Chapter 431: Cold-Protection Trenches

Whether the protective gear made from the snake skin of an advanced hardness evolution works well, Xia Qing doesn't know yet. Right now she can only feel one thing deeply: this snake's meat is truly hard, only slightly softer than the hardness-evolved yellow-light yellow beans she harvested.

After finishing this bowl of porridge, Xia Qing had only one feeling: aching teeth.

She figured the sick wolf's weak stomach probably couldn't digest such hard meat granules and couldn't absorb nutrients from the snake meat. If simmering porridge won't work, she'd have to first grind it into meat paste to make meatballs, or steam it before eating.

The blades of the flour-grinding machine she traded for from the Territory Management Department definitely couldn't grind such hard meat. Just as Xia Qing was mulling over whether to pay the price of a scolding to ask Uncle Huo to build her a dedicated meat grinder, Zhang San's call came through.

"Xia Qing, can you bite through the meat? I've got a small meat grinder here, want me to send one over?"

Where to find a top-quality idol on Blue Star? Hui Three Base, Plot Seven!

Xia Qing was overjoyed and immediately thanked him. "Thanks so much, Third Brother. I simmered a pot of meat-granule porridge, chewing the meat granules till my teeth hurt, and was just trying to figure out what to do when your call came in."

Zhang San was in a good mood, his voice very gentle. "For this giant python's meat, eating a hundred jin of it this winter is enough for you. Even if you eat more, you won't be able to absorb the energy inside. You can trade the extra snake meat to people who need it. Giving this meat to ordinary evolvers or regular people who haven't eaten advanced evolution meat before will have a more obvious effect on boosting their immunity and inducing evolution."

Xia Qing immediately asked, "Does Third Brother still need some? If you do, I'll bring some over."

Zhang San laughed. "I've got plenty here. Try not to let too many people know where the snake meat came from. There are Qiang Snakes in that area. Not only is catching snakes dangerous, but someone with ulterior motives might exploit it to mass-breed Qiang Snakes."

"Understood, thanks for the reminder, Third Brother." After thanking him, Xia Qing asked about the big temperature drop. "I heard this winter's lowest temperature will drop to minus thirty degrees. Third Brother, can our wheat seedlings hold up?"

Zhang San replied, "Based on the forecast, this winter will indeed be a bit colder than the past few years. How cold it actually gets depends on the snowfall from the Calamity Snow. The wheat seeds I gave you were bred from a strongly winter-hardy evolved wheat variety. Hard resistance to minus twenty degrees is definitely no problem. If it gets colder than that, you'll need to take cold-protection and insulation measures."

Zhang San didn't tell Xia Qing how to insulate the wheat—probably because his insulation measures wouldn't be practical for ordinary territories.

In the afternoon, when Xia Qing went to the greenhouse to plant chive roots, she asked her allies about insulating their farmland for winter.

Qi Fu's suggestion was still putting up the rain-proof tarp for the big shed at night to block wind and keep warm. Shi Mu, however, brought up a new method. "Before the Calamity, when our villagers grew vegetables in small sheds in winter, they'd dig cold-protection trenches around the big shed, put foam boards or polystyrene boards inside, then fill them with sawdust, weeds, straw, and other insulating materials. After compacting it, they'd cover it with soil and seal the trench. Supposedly it can raise the temperature inside the shed by three to five degrees."

Qi Fu's wife Yuan Yan immediately chimed in. "Hearing you mention it, sister-in-law, I remembered too. When we were driving trucks to pull vegetables from the cold northern provinces, we heard greenhouse growers there mention this method."

Zhao Ze asked, "It's the Calamity year now—are there still factories making foam boards or polystyrene boards? Wonder how many points per jin."

Kuang Qingwei came online. "I'll go ask around and let everyone know in a bit."

Xia Qing asked, "How wide and deep should this cold-protection trench be dug?"

Shi Mu answered, "Seems like forty centimeters wide, half a meter deep."

Li Si suddenly came online. "The depth of the cold-protection trench isn't a fixed value—it's positively correlated with the local permafrost layer depth. Just dig about ten centimeters deeper than the permafrost layer."

