Now Zhao Ze not only had the points to buy seeds and fertilizer, but could also buy some cold-weather supplies and get through a warm winter.

Zhao Ze wiped his snot and tears. "When I queued up for my territory, I could tell Xia Qing had real ability. Sticking with her is never wrong. See? Our good days are here."

Zhao's mother wiped away her tears. "Qi Fu was right—diligent people don't have lazy land. You're just too lazy. Farming isn't like running an engineering project back in the day, where you could just muddle through. That's why our fields keep having problems. For the next crop, I'll be the one in charge."

Zhao Ze…