Chapter 378: The Iron Rooster of Brain-Domain Evolution Has Arrived

Although the two pythons yielded a fair amount of snake skin, the skin from different parts varied in hardness and use, and the key parts of the protective gear needed to be made with two or three layers of snake skin, so after making five sets of protective gear from the two pythons' skin, the leftover was only enough to make Xia Qing five pairs of gloves, two shoulder guards, and two pairs of wrist guards.

Xia Qing carefully stored every piece and would make full use of them.

Once these protective gears wore out, she would head to the lake north of Mountain 60 and haul back two pythons herself.

Xia Qing was very confident that in five years, she would be as powerful as Yan Long, who Yang Jin had captured on camera single-handedly taking on five giant pythons.

Then, Xia Qing happily returned to the Gao Po terraced fields, covered the spinach field's iron frame with a double-layer rainproof cloth, secured the corners, carefully inserted the long-branch pruner, and snipped off a spinach leaf.

This time, it was different.

The snipped spinach seedling trembled slightly, then the spinach seeds at the top of the seedling rapidly sprayed out in all directions; Xia Qing had no time to pull out the long-branch pruner and hurriedly pinched the opening of the rainproof cloth shut with her hand.

The exploding spinach seeds blasted through the other spinach seedlings, triggering a chain of explosions; the rainproof cloth puffed up from the blasts, like an evolving mushroom undergoing an internal explosion.

This time, Xia Qing caught the instant of the spinach seed explosion: the snipped spinach seedling trembled from the external stimulus, the green outer skin encasing the spinach seeds contracted violently, and the wrapped yellow-green seeds were launched outward.

Xia Qing wasn't at all surprised that the green outer skin had evolved such great force, because this was the evolved Blue Star, the evolved spinach.

The spinach seeds had matured; Xia Qing curled up the corners of her mouth and sent a message to Hu Zifeng.

She had already signed a trade agreement with Yang Jin for this spinach field — once the spinach seedlings were harvested, they had to be sold immediately to the Green Dragon Squad, and part of the spinach seeds would be used to repay the debt.

She hadn't expected that the one coming to Territory 3 to pick up supplies wasn't Hu Zifeng, but the Green Dragon Squad's brain-domain evolver, the miserly iron rooster, the captain who was skilled at using beauty traps — Yang Jin!

Seeing his face, which smiled even more beautifully than the cotton that changed color three times a day, every hair on Xia Qing's body stood on end; she worked hard to clear all sorts of thoughts from her mind and devoted herself fully to dealing with the fellow before her.

If she didn't go all out, she'd get swindled by him in no time.

The North Gate access system hadn't recorded Yang Jin's facial features; Xia Qing stood very solemnly and formally by the gate, scanned her own face to open it and let him in, and said, "I didn't know you'd come in person; I haven't had time to sort out the supplies for the exchange yet."

Yang Jin pretended not to notice Xia Qing's nervousness, and didn't stare at her face either, to avoid making her more tense; he only chatted about the topic she was most interested in. "No problem, I came specifically to learn. The spinach seeds I exchanged with you last time have already sprouted. I heard spinach seeds explode when they mature — how did you set up protection? May I go in and take a look?"

"Of course… you may."

Xia Qing brought Yang Jin into the Gao Po terraced fields and asked him to help her open the rainproof cloth covering the spinach seedlings.

Quite a few seeds were embedded in the inner layer of the rainproof cloth; Xia Qing had no time to deal with them now, so she bundled the rainproof cloth together, and upon turning back saw Yang Jin looking at the spinach seedlings riddled with holes from the seed explosions; she hurriedly explained, "The green-light spinach seedlings look like this when harvested; this is the kind I sold to Third Brother too."

Was she worried that he'd see the spinach looked bad and use it as an excuse to haggle down the price?

Yang Jin laughed. "A few rotten spots are fine, as long as it can be juiced and processed. To prevent the Yi element in the spinach juice from evaporating, shall we start harvesting and bagging right now?"

"Alright." Since Yang Jin didn't mention lowering the price, Xia Qing immediately began harvesting the spinach seedlings.

Yang Jin also imitated her movements — cutting spinach seedlings, rolling up the plastic mulch, pulling up spinach roots. He was a speed evolver, and his speed soon surpassed Xia Qing's.

After harvesting one terraced field, Yang Jin had collected one more bag of seedlings than Xia Qing; when he straightened up, he met her envious gaze head-on.

This was the first time the Miss he liked had admired and envied him — not for his overwhelming combat power, but for being super fast at farm work.

Yang Jin's heart felt as if seized by a small hand, trembling sharply; an indescribable tingling numbness began uncontrollably spreading toward his limbs and head; he straightened his body, cleared his throat, and asked as calmly as he could, "Weigh them now?"

The spinach roots, stems, and leaves in the terraced field weighed a total of 614 jin; at the price agreed upon earlier, the value in points was enough for Xia Qing to build one and a half circles of iron-net fencing.

In an excellent mood, she saw him off with a calm face. "Would you like to call Captain Hu over to pick it up, or shall I deliver the spinach seedlings to you?"

Apart from the three heads of household, only Hu Zifeng knew about Xia Qing's trade of spinach seedlings with the Green Dragon Squad, so she couldn't mobilize other force evolvers. However, it was only a little over six hundred jin of supplies — Hu Zifeng and Yang Jin could definitely handle it.

Yang Jin contacted Hu Zifeng. "Let Hu Zifeng come over to pick it up; shall we start picking the spinach seeds?"

Xia Qing, who owed the Green Dragon Squad over six thousand spinach seeds, nodded, spread out the bundled plastic mulch, sat on one side each with Yang Jin, and began picking up the spinach seeds.

This farm task required using a winnowing basket — first winnow to separate the rotten leaves and dirt from the spinach seeds, then pick out the small stones mixed in with the seed grains.

After Yang Jin learned how, his speed advantage showed itself again; he noticed the Miss opposite him looking at him even more eagerly. The corners of his mouth couldn't help curling up. "I saw you blocked the valley exit in Zone 3 of Mountain 49, by the isolation belt?"

She figured Yang Jin had just arrived and Hu Zifeng hadn't had time to report last night's situation yet. Xia Qing explained, "The wolf pack drove over twenty wild boars into the valley last night, trading supplies for me to block the three exits at the valley mouth so the boars couldn't escape."

Yang Jin looked up with a very handsome smile. "This valley really is where the wolf pack raises wild boars. The lead wolf and the broken-waist wolf jumped into the wild boar breeding center's wall, bit the boars penned inside to death, then howled — warning the humans trying to steal their prey. Yet the human who spotted those wild boars first and made the first move ended up becoming friends with the wolf pack."

The scar at the corner of Yang Jin's eye hadn't faded yet, but when he smiled he was still so handsome it made Xia Qing's head spin; she felt like charging out right then to catch a small wild boar and roast it for him.

But that was impossible — no matter how handsome his smile!

"Not quite friends yet, just that we found each other had supplies we needed, so we established an exchange relationship." Xia Qing said modestly, then lowered her head to pick out stones to change the subject. "I think the wolf pack's free-range pig-raising method is better than the safe zone's pen-raising method with only a few square meters per pig."

Yang Jin absolutely loved this feeling of being able to chat with her while working. "Right now, the breeding center hasn't yet screened and cultivated a Yi-evolved wild boar breed suited for free-ranging, so this free-range method can't be adopted."

Wild boars with weak resistance to the Shang element, when free-ranged in the valley and fed on plants high in Shang element, would have increased Shang element content in their bodies, becoming red-light animals unfit for direct human consumption.