Xia Qing quickly asked, "Fourth Sister, how thick do you estimate this winter's permafrost layer will be around here?"

Li Si's voice was still cool and detached, as if the argument between Shan Ying and Zhang San that morning had no effect on her at all. "Seasonal permafrost is a frozen layer formed because winter temperatures drop below zero. The thickness of the permafrost layer is related to temperature—the lower the temperature, the thicker the permafrost layer."

"I don't have Hui Three Base's historical winter permafrost layer thickness data here. Calculating by latitude, Hui Three Base's permafrost layer should be two to three centimeters thicker than Hui One Base's. However, our territory sits with mountains on the east, north, and west sides, so the permafrost layer should be one to two centimeters thinner than other areas, so it should be about the same as Hui One Base."

So, what's the specific thickness?

Xia Qing asked very clearly, "Fourth Sister, what was Hui One Base's lowest temperature last winter? How thick was the permafrost layer?"

Li Si gave the answer directly: "Minus thirteen degrees, forty-five centimeters."

Qi Fu followed up right after Xia Qing. "Fourth Sister, the soil layer around here is about that thick too, right? Meaning the soil layer around here will all freeze in winter?"

"Correct." Li Si gave an affirmative answer this time.

Zhao Ze asked, "Fourth Sister, if the soil layer freezes, won't the wheat and rapeseed freeze to death?"

Li Si answered, "No. The wheat variety you received in spring is M-11, a strongly winter-hardy evolved variety that can withstand temperatures as low as minus fifteen degrees."

Xia Qing summarized, "So if we dig a cold-protection trench, we need to dig through the soil layer?"

After Li Si gave an affirmative answer, Kuang Qingwei came online. "Everyone, I heard this winter will be very cold. Foam boards and polystyrene boards have doubled in price compared to half a month ago, and there's no stock—you can only pre-order. It's not suitable for us to use in the fields. Brother Ying, you guys should buy some and stick them on the walls."

The people living in Territory Fifteen stayed in tin-sheet houses with very poor cold protection and insulation. Yue Haiying replied, "Got it, I'll look into channels and see if I can get some back."

"Even without foam boards, digging a cold-protection trench is definitely better than not digging one. I'm planning to dig." When it came to farming, Qi Fu had never been stingy with effort.

Zhao's mother immediately followed the farming expert. "I'll dig too. We dried a lot of hay this autumn, plenty to fill the trench."

"I'll dig too." Xia Qing's territory had few people, but she had a micro-tiller, so her trench-digging speed might not be slower than the others.

After planting the chives and irrigating them with spring water, Xia Qing shouldered a basket, brought Sheep Lao Da and the sick wolf, and climbed up the North Buffer Forest to clip Toon bell fruits.

"Baa—"

This big toon tree that had shed all its leaves was Sheep Lao Da's treasure. Seeing Xia Qing climb the tree and pull out the long-branch pruners, Sheep Lao Da bleated, a little uneasy.

It thought Xia Qing was going to hurt the big toon tree.

"I'm not cutting the tree, I'm clipping the toon tree's fruit—these things here." Snip-snip, Xia Qing clipped off a few clusters of toon bell fruits, letting Sheep Lao Da understand what she was doing.

Seeing that Xia Qing was only clipping small branches to play with, Sheep Lao Da immediately relaxed. It went up to sniff the toon bell fruits, found they weren't edible, lost interest, and went to gnaw on the dried toon leaves on the ground.

The sick wolf picked up a cluster of toon bell fruits in its mouth and dropped them into the basket, then looked up at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing, standing in the tree, immediately praised it. "Good job, Lao Er, Lao Er is amazing! Yes, everything I clip off goes into the basket—we're taking them home."

The sick wolf grinned. Ha ha ha.

Sheep Lao Da, with leaves in its mouth, raised its head to glance a few times, then lowered its head and continued eating.

"Sister Qing—"

Xia Qing, standing in the big toon tree, heard the shout, turned her head, and saw Hu Zi carrying a bicycle, standing outside the north gate of Territory Three.