Chapter 355: Response

"Are you planning to take in refugees?"

The next day at noon, after lunch, the members of the Lords' Alliance, who had not slept well the whole night, gathered again to discuss important matters.

Xia Qing was the first to state her position, "I won't take them in."

Xia Qing's good neighbor, Zhao Mother, immediately followed, "I don't dare take them in. You can know a person's face but not their heart, let alone people you've never even met before. It's not like ten years ago—pull out any random person now, and who knows how many lives they have on their back. If I take them into my territory, I won't be able to sleep soundly."

Discovering that no one else wanted to take in refugees, the atmosphere in the room eased considerably, but the refugee issue still pressed down on the lords like a stone, making it hard for them to breathe.

Kuang Qingwei's face was full of worry, "I'm not worried about Territory One gaining more people. What I'm afraid of is Territory Two and Territory Nine. I thought about it all last night and still couldn't come up with a good solution."

Shi Zhong was even more worried than the others, "I'm right next to Territory Nine. After the west wind picked up last night, I didn't dare sleep, afraid Li Si would scatter poison and kill my whole family."

Between Xia Qing's Territory Three and Tang Lu's Territory Two, there's still a five-meter-wide passage. Territory Ten is right next to Territory Nine, separated only by a few meters of wild grass used as a wall—it's certainly enough to give the Shi family headaches.

Qi Fu comforted Shi Zhong, "Captain Tan and Third Brother have been keeping an eye on it. The contraband in Territory Nine has already been cleared out. Even if they hid some, they wouldn't dare be so brazen."

Shi Zhong nodded, "It's not that I don't trust Captain Tan and Third Brother, I just feel uneasy in my heart. Kuang, do you have a way to sell grain? I want to sell three bags of yellow-grade mung beans and use the points to hire machinery to put up a thorn wall between Territory Nine and Territory Ten. This way it won't block powder, but at least it can block people."

Digging up and hauling large quantities of long-thorned evolved trees by hand alone is too slow—you need to hire a vehicle.

Qi Fu had the same plan, "I also want to sell grain. I definitely can't gather enough points to fence all four sides, so I want to fence off the south two sides first."

With Xia Qing fencing all four sides to the west, and Qi Fu fencing the north and south sides to the east, Zhao Mother had it much easier, "We'll also block off the north and south walls. This way our area will be secure."

"I'll also fence the north and south sides. The side next to Third Brother's wall doesn't need fencing." Kuang Qingwei had absolute confidence in Territory Seven's defensive capability, "Grain won't be hard to sell. I'll make contact this afternoon. I'll definitely offer double the safe zone's purchase price, but this can't be spread around. Everyone wait for my news."

Qi Fu asked Xia Qing, "The thorny trees in my territory might not be enough. Qing girl, are there enough thorny trees on Mountain Fifty for us to use?"

Shi Zhong spoke up first, "My son says that grove is enough for Xia Qing. After Xia Qing finishes digging, we can do ours. If it's not enough, we'll find trees from other places. If there really aren't enough big thorny trees, we'll use thorny shrubs. Get the wall up first and fix it up slowly later."

Xia Qing's territory is the largest, so she needs the most thorn wood for fencing. Plus, she was the first to propose fencing and stated she would dig trees from Mountain Fifty. Although the evolved forest is unowned, everything has to follow order of priority. Letting Xia Qing use it first—of course no one had any objections.

Hearing that all four territories were going to fence their walls, Xia Qing changed her mind, "I'm planning to switch to barbed wire fencing. You guys can use that thorn wood."

Xia Qing had previously decided to use thorn wood mainly because barbed wire walls are too conspicuous. Now even the weakest of these territories, Territory Four, is putting up points and hiring vehicles to haul thorn wood for fencing. As an evolved lord, upgrading one level to barbed wire won't draw too much attention.

Barbed wire walls are much sturdier than thorn wood walls. As long as you regularly clear the weeds along the wire wall and regularly spray insecticide to prevent the barbed wire from being chewed through by plants and rodent-type evolved animals, it'll be fine.

Ideally, it would be the thick-gauge wire from the Wild Boar Breeding Center—the kind that can even hold back wild boars. However, that kind of wire definitely isn't cheap. The points on Xia Qing's card definitely won't be enough. She needs to immediately go back and contact the big client from Territory Three, Iron Rooster Yang Jin.

Barbed wire walls aren't cheap, which shocked Zhao Mother and Kuang Qingwei. Shi Zhong and Qi Fu weren't surprised, because they knew Xia Qing had the resources. Take just the over a thousand jin of edible chestnuts she brought back last time—that alone is worth quite a few points.

Moreover, that chestnut grove belongs to Xia Qing. As long as no major disaster next year destroys the trees, she can still harvest over a thousand jin of chestnuts.

Xia Qing explained the source of her points, "I struck it rich last month, gathering over a thousand jin of edible chestnuts from the evolved forest. If selling all the chestnuts still isn't enough to cover the fencing costs, I'll ask Brother Qing to help me sell grain."

"Good, I'll help you calculate how many points the fencing will cost."

Kuang Qingwei's fingers flew across his phone calculator, "For barbed wire used in territories, you need the kind originally used at the Wild Boar Breeding Center. That's 1.5 meters high, 1.5-centimeter mesh, 3-millimeter gauge, 18-meter-long galvanized wire. The factory at Hui-2 Base sells it at 200 points per bundle. If you fence a circle three meters high, what's the perimeter of your territory?"

Xia Qing answered immediately, "9,000 meters."

"At 9,000 meters, just the wire alone is 200,000 points." After calculating the price of the wire, Kuang Qingwei began calculating other costs, "Shipping the wire from Hui-2 Base will cost at least 10,000 in freight. Plus the steel posts for fixing the wall, auxiliary materials, and labor, the total comes to about 240,000 points."

After finishing the points calculation for the fencing, Kuang Qingwei began calculating how many points the chestnuts could fetch, "The safe zone buys yellow-grade chestnuts at 80 points per jin, green-grade at 250 points per jin. Girl, you have..."

Xia Qing reported a slightly lower number, "1,000 jin of yellow-grade, 200 jin of green-grade."

Green, green, 200 jin of green-grade?! Zhao Mother was stunned. How many points is that?!

Kuang Qingwei's thick fingers trembled twice at the numbers Xia Qing reported, quickly calculating the price of this batch of chestnuts, "That's 130,000 points. Plus the 100,000 from selling fish, that's 230,000 total, about right! Girl, go find Seeing Xin Yu. She needs to build a compost fungal powder factory, so she'll definitely need to ship building materials from Hui-2 Base over here. If your wire can be shipped together with her cargo, the freight will be cheaper. Maybe you won't need to sell grain."

After finishing, Kuang Qingwei kindly offered Xia Qing a suggestion, "However, I still recommend you sell one bag of grain. Let outsiders know you sold grain to scrape together enough points for the barbed wire wall, so you won't attract thieves."

Xia Qing sincerely thanked him and asked, "Brother Qing really knows a lot. Now I have a clear picture. I'll contact Seeing Xin Yu and Brother Luo in a bit. I plan to sell the chestnuts directly to the Azure Dragon Squad. Brother Qing, do you think it'll work?"

Kuang Qingwei, who was helping Xia Qing think of a way to move her goods, smiled so hard his eyes narrowed into slits, "I was just about to tell you. Selling over a thousand jin of food to the Azure Dragon Squad is the safest bet. Although Captain Yang haggles hard, he's the most trustworthy among the Hui-3 buyers and the squads. Goods in hand, payment on the spot—he'll never play dirty tricks."