Chapter 448: The Enemy Retreats

The newly healed broken-legged girl followed the lead wolf, dashing away from Mountain 49 like the wind, and returned to Mountain 61.

Only Xia Qing and... a huge herd of wild boars remained in Wolf Valley!

Xia Qing's mind wandered through eighteen ways to cook wild boar meat as she kept her head down, gathering leaves.

She carried the fallen leaves back to her territory, mixed in the compost starter powder her idol had traded her, poured it into the cold-protection ditch and packed it down, then covered it with a layer of soil and plastic mulch. A section of cold-protection ditch over ten meters long for her oil-wheat field was finished.

After filling one fifty-meter-long cold-protection ditch, Xia Qing returned to Valley 1 of Zone 3 to collect wild boar droppings.

She knew this work well — back when she took on missions, she'd done plenty of it.

Wild boars were territorial animals too. The herd driven in by the wolves had split into three groups and marked their territory with urine. Each group would defecate at fixed spots within its territory, so although Xia Qing wasn't a smell-evolved, she still quickly found the boars' dunging spots.

Seeing a dung pile over a meter tall piled up in Valley 1, Xia Qing was first glad she wasn't a smell-evolved, and second grateful it was winter, so the dung wouldn't evolve into insect swarms.

Xia Qing gathered the three big piles of wild boar dung from the valley and the wolf dung from the wolf den entrance back to her territory, poured them into the cold-protection ditch outside the livestock greenhouse, added dried leaves and compost starter powder, and let it all ferment together.

She hoped the smell of wolf and boar dung would, to some degree, intimidate any small carnivores that wandered in, keeping them from tearing the greenhouse film and stealing her chickens and fish.

Of course, this was only a supplementary measure. The animals inside the greenhouse were mainly protected by the sick wolf, pesticides and deodorizers, cameras, Xia Qing, and Sheep Boss.

The above measures, ranked from greatest protective effect to least.

The sick wolf loved eating eggs and liked fish, so it took the protection of the livestock greenhouse very seriously. Without Xia Qing giving any order, it would come by to patrol several times a day. At the slightest disturbance, day or night, the sick wolf would come check.

Sheep Boss didn't eat meat. Apart from coming by occasionally to scare the chickens and show off its territory-boss status when bored, it rarely entered the livestock greenhouse.

The herbivorous boss preferred the planting greenhouse.

The day after Xia Qing moved the strawberries and mint into the greenhouse, she noticed a few leaves missing from the mint. The culprit, Sheep Boss, lay beside it with a blank expression, chewing cud.

Eating grass was a sheep's nature — Xia Qing didn't object to it eating, she just feared it would carelessly yank the plants up by the roots and ruin the seedlings. So she had no choice but to ring every vegetable bed with thorny brambles and shrubs to keep the sheep out.

The sick wolf patrolled the territory, fed the fish and chickens. Xia Qing bustled about, growing vegetables, cooking, training — and of course Sheep Boss couldn't be idle either.

Taking advantage of a free moment at noon, Xia Qing installed the pedal-powered generator bicycle Hu Zi had sent over in the first-floor living room.

The pedal-powered generator bicycle and the pedal-powered water-drawing bicycle shared one feature: a special-function device mounted on the rear wheel.

The water-drawing bicycle used the rear wheel to drive a water-drawing belt, lifting water from low to high, using kinetic energy directly.

The generator bicycle, on the other hand, had a generator made up of a stator and a rotor mounted on the rear wheel. When pedaling, the rotor's rotation drove the coils on the stator to rotate, producing electromagnetic induction, converting the kinetic energy of pedaling into electrical energy, which was then stored in a battery through the circuit system.

After installing it, Xia Qing stepped on and tried it out, finding the pedal-powered generator bicycle took about the same effort as the water-drawing bicycle — Sheep Boss should like it.

The water-drawing bicycle had water flowing up when pedaled, but the generator bicycle had nothing — it might leave Sheep Boss without a sense of accomplishment, pedaling and pedaling until it felt pointless.

