Chapter 294: Nightmare

During last night's thunderstorm, when Zhao Ze told Xia Qing that fish had drifted into Territory Four, Kuang Qingwei also discovered dead fish in the river channel of his own territory — though the quantity couldn't compare with Territory Three, it still exceeded a hundred jin.

Because the quantity was small, Kuang Qingwei had his workers dry them directly, to use as feed for the edible fish in the fish pond.

The fish pond in Territory Four raised over forty edible fish, big and small. Kuang Qingwei had long noticed that compared with grass and evolved insects, the fish much preferred eating aquatic creatures from the river.

So he had always been scooping things from the river — nematodes, red lantern fish, shrimp, and so on — to feed the fish. Of course, most of those red lantern fish and shrimp had swum over from the reservoir in Territory Three. Now that the reservoir had been emptied by a single thunderbolt, it definitely couldn't recover this year, so he had to stockpile more fish food for his precious fish.

Kuang Qingwei tapped away on his phone calculator, figuring out how many points his pond fish could sell for this autumn, and how big a pond and how much fish food he'd need after raising those few female fish until they spawned next year.

The fish pond had to be farther from the river channel, otherwise it would be washed away by the floodwater just like Xia Qing's fish pond — that would be a huge loss…

Hearing Zhu Li finished the last piece of braised yellow eel, still unsatisfied. "That was delicious! Hubby, can't we find a wild pond and go electrofishing? If we find a big one, we could pull out goods worth tens of thousands of points in a single trip."

Kuang Qingwei immediately shook his head. "Where would you so easily get your hands on a power source of hundreds of millions of volts? Even if you got one, once the fish are electrocuted the bloody smell would spread and quickly attract evolved beasts — forget earning points, you'd lose your life in the bargain. Xia Qing only got rich this time because it happened at night, and the reservoir was inside her territory, so no beasts were drawn in."

That was true too. Hearing Zhu Li sighed, "Xia Qing's luck is really good."

Kuang Qingwei, still doing the accounts, nodded. "Anyone who's survived until now hasn't gotten lucky a few times? If that bolt of lightning had struck a hundred meters further south, both of Xia Qing's greenhouses would have been blown to bits."

Inside Territory Three, Xia Qing was having a nightmare.

She dreamed that the pollution-free spring inside her territory had been destroyed by the thunder, not a single drop of water left. She could only drink filtered water, and the planting terraces in the buffer forest, no longer nourished by spring water, could no longer raise the germination rate or reduce the probability of plant devolution.

Because the spring water was gone, the Azure Dragon Squad no longer rented Mountain Forty-Nine, and evolved brown bears from the north ran down the valley into her territory to steal corn. Neither Xia Qing nor Sheep Boss was a match for the evolved bear, and they had no choice but to pull out their trump-card grenade launcher and blast the brown bear into the sky.

But before Xia Qing could even catch her breath, two outrageously powerful brain-domain evolved bears appeared before her with dozens of brown bears in tow, radiating an overwhelming sense of pressure…

"Cock-a-doodle-doo, doo——"

Woken from the nightmare by the rooster's crow, Xia Qing threw on her clothes and ran outside, not bothering to check whether the little squirrel had visited her windowsill last night.

Sheep Boss in the first-floor living room, seeing Xia Qing dash outside, assumed something major had happened, scrambled up and charged out after her, startling the little swallows resting under the eaves into fluttering up in a flurry.

Xia Qing rushed into the low-slope greenhouse, moved the stones blocking the spring's Shi Dong, and saw the spring still trickling down silently — only then did half the weight lift from her heart.

She washed her hands, cupped some spring water, and took a sip. The nightmare was indeed only a nightmare; the spring water was still piercingly cold and sweet.

"Baa."

Sheep Boss, who had followed her in, bleated once.

"Alright, your turn to drink." Xia Qing filled a bucket with water and held it out to Sheep Boss, still shaken. "Boss, I dreamed last night that the spring was destroyed by lightning. That was really scary."

