Chapter 31: Human-Powered Water Wheel

The footsteps were steady and rhythmic—Xia Qing could tell they were Tan Junjie's. It wasn't patrol time for checking dangers, so he had come alone.

He must be looking for her, and the purpose was Chinese toon buds. Xia Qing pulled off her mud-covered gloves and took out her phone.

Sure enough, Tan Junjie stopped at the buffer zone north of Territory No. 3 and called Xia Qing. "Xia Qing, is now convenient? I want to trade with you for some Chinese toon buds and perilla."

After giving the Chinese toon buds to Luo Pei, Xia Qing had been waiting for them to trade supplies for them, but five whole days passed, so long that Xia Qing had begun to think they no longer needed safe vegetables.

Xia Qing showed a faint smile. "It's convenient. How much does Captain Tan want, and what are you offering?"

Tan Junjie asked directly, "What do you want?"

Such a bold offer—did it mean she could ask for anything she wanted? Xia Qing named the thing she wanted most right now. "I want a water pump, to draw water from the reservoir to irrigate the fields."

Tan Junjie paused and discussed it with Xia Qing. "A water pump needs either fuel or electricity, both of which are inconvenient for you. How about I have someone make you a human-powered water wheel?"

Wouldn't the tall, round water wheels from history textbooks get chewed apart by evolved insects? Xia Qing paused before asking, "Do you have any powered by sheep?"

Tan Junjie also paused for quite a while before answering, "I'll go back and ask."

That same afternoon, Xia Qing received Tan Junjie's call. "Sheep-powered is also possible, but your sheep is too strong—I don't have any parts here that can withstand its rough treatment. If it's human-powered, with your strength it won't be hard to pedal."

Not needing electricity or fuel was truly appealing. "Then human-powered it is. Sorry to trouble you, Captain Tan. How would you like to trade?"

Tan Junjie discussed with Xia Qing, "One human-powered water wheel for four jin of Chinese toon buds and two jin of perilla?"

That was much lower than the price Xia Qing had expected. "That's fine. I hope Captain Tan will keep it confidential—I don't want more people knowing I have edible Chinese toon buds in my territory."

Tan Junjie agreed immediately. "Of course. I also want the chance to trade safe food with you in the future. The parts will take a few days to transport from the safe zone. I'll contact you once they arrive."

Xia Qing asked, "Will Zhong Tao and the others deliver them?"

"Yes, the road is almost cleared. If you need any supplies, you can have Zhong Tao bring them over."

After hanging up, Xia Qing did not contact Zhong Tao, because she had no points on her card and no supplies to trade. Because she had traded a set of protective clothing with Tang Huai, she did not want to use perilla to trade for supplies again within these three months. As for Chinese toon buds, for now she only wanted to trade them with Tan Junjie and Luo Pei.

Unfortunately, Luo Pei was not interested in Chinese toon buds. Xia Qing thought it over carefully and felt it was quite reasonable. Because even if injured, Luo Pei—once the third-strongest fighter of the Azure Dragon Station—would not lack supplies, and would never set his sights on a few clusters of Chinese toon buds.

Xia Qing put away her phone and stopped overthinking. She searched slowly from top to bottom along the terraced fields. Spring was the season of sprouting—perhaps she would make new discoveries.

After half a day, she really did have an unexpected harvest.

Xia Qing opened her phone and, using the plant pictures in *The Complete Planting Guide*, repeatedly compared them with the plant sprouts only two or three centimeters tall that she had discovered in a narrow, elongated terrace, and confirmed the name of this plant.

Peanuts!!!

Xia Qing took out her detector. After testing, she discovered that the plants growing on this terrace of about six or seven square meters were all yellow-light peanuts. She was so excited her hands trembled.

So it turned out peanuts actually grew this beautifully!

Fortunately this terrace was in a remote location with a steep slope; fortunately these seedlings were yellow-light. Otherwise, these little seedlings—prettier than succulents—would have been nibbled away by Boss Sheep long ago!

According to the introduction in *The Complete Planting Guide*, a dense patch of peanut seedlings would not grow well—they had to be thinned out and transplanted.

Xia Qing selected the two lower terraces with equally steep slopes, and weeded, tilled, transplanted, and watered until dusk was falling. Boss Sheep had long grown impatient with waiting and gone home first.

Finally done, Xia Qing straightened up and gazed at the three peanut fields, beaming with joy.

A peanut pie had fallen from the sky—she now possessed two hundred and twenty peanut plants!

Peanuts bloomed in spring and bore fruit in autumn, withering in winter. They had come last winter to clear the evolved forest; that was exactly the withering period for peanuts. In other words, there might also be peanut seedlings further down the mountain!

Xia Qing walked briskly downhill, daydreaming about the wonderful days of eating boiled peanuts in autumn, so eager to let out a shout or two to express the irrepressible excitement in her heart.

Over the next few days, Xia Qing searched her entire 7,500-mu territory and indeed discovered two more small patches of peanut seedlings. Unfortunately, the detector showed these seedlings were red-light, with excessively high qiang element content, making them inedible.

Although she found no more edible peanut seedlings, Xia Qing had an even more delightful and impressive harvest: twenty-five yellow-light soybean seedlings, thirty-six green-light garlic seedlings, and fifty-two green-light spinach seedlings.

Xia Qing, dizzy from the harvest, was afraid of forgetting where these plants were, so she drew a simple map of her territory and marked the locations of all edible plants on it.

After marking them, Xia Qing made another new discovery: the locations of all the green-light and yellow-light plants she had found within her territory, when connected, formed the shape of a small stream flowing down from the mountain.

The most important resource in her territory—the spring—was also on this small stream.

Xia Qing, who knew nothing of geology, boldly speculated on intuition alone: this edible-plant belt shaped like a small stream might be the path of underground spring water!

If this speculation held true…

Xia Qing's gaze followed the edible-plant belt upward, looking toward the evolved forest beyond the isolation belt, which she had not drawn on her map.

If this speculation held true, did it mean that in the evolved forest of the northern mountain range, which slowly extended upward, there also existed an edible-plant belt?

This thought turned over in Xia Qing's mind for half the night; the more she thought about it, the more excited she became.

The next day after getting up, Xia Qing stood at the back window on the second floor, looking north. Her gaze followed the Chinese toon trees and the high slope at the wasteland yard, slowly climbing upward until it reached the towering mountain peak in the distance, and she gradually calmed down again.

Even if her speculation held true, and the spring water unpolluted by qiang element really did flow down from a high place, the edible plants existing in the high-altitude evolved forest would only be annual herbaceous plants like weeds and wild vegetables, and tall trees like pines, mountain peaches, mountain walnuts, or wild persimmons. It was now spring, far from fruit ripening; even if she ventured into the evolved forest, she would gain no substantial harvest.

Secondly, even without knowledge of geological structures, Xia Qing knew that mountain springs, besides flowing down from high places, could also flow out from cracks in rocks deep within the mountain.

In short, at this stage she would honestly and steadily farm within her territory, and after making full preparations, enter the evolved forest in autumn.