Chapter 41: Discovering the Spy

The mini tiller was practically a giant children's multi-function toy car, and the four twenty-something overgrown children couldn't put it down. After the four of them took turns trying every kind of attachment, they confirmed that this machine was really, truly very useful — but also really burned through fuel.

Given the soil conditions on her plot, using a two-furrow plow to till one mu of land burned about three to four liters of fuel, far more than the sheep-powered plow. Xia Qing happily decided that from now on she'd use sheep power for tilling, the mini tiller for other large-scale farm work, and handle the odd jobs herself.

After seeing off Su Ming and the other two, who wished they could stay and be her driver, Xia Qing drove her beloved mini tiller, using the bulldozer blade to cut a level path home, and parked it in front of the rack-style building in the east courtyard.

The mini tiller was the most valuable machine Xia Qing currently owned. To store it properly, she had converted the room in the southwest corner of the first floor of the east courtyard rack building into a garage.

After Xia Qing made two trips to haul the attachments back, she opened the garage door, stacked the attachments neatly at the very back of the garage, then drove the mini tiller in and parked it, closed the garage door tight, took a few steps back, and surveyed her改装成果 with great satisfaction.

Using red bricks, stones, and rebar salvaged from three villages that were still usable, Xia Qing had patched up this rack-style building — which had only had its main structure poured — into a two-story large warehouse with walls, windows, and a door. Because it was patched together from limited building materials, her big warehouse looked like it could rival Howl's Moving Castle.

Of course, that was only on the outside. The interior decor of her warehouse was far worse than Howl's — she'd only sprayed insecticide inside and put down moisture-absorbing charcoal, with no finishing work at all, completely bare original color.

This castle was too cramped to live in, but perfect for storing supplies.

Just as Xia Qing turned off the mini tiller, the generator on the second basement level in the village to the southwest also shut down. Using the ample electricity stored in the battery, the lights in the surgery room stayed on for another eight hours before going out — by then it was already the small hours of the morning.

While Xia Qing was dreaming about driving the mini tiller, Sheep Boss stood with his sheep-head lowered in front of the garage, no one knew what he was thinking.

At the first crack of dawn the next day, Xia Qing took a stroll around her territory, casually catching over a dozen evolved grubs, crushing eight evolved giant golden scarabs and snout moths that tried to attack her, and digging two small mice out of the soil. After her stroll she went home to eat, then sent Sheep Boss off to patrol the territory while she ran to open the garage door and drive the mini tiller out.

Today, she was going to build the road from home to the reservoir and the fields.

The mini tiller burned fuel? No worries — she had two hundred liters of diesel.

Run out of diesel? No worries — she could trade supplies for more.

As Xia Qing happily backed the mini tiller out of the garage and parked it, and was getting out to close the garage door tight and spray insecticide, she heard the rapid clatter of Sheep Boss's hooves.

Oh no — Sheep Boss was charging at the machine!

Xia Qing spun around immediately, but still wasn't faster than Sheep Boss. The rascal had already climbed onto the mini tiller, claimed the driver's seat, and was squinting with an absolutely-not-budging stance.

Seeing it wasn't here to fight the mini tiller, Xia Qing's suspended heart relaxed. She asked, amused, "So yesterday you lay on the hillside watching us test-drive, and last night you didn't go home to sleep but stood staring at the garage door — all for this idea? Your hoof only splits in two, you can't even grip the steering wheel — how are you going to drive the machine?"

Sheep Boss didn't listen, still firmly holding the driver's seat.

Xia Qing switched tactics, trying food bribery: "Boss, stop messing around, get down, and I'll go pick Chinese toon shoots for you, okay?"

"Baa."

Sheep Boss immediately jumped off the mini tiller and stood in front of Xia Qing.

Xia Qing……

Fine, looks like this foodie wasn't trying to hog the mini tiller — it was using the mini tiller to get a grip on her.

She was already sick of Chinese toon shoots herself, so she could feed Sheep Boss plenty more. Once spring passed, the nitrate and nitrite content in Chinese toon shoots would increase, and they wouldn't taste as good.

There were already five kinds of edible vegetables in the territory — Chinese toon shoots, spinach leaves, perilla, chives, and scallions. After ten years of coarse grain, Xia Qing was getting picky about her food.