After the human and the sheep finished drinking, Xia Qing blocked up the cave opening and straightened up — a streak of green light flashed toward her face. A snake!

Xia Qing leapt back quickly. The small emerald snake missed its strike, hit the ground, and slithered fast, trying to wriggle into a crevice in the rock. Its movements were quick, but Xia Qing and Sheep Boss were quicker — human and sheep simultaneously pinned the snake's body underfoot.

Sheep Boss gave Xia Qing a disgruntled sidelong glance. Xia Qing immediately pulled her foot back, yielding the spotlight to Sheep Boss.

After Xia Qing lifted her foot, the little snake whipped its head around to bite Sheep Boss, but Sheep Boss flipped it against the rock wall with a flick of its hoof, then pinned its head down with another hoof.

Game, over.

Sheep Boss puffed out its chest, lifted its head, narrowed its eyes — brimming with arrogance.

Xia Qing immediately burst into applause. "Boss, you're amazing! You're truly the boss of our territory! Boss, you're the nemesis of every snake, bug, rat, and ant, the guardian god of our territory, the sheep standing at the top of Blue Star's food chain! Having a companion like you makes me proud! Boss, what do you want for breakfast this morning? I'll make it for you!"

Hearing the word "eat," Sheep Boss's eyes immediately lit up. It stopped bothering with the little thing writhing and rolling on the ground, charged out of the low-slope planting greenhouse and ran all the way to the corn greenhouse, then turned its head, saw Xia Qing hadn't followed, and bleated for her to hurry up.

Xia Qing, who had put the little snake into a cloth bag, walked over and laughed. "Boss wants corn?"

"Baaa~~~" Sheep Boss's pinched little voice stretched out long, fully expressing its deep love of corn.

Sheep Boss really wanted to eat corn, but still strictly kept the rules Xia Qing had taught it, and didn't charge into the greenhouse to chow down — truly a very cute sheep. Xia Qing rubbed its head. "Alright, I'll make some for you in a bit."

"Baaa——"

Sheep Boss, delighted, voluntarily ran home, picked up a small basket in its mouth, and came back out, catching bugs to feed the fish.

Xia Qing, meanwhile, returned to the northern buffer forest to inspect the lightning strike site.

To keep the vegetables on the terraces growing safely, Xia Qing had gradually cleared all trees within ten meters on both the east and west sides of the terraces — otherwise last night's lightning would certainly have struck some big tree, and then there would have been no "after."

Because Xia Qing had cleared the trees here and dug a drainage ditch for the greenhouse, the lightning struck the drainage ditch, blasted out a pit over a meter deep, then followed the water flow into the reservoir and wiped out all the aquatic life in it.

The rocks blasted up by the lightning also punched over a dozen holes, big and small, in the greenhouse's rainproof cloth and insect-proof netting, and smashed one greenhouse support beam.

Fortunately, by the time the lightning struck last night, the northwest wind had already died down considerably, so the rainproof cloth wasn't torn apart by the wind. Xia Qing simply used strong adhesive to seal the holes, then went to collect the fish.

Xia Qing carefully inspected the insect-proof netting and found that the tape sealing the holes had no gaps. Had the little snake wriggled in before she sealed the holes, or had it gotten in from somewhere else?

Xia Qing went straight upward and, sure enough, found a fist-sized hole in the insect-proof netting near the spring. The snake that Sheep Boss had stomped to death hadn't evolved sharp teeth and couldn't have torn through the insect-proof netting — it was some other animal.

Ever since Xia Qing had extended the greenhouse upward to bring the spring inside its protection as well, the insect-proof netting near the spring had been chewed through every few days.

This was easy to understand: although the pollution-free spring water flowed slowly, colorless, odorless, and silent, the evolved animals that had drunk it knew good water was here, and when thirsty they'd find ways to sneak in for a drink.

Xia Qing didn't mind the trouble — she repaired and replaced that section of insect-proof netting time and again — and only then entered the greenhouse to check whether that fellow was still inside.