Chapter 441: The Red Squirrel That Moved Into the Sheep Pen

This year would be a harsh winter, and the lords were all actively preparing cold-weather supplies—supplies to help their crops survive the winter.

Winter irrigation, scattering plant ash, covering with dead leaves or chopped straw—everyone had followed the methods introduced on the broadcast and described by Qi Fu and Shi Zhong. Now, digging cold-proof trenches to enclose the greenhouses and the fields of wheat and rapeseed was the last measure they could still take.

If even this couldn't get the wheat through the cold, everyone could only resign themselves to fate.

So for this final measure, every territory worked with extra care; whenever they ran into something they didn't understand, they'd discuss it on the lord channel, looking for solutions.

Yue Haiying offered a new idea: "Brother Qi, is there an antifreeze for plants?"

Before the catastrophe, the lowest winter temperature at Hui-3 Base had only been -5°C. Even Qi Fu and Shi Zhong, who had farming experience, didn't know much about protecting fields from the cold. Yue Haiying's question—Qi Fu truly didn't know the answer: "I'm not sure either. Logically there should have been one before the catastrophe, right?"

Kuang Qingwei came online immediately: "I'll ask around for you, but even if this stuff exists, I doubt it'll come cheap."

Hearing it might be expensive and possibly scarce, Xia Qing, who was driving the micro-tiller to dig the trench, began counting silently: 1, 2…

"There is an antifreeze for plants."

Sure enough, a big shot had come online—but it wasn't Li Si, it was Zhang San. Zhang San was in a great mood; even his voice had more energy. "But plant antifreeze works best between 5–15°C. Below -5°C, it's prohibited."

Everyone…

Zhao Ze couldn't help muttering, "Third Brother, at 5–15°C it doesn't even freeze—why would you need antifreeze?"

Zhang San was in such a good mood he was even chatty: "Plants that aren't cold-hardy lose their vitality to the cold at that temperature."

After waiting a while and seeing neither Li Si nor his assistant Xiao Liu come online to hawk Territory Nine's specialty goods, Xia Qing knew why Zhang San was in such a good mood today.

Sure enough, Zhang San's call came through quickly: "Xia Qing, once the green-light soybeans are delivered, do you want them stored in my storage room, or kept on your own territory?"

Xia Qing answered immediately: "Keep them at your place for now; I'll come get them when it's time to plant. Third Brother, did Liehuo's people agree that easily?"

Zhang San snorted. "The evidence is rock-solid. How dare she refuse."

No need to ask—that "she" had to be referring to Liehuo's vice-captain, Shan Ying. Xia Qing felt secretly delighted. When she went home to rest at noon, she brought up a bag of green-light hickory nuts from the underground storage room: two jin for her idol, as a trade for a potion that could drive away small reptiles; one jin for herself, to nourish her brain.

After swapping the potion with Ji Li, on her way back Xia Qing also clipped a bag of toon-bell fruits from the big Chinese toon tree and brought them home. After this picking, only the fruits at the very tip of the tree were left—those couldn't be reached with long-handled pruners. To get them down, she'd have to tie a sickle to a long bamboo pole and hack them off with the sickle.

This wasn't urgent—she could come back tomorrow to deal with it.

By now, the wolf pack and Beard Feng's squad had already left; only Xia Qing, Sheep Boss, and Sick Wolf remained on the territory. Though the territory was quiet and lonely, Xia Qing felt warm and full.

Chatting with the Boss on the way home, she greeted Sick Wolf who was watching the house, brought the toon-bell fruits inside, and set them out to dry on the big second-floor balcony—then heard the sound of hay being scratched around.

Xia Qing turned her head and saw the red squirrel, a white bandage wrapped around its waist, crawling out of the hay pile. It gripped the cage with its little paws, gazed longingly at the toon-bell fruits, and its fluffy big tail wagged and wagged.

It wanted to eat.

Xia Qing raised an eyebrow, took a string of toon-bell fruits and walked over; the red squirrel immediately shrank back into the hay pile. After Xia Qing placed the food it wanted inside the cage, the red squirrel immediately hugged a string of toon-bell fruits as tall as itself and dragged them into the hay pile.

Finding it couldn't drag them all in, the little fellow began breaking off the small bells one by one, skillfully cracking open the hard outer skin and nibbling the toon seeds inside.

Seeing this, Xia Qing's confidence that Chinese toon could be used to sprout toon shoots rose another notch.

Before, she had been wondering: if the seeds of the green-light Chinese toon tree could sprout, why did it produce so many toon seeds every year, yet hardly any toon seedlings ever grew? Even if Sheep Boss liked eating them, it couldn't possibly have nibbled away every toon seedling on the mountain.

Now she understood: the vast majority of the seeds this Chinese toon tree produced had been eaten by this red squirrel.

Xia Qing sorted the toon-bell fruits drying on the balcony while chatting idly with the red squirrel eating toon seeds in the cage: "You're just one squirrel, no home, no property. Do you store this much food every year, or have you already sensed that this winter will be very cold, so you're storing extra?"

The red squirrel sat on the hay, its little paws expertly shelling toon seeds and stuffing them into its mouth, too busy to pay Xia Qing any attention. More precisely, it couldn't understand a word Xia Qing was saying; it could only sense that this human meant it no harm, which was why it dared sit in the cage and eat heartily, trying to replenish the stamina and energy it had lost over these two days of injury.

After she finished drying them, Xia Qing turned and asked, "How old are you this year? Sheep Boss is only a little over one—you're probably not much older either, right?"

The red squirrel noticed Xia Qing staring at it; its big tail instantly puffed up, and it hugged two toon-bell fruits and hid in the hay.

Xia Qing laughed, opened the cage door, fished out the red squirrel that was hiding in the hay crunching away, ignored its squealing protests, pinned it down with one hand, and with the other unwrapped the bandage on its belly to check the wound.

Sheep Boss and Sick Wolf heard the commotion and both ran up to the second floor to look on. Xia Qing no longer insisted on keeping them off the second floor; she greeted them and went on checking the red squirrel's wound.

True to its origin as an evolved creature born and raised in the Evolution Forest, the red squirrel's recovery ability was excellent. Xia Qing applied an antiseptic and anti-swelling topical medicine, re-wrapped the bandage, and opened a second-floor window.

"Off you go. Your wound isn't infected with any nasty evolved fungi—in another two or three days it'll be completely healed."

The instant Xia Qing opened her hand, the red squirrel almost instantly leapt from her palm and fled at top speed. But to Xia Qing's surprise, it didn't flee toward the squirrel hole in Section 3 of Hill 49; instead, it plunged straight into the sheep pen and burrowed into the hay pile.

Xia Qing watched for a while, then asked Sick Wolf, who was pressed against her side: "Lao Er, that hay in the sheep pen is winter supplies I prepared for you two. The red squirrel isn't going to pee and poop in there, is it?"

Sick Wolf raised its head and looked at Xia Qing, its face the picture of innocence.

Sick Wolf was squinting, studying how to open the refrigerator—compared to the matter of the sheep pen, it was far more interested in the food inside the fridge.

Xia Qing closed the window, turned and saw Sheep Boss studying the refrigerator, so she told it: "Boss, stop looking. It's all python meat in there—you don't like eating it."

Of the more than five hundred jin of python meat Xia Qing had kept, she had only made a small amount into jerky; most was frozen and stored in the storage room and the refrigerator. Zhang San had said eating a hundred jin was enough for her. Xia Qing began thinking about how to make the extra hundred jin of meat deliver its maximum value.