Fearing evolved rodents might chew up the mini tiller, Xia Qing drove the machine back into the warehouse, took Sheep Boss to pick Chinese toon shoots, and only then returned home and drove the mini tiller back out to build the road.

Hearing the machine sounds coming from Territory Three, Su Ming and the other two who happened to be passing by on patrol looked on with envy, while Wei Chengdong in the underground first floor of the wasteland village chuckled, "Start up the generator, charge the battery a bit more."

The distance from Xia Qing's small building to the stone bridge crossing the stream to the north was four hundred and seventy meters. Xia Qing used the excavator blade to level the little path she'd worn in, then compacted it. The process was incredibly therapeutic — Xia Qing felt completely at ease, body and soul.

But she hadn't been at ease for half an hour before Sheep Boss, full and satisfied, came back, raised his head and blocked the mini tiller, wearing a "let me on the machine or I'll fight you" expression.

Seeing him, Xia Qing wasn't angry, because she was just looking for someone to share the joy of driving with. She was the only person in the territory — sharing with a sheep was fine too. So Xia Qing turned off the mini tiller, first let Sheep Boss onto the driver's seat, then while chattering away, she removed the small iron box on the track cover to the right of the driver's seat that held wrenches and pliers, and nimbly installed a large wooden lounging chair on the iron cover that could bear Sheep Boss's weight, with a straw cushion laid on top.

Once the lounging chair was installed, without Xia Qing needing to say a word to coax him, Sheep Boss moved over directly and claimed the more comfortable seat. Xia Qing cheerfully started the engine and continued driving the mini tiller to build the road, while Sheep Boss lounged in his专属 seat chewing cud — one person and one sheep, both very satisfied.

The people in Territory Two had already lost interest in the faint sound of the mini tiller, but the people in Territory Four to the east were extremely interested — someone actually climbed to the tallest pine tree in the buffer forest on the north side of Territory Four, to peer at the situation in Territory Three from afar.

Discovering about one and a half kilometers away there was a cat-sized machine moving slowly, Zhao Chong up in the tree took out his binoculars and adjusted the focus. He first saw the mini tiller's excavator blade, then shifted the binoculars back slightly — and was so startled he cried out, falling straight from the tree over ten meters high, his scream carrying all the way to Territory Three.

That wasn't Zhao Ze's voice. Xia Qing holstered her gun, pulled out the walkie-talkie, and contacted Tan Junjie: "Captain Tan, this is Xia Qing from Territory Three. Just now someone was on a big tree in the buffer forest of Territory Four, using binoculars to spy on my territory. After I spotted him, he got so scared he fell out of the tree."

Tan Junjie immediately replied seriously, "Copy that, we'll investigate right away."

"Thanks for your trouble, Captain Tan." Xia Qing put away the walkie-talkie and continued building the road.

Why use a walkie-talkie? Walkie-talkie conversations can be heard by others on the same channel — Xia Qing wanted to make a big fuss about this. Besides, satellite phone calls weren't cheap, and Xia Qing saved wherever she could.

After finishing the road from home to the stone-block bridge she'd laid across the stream, and while she was building a road from this straight path to the fields and reservoir, Xia Qing received a call back from Tan Junjie: "We've already captured Zhao Chong in Territory Four, and will handle it according to the Territory Law. How did you discover him spying?"

According to the Territory Law, if a lord is caught spying on another territory, the penalty is a five-hundred-point fine, cancellation of the lord's supply discount exchange benefits, and the tax exemption period is reduced from five years to three. If an employee within a lord's territory is caught spying on another territory, in addition to the above punishment for the lord, the employee is expelled from the territory and fined five hundred points; if points are insufficient, forced labor is substituted, and they are permanently barred from applying for Grade A and Grade B positions within the safe zone.

In chaotic times, heavy laws must be used. Five hundred points is equivalent to two years' income for an ordinary person who doesn't dare venture out of the safe zone. In disaster years when people can't even get enough to eat, ordinary people have no savings at all. The forced labor projects for those who can't scrape together enough points are repairing the defensive walls or clearing the evolved forest — for ordinary people, that's basically a death sentence.

Xia Qing was very satisfied with Tan Junjie's efficiency, and calmly replied, "His binocular lens reflected the light, and I spotted it."