Chapter 322: Smut

Just then, the evolved jade-belted sea eagle of Territory Nine took off.

Its massive silhouette climbed to three thousand meters over Territory Eight before leaving the territory and heading for its destination—the first stop, Territory Twelve.

The evolved sea eagle only dropped its altitude once it reached the high air over Territory Twelve, to catch and drive off the flocks of birds drawn in by the corn. Soon, Xia Qing saw a dark mass of birds take off from Territory Twelve and scatter in every direction. Just from the number of birds, she could tell that Territory Twelve's corn harvest was at least ten times hers.

The spot where the flock rose in Territory Twelve was about 1,500 meters from Xia Qing. Throughout the whole thing, the birds circling the roof of Xia Qing's house kept staring at the corn under the cover, not one of them paying any attention to the disturbance over in Territory Twelve. Looks like there were no brain-evolved ones among this flock, so they couldn't mount an effective team attack.

Birds like these weren't worth a level-nine visually evolved sniper like Xia Qing taking action personally—doing so would be a pure waste of bullets and steel pellets.

Just as Xia Qing was about to call over the red squirrel that had been peeking around in the distance to help, the swallows busy building a nest under her eaves suddenly flew up onto the roof and launched an attack on the flock that had invaded the territory.

A single swallow is small in size and weak in strength, but when it comes to flying skill, swallows are top-tier. Over twenty little swallows attacking the same time from different angles against a bird barely bigger than themselves is more than enough to take that bird's life.

The birds on the roof, the sheep shed, and the chicken coop were soon stirred up by the swallows until they couldn't sit still, flying about in a panic. Sick Wolf and Sheep Boss took the chance to leap up and catch birds.

Sheep Boss caught nothing, but Sick Wolf snagged two birds flying low and swatted down another with a paw. At that, the whole flock exploded in panic, most of them scared off, and the ones left behind no longer posed a threat.

Xia Qing took the birds Sick Wolf handed her and immediately gave him a small piece of green-light jerky as a reward. "Wolf Lao Er, you're amazing, that's the way to do it! I'll pluck these three birds and stew them for you."

Sick Wolf was in much better health now; he didn't have to eat green-light or yellow-light meat—he could have red-light meat occasionally too.

After praising Sick Wolf, Xia Qing also praised the little swallows. "Swallows, you're amazing too, great work. Is the mud for your nest enough? Should I get you a few more clumps? Do you need dry grass?"

It was the first time Xia Qing had known that swallows could have a sense of territory. If this little group had come a few months earlier, those two damned egrets wouldn't have dared come splatter droppings on her windows.

After showing off the little swallows, Xia Qing made a point of praising the sulking Sheep Boss. "Boss, I saw you jump up to chase the birds too—this whole patch of birds was scared off by you. As an evolved sheep that eats grass, the fact that you can do this puts you ahead of every sheep on Blue Star. You're the pride of the flock, the pioneer who opened a new chapter in the history of Blue Star's evolved sheep. The sight of you working so hard deeply moved me…"

After smoothing down Sheep Boss's wool, Xia Qing asked it to come downstairs. "Leave this to Wolf Lao Er. There's an even more important job that needs the Boss. Shall we head down?"

Once Sheep Boss went downstairs, Xia Qing finally let out a breath of relief.

When Sheep Boss had jumped up and butted the birds with its head just now, Xia Qing had clearly felt the rack-building shudder under its stomp. A few more like that and the warehouse she'd worked so hard to repair would surely crack open in a few places. This wasn't Sheep Boss's fault—it was Xia Qing underestimating Sheep Boss's strength when she let it chase birds.

"Wolf Lao Er, hold down the fort here. I'm going to stew some birds for you, with cabbage leaves you love." With that, Xia Qing tucked another piece of jerky into Sick Wolf's mouth as a reward, called out to the chittering swallows on the roof, and only then went down the rack-building to assign work to Sheep Boss.

Xia Qing led it back to the corn shed. "Boss, we grew this corn together. We'll keep the kernels to eat in winter. How about the leaves on these corn stalks—do you like eating them? If you do, just go ahead and strip them down. Whatever you strip, I'll save that much for you, dried as winter rations."

Sheep Boss was delighted and charged into the felled corn stalks, starting to snap off leaves with loud crunches.

If this were the Safe Zone, not just the leaves but even the stalks would be washed, shredded, mixed with a little corn and various additives, and pressed into compressed rations.

The corn-flavored Number Two rations were very popular at the Base.

Because the Safe Zone's buy-back price for corn stalks was too low, Xia Qing didn't plan to hand the stalks over and then buy fertilizer back at a high price. Instead, she planned to turn the stalks directly into fertilizer. The stalks from her own shed were clean, free of insect eggs and pathogens, so the fertilizer made from them would naturally be safe to use.

Before shredding the stalks, letting Sheep Boss romp around here stripping corn leaves both gave it something to do so it wouldn't tear down the building, and saved Xia Qing the trouble of cutting grass for it—two birds with one stone.

Xia Qing went back home and sorted through the big half-sack of corn that hadn't been carried up to the roof.

This sack of corn was all ungrateful and ill-behaved—some, like the cob Sheep Boss had stripped, only grew a few kernels; others grew plenty of kernels but dried up before maturing, just looking like they deserved a beating; and then there were the worst offenders of all: corn that, instead of growing kernels, grew pus-filled galls!

In short, not one cob in this sack was worth carrying up to the roof. Xia Qing was afraid that leaving them together with the proper corn would teach the proper corn bad habits.

The rest had no value, but the gall-growing ones were pretty strange—the Farming Knowledge Broadcast hadn't mentioned them either. Xia Qing decided to ask around and see if there was a market. "Third Brother, you there?"

Zhang San replied listlessly, "Speak."

Xia Qing asked, "I was harvesting the early-planted corn today and found that some corn cobs had quite a few galls on them. Does this thing have any research value?"

Zhang San grew a little interested. "Are the galls' outer skin black or grayish-white?"

There really was a use? Xia Qing answered, "Some are black, some are grayish-white."

Zhang San replied, "That's corn smut fungus. I haven't found any in my territory. I'll send Ji Li to pick some up."

"Third Brother, the corn in my territory has smut fungus too—do you still want it?" Shi Zhong asked, and then Tang Zhengpo said his territory had this kind of corn as well.

Li Si came online. "Third Brother, this smut fungus has great research value—can you save some for me?"

This time Zhang San didn't argue with Li Si. "The ones from Territories Three and Ten are mine; the ones from Territory Twelve are yours."

"Thanks, Third Brother." Li Si thanked him. Because Territories Three and Ten combined definitely didn't have as much corn planted as Territory Twelve.

Never expected that gall-growing corn could be traded away—Xia Qing immediately felt those cobs looked a lot more pleasing than the rest. She put the other corn back into the sack, picked up the small bag of gall-growing corn, and headed toward the road sign.

Territory Ten was on the south side of the corridor, and since this trade was happening on the Lord Channel again, Ji Li would definitely pick the goods up from under the signpost.

As she walked, Xia Qing listened to Zhao's Mother chatter. "The galls on corn are called smut. When they're tender you can eat them—raw, steamed, boiled, or roasted, any way works. My mom said that when she was little, she'd crawl through the cornfields and sorghum fields looking for smut to eat as a snack. But these days, no one dares eat smut anymore."