Chapter 299: The Chestnut Grove After the Thunderstorm

Xia Qing didn't want anyone to know about her grudge with Tang Zhengsu, so she could find the best vantage point to observe Territory Two.

Using the pretext of inspecting Area Three of Mountain Forty-Nine, she asked one person from Beard Feng's squad to come watch her territory for her, while she entered Area Three and monitored the movements of Territory Two from atop a tall pine tree.

Now Tang Zhengsu and Xu Pin had already left, Tang Heng had gone to Territory Twelve, and Tang Huai was sleeping under a sunshade. Territory Two no longer held surveillance value, so Xia Qing took this chance to head to Valley One to look for wild ginger.

It was mid-October now, still a month until the wild ginger matured, but she could go ahead and test the ginger's quality, then on the way check whether the chestnut grove had suffered any losses during the migratory bird season and last night's thunderstorm.

Because she'd seen Beard Feng's photos, Xia Qing quickly found where the wild ginger grew. Last time she was near the valley, she'd been in a hurry tracking a red squirrel and hadn't cut through it, so she hadn't noticed that the valley actually held a patch of wild ginger covering about six square meters.

If they were all green-light, this patch could fetch several hundred points. This valley really is full of treasures.

After the thunderstorm, the soil on the slope was soft—if she slipped and fell into the territory of an aggressive plant, that would be trouble.

After confirming there were no large animals nearby, Xia Qing found a normal large tree, tied her climbing rope to the trunk, and rappelled down holding the rope. Because she'd sprayed her protective suit with the insect repellent she'd traded with Zhang San for the Evolution Forest, she wouldn't be attacked by insects for three hours, sparing her the hassle of insect harassment. She soon reached the vicinity of her target.

She first checked the air toxin detector on her arm, confirmed the air here contained no toxins, washed the mud off her soles in the stream, then took a careful look at the wild ginger patch—and quickly noticed something off.

Unlike other lush plants, although this patch of wild ginger also grew densely, there were gaps between the leaves. Even leaves growing on the same stem had gaps between them, and each leaf's shape seemed to have been trimmed by something—none of them looked alike.

What did this mean? It meant the wild ginger leaves were aggressive, and would attack without discrimination anything that came near them, including other leaves on the same plant.

How did it attack?

Although they were the same species of plant, their evolutionary directions differed. The wild ginger Xia Qing had collected before released an irritating toxic gas; this one clearly didn't.

Xia Qing casually grabbed a centipede and tossed it onto the wild ginger leaves. She found the leaves didn't extend vein-needles like the green-light peanuts, nor did they shoot leaf-darts outward like the green-light bamboo.

She took a stick and tentatively poked the ginger's stems and leaves. The ginger still behaved like a normal plant, with no reaction at all.

The less reaction there is, the more abnormal it is. Having survived safely to the tenth year of the Calamity, Xia Qing never underestimated her enemy. If it wasn't toxic gas or physical attack, then the sap might be poisonous.

Xia Qing cut down a wild ginger plant with her knife and used a blade of grass to touch the clear liquid slowly seeping from the ginger stem. She didn't see any change in the grass blade either.

After another glance at the air toxin detector on her arm and confirming this sap didn't release toxic gas either, Xia Qing took out her Qiang-element tester and found this ginger's Qiang-element content was just over four parts per thousand, making it a green-light plant. She decided to take one plant back and ask Zhang San to confirm the quality.

Out of caution, Xia Qing put a pair of thickened disposable gloves over her protective gloves before using a shovel to dig up this wild ginger plant, shaking off the soil and putting it into a sealed bag for preservation. The ginger's rhizome was also sealed and brought along—she'd go back and ask Boss Sheep if he liked it.

Wild ginger looks like the ginger used as seasoning, but it's actually a medicinal herb. This herb is even more valuable than the Bai Mao chicken-dropping vine in Xia Qing's territory. A jin of dried green-light Bai Mao chicken-dropping vine sells for 40 points, but a jin of fresh green-light wild ginger suitable for medicine sells for that same price.

Of course, this is related to the herb's medicinal properties, demand, and yield. The evolved Bai Mao chicken-dropping vine can be harvested and dried for sale three seasons a year, but wild ginger can only be harvested once a year in November, so its yield is far lower than the vine's.

After putting away the wild ginger, Xia Qing swatted dead a few evolved lizards that rushed at her and stuffed them into the cloth bag at her waist. Just as she was about to grab the rope and head back up the slope, she turned her head and saw that the grass blade which had touched the wild ginger sap was actually starting to rot!

Although her gloves hadn't shown any change yet, Xia Qing put another layer of thickened packaging bag over the compression bags holding the ginger stems, leaves, and roots, then washed her gloves clean in the stream, took them off, and packed them away.

Then Xia Qing grabbed the rope and climbed up the slope. After walking a few hundred meters, she stopped in front of a tree.

Evolved plants come in all manner of strange forms—Xia Qing couldn't identify what species of evolved tree this was. Just from its appearance, this tree was very unremarkable, but Xia Qing had marked it last time. Because this tree gave her the same uneasy feeling as the pre-Qiang-evolution sunflowers had.

After the migratory bird season and the thunderstorm, this tree had grown a bit taller, but the uneasy feeling was still there.

Xia Qing plucked a leaf and tested it, finding this tree's Qiang-element content had barely changed. She made a note of it, then hurried over to two plants of grass that had given her an uneasy feeling.

Testing the grass's Qiang-element content still showed around twenty parts per thousand. By all appearances, these were two ordinary red-light grasses, but Xia Qing still cut off the grass ears and put them into sealed bags—she wanted to see how the seeds of this grass differed from other red-light grasses once they sprouted.

After arriving directly above the chestnut grove, Xia Qing followed the beast trail she'd taken last time, descended into the valley, and went to check on the chestnut grove.

Out of sight, out of mind—but the sight was a shock. It had only been about a month since she harvested the chestnuts, yet the sticky leaves on the chestnut trees had already fallen off for the most part, and the hornets that had been circling the trees were nowhere to be seen.

The few chestnut burrs that hadn't yet fallen hung on the bare branches, revealing the reddish-brown chestnuts inside, making anyone who saw them greedy. Right now, the chestnut grove looked like a trap carefully set by the hornets.

Xia Qing didn't rush forward, but relied on her excellent visually-evolved ability to hide behind a large tree and observe from afar.

Soon, a bird flying through Area Three spotted the chestnut burrs on the tree and landed to peck at them—but its sharp beak got stuck to the burr.

As the bird flapped and struggled to free itself, the hornets hiding in the rock crevices immediately swarmed out, stung the bird to death with their stingers, dismembered it, and carried the pieces back to their nest in the crevice, leaving not a single feather behind.

This entire hunt took less than ten minutes! With killing power like this, these hornets must have caught plenty of birds during the migratory bird season to stockpile as food.

The fact that it could stick a bird weighing several jin meant the chestnut burr sap's stickiness was greater than a month ago. If she harvested burrs this sticky now, the difficulty would be several times greater than a month ago!

Thanks to the red squirrel that led the way, bringing her to the chestnut grove at the perfect moment.