So Xia Qing tinkered for a while and fitted a lightbulb on the generator bicycle. When pedaling, the bulb lit up; when not pedaling, it didn't.

When Sheep Boss came back at noon to eat, Xia Qing exaggeratedly and slowly pedaled the bicycle, admiring the bulb hanging in front of the handlebars. "Boss, look quick, this bicycle is amazing — step on it and the bulb lights up, isn't it pretty — oh wow, how can there be such a beautiful little bulb…"

This thing, Sheep Boss knew well! After wiping its hooves clean, it clip-clopped over and showed Xia Qing its spiral horn.

"Boss wants to play? Alright then, I'll let you play for a bit." Xia Qing pretended to climb off the bicycle reluctantly and stood to one side.

Sheep Boss immediately climbed on, head held high, and pedaled the bicycle like mad.

Xia Qing clapped for it, praising wildly. "Boss, you're amazing! I didn't expect you could ride this fast — Wolf Lao Er, look quick, isn't the bulb way brighter than when I was riding?"

No matter what Xia Qing said, the sick wolf would squat nearby with its mouth open, hahaha-ing, a very supportive audience.

Sheep Boss squinted at Xia Qing, signaling she could say more.

"Boss, you're really too smart — no need for Yongwo Sect, you learn it at a glance. You must be the smartest, most handsome evolved sheep on Blue Star. You've made history again for evolved sheep. No wonder my lord the Queen became friends with you — how are you this amazing…"

After praising until her mouth was dry, Xia Qing took a sip of mint tea made with spring water and negotiated with Sheep Boss. "Boss, you play first, I'll go make something delicious for you and Lao Er. When you've played enough we'll eat, how about it?"

The impossibly proud Sheep Boss reluctantly gave Xia Qing a look.

"Got it, your humble servant understands, going to cook right now!" Xia Qing trotted to the kitchen, slicing pumpkin and soaking Chinese toon buds for Sheep Boss and the sick wolf while listening on her phone to the light music she'd downloaded and saved.

Recently the weather had turned cold and there wasn't enough sunlight, so the solar panels weren't generating enough power — Xia Qing had to scrimp on electricity. Now Sheep Boss had entered full power-generating mode, no need to scrimp anymore.

At noon, Xia Qing ate sweet potato stewed with wild boar ribs, the sick wolf ate boiled wild boar meat and pumpkin, and Sheep Boss had the most lavish meal: cabbage leaves, pumpkin, crushed corn, and compressed rations.

"Boss, you're just too awesome!" Xia Qing set the food bowl in front of Sheep Boss and sighed sincerely. In just one noon, it had actually charged a standard battery to 30% — this generating efficiency put the solar panels on the roof to shame!

With the boss around, who needs solar panels, who needs diesel generators? Sheep Boss was the real clean, efficient, green energy — sustainable energy! The grass it ate was converted into...

"Buzz."

Xia Qing heard her phone buzz, opened it, and saw a message from Tang Huai:

Tang Zhengsu has left the territory and returned to the safe zone, V5! My leg's much better now, do you need someone to help dig cold-protection ditches? I'll do it for free.

"Buzz."

The phone buzzed again — a message from Beard Feng:

Tang Zhengrong has led the main force back to the safe zone. Zone Two territory is temporarily under Zhou Xun. Squad 4's Shan Ying will leave within two days. Be careful coming and going these two days.

Xia Qing replied "received" and asked: Shan Ying's objective hasn't been achieved yet, why would she leave so soon?

Beard Feng replied: Blaze Squad's cash cow — Gao Yi's elemental spinach seeds were stolen. Shan Ying is the deputy squad leader in charge of planting, she has to return to the team ASAP for damage control.

Stolen?

Heh.

Xia Qing put a tender, juicy stewed rib into her mouth, closed her eyes, and savored the wonderful melody the ribs played in her mouth.