Chapter 45: Bamboo-Leaf Darts of the Evolved Bamboo

Because the inspection team regularly sprays insecticide near the quarantine belt, the first fifty meters after entering the Evolution Forest were free of dangerous evolved creatures, but past fifty meters insects noticeably increased, and the squad's advance slowed.

Even with the well-equipped Beard Feng squad, it took two hours to safely reach the destination, twice as long as the time Xia Qing needed to enter the mountain and cut bamboo before the Pestilence Rain.

Seeing bamboo shoot tips indeed poking out of the ground in the bamboo grove, Xia Qing was full of energy, waiting for Beard Feng to give the order.

Beard Feng cautiously scouted the area once before ordering, "When digging shoots, first lightly chop a bit off the tip to test. Watch out for evolved bamboo cattle or evolved night moth larvae jumping out from inside the shoot to attack, and also guard against bamboo-leaf darts from overhead."

Some dangerous evolved bamboo will fire bamboo-leaf darts to attack creatures that approach, skewering them into porcupines. Xia Qing hadn't encountered dangerous evolved bamboo in her three previous bamboo-cutting trips, but that didn't mean there were none here. Because she came in late winter to early spring before the Pestilence Rain, the Evolution Forest was in a relatively safe "dormant period" then. In the Evolution Forest awakened by three days of Pestilence Rain, anything could happen.

After confirming the squad members and Xia Qing were fully prepared, Beard Feng led the team into the bamboo grove and began searching for edible bamboo shoots.

For every shoot tip she encountered, Xia Qing carefully chopped off a small piece with her knife, and only after confirming no evolved creature attacked did she squeeze out the sap to test. After twelve consecutive red lights, Xia Qing finally tested a yellow light.

She didn't start digging immediately, but first listened carefully and observed, confirming there was nothing dangerous lurking in the soil or nearby, before swiftly shoveling the dirt open with an entrenching tool and stabbing the bamboo rhizome once. Only after confirming the bamboo wouldn't fire bamboo-leaf darts did she chop through the shoot root in one stroke, quickly peel the shoot, and stuff it into her bag.

Having risked so much to come this far, of course she'd take as much as she could carry, hacking off the inedible parts on the spot.

This bamboo shoot still weighed six jin after peeling. A smile appeared on Xia Qing's face as she continued searching and digging.

Beard Feng, who had been keeping an eye on Xia Qing, nodded to himself. As expected of a strength evolver, that speed and that power—truly suited for digging pits and physical labor.

After the group slowly advanced for two hours, Xia Qing had already harvested seven yellow-light shoots, filling one bag. She slung the bag on her back, and heard a squad member exclaim softly over the walkie-talkie, "Green light!"

Finding one green-light shoot meant a very high chance of tracing the bamboo rhizome to more green-light shoots. The squad immediately moved slowly toward that team member, and after confirming there was nothing dangerous in the soil, began digging at once.

Three shovelfuls down and still no shoot root, another five shovelfuls down, the shoot was already an arm's length long and still no root in sight. Xia Qing, who had never seen such a huge shoot, had stars in her eyes, wishing she could lift that team member out and jump down to dig herself.

When they finally reached the shoot root and confirmed this bamboo shoot was longer than an adult's leg, everyone's face broke into smiles. Even if today they only harvested this one shoot, they'd already made a profit.

After carefully observing the nearby bamboo, Beard Feng decisively ordered, "Guan Tong, open the protective umbrella, everyone take cover under it, use iron shields for protection, Dajiang watch the ground at our feet."

A squad member pulled a folded iron umbrella from his pack. It didn't look big, but once opened the canopy was over two meters in diameter—enough to cover all six people. Xia Qing and Dajiang in the center, the others around the perimeter.

Beard Feng continued, "Miss Xia cuts the shoot—one chop should take it down. Try not to sever the bamboo rhizome, to avoid over-stimulating the bamboo."

"Got it." Xia Qing swung her machete at the joint between the shoot and the rhizome, finishing it in one stroke. For a strength evolver, this was child's play.

That single strike directly triggered the bamboo's mechanism. Seeing the rhizome tremble, Beard Feng immediately ordered, "Everyone crouch, iron shields up!"

The sound of cutting wind rose as countless bamboo-leaf darts struck the umbrella canopy and the surrounding shields, going bang bang bang.

Firing bamboo-leaf darts was this evolved bamboo's stress response. Fortunately, its evolution level wasn't high enough to lock onto targets, so after one wave of indiscriminate attacks it stopped firing.

Taking advantage of those few seconds, Xia Qing had already peeled the green-light shoot, cut the root, and stuffed it into her bag. She excitedly shared the joy with the team, "After peeling it's at least forty jin—we're in for a treat this time."

"Stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork tonight." Even the fierce-looking Beard Feng was very pleased. "Miss Xia, do you need canned meat?"

Canned meat was expensive, and Xia Qing of course had none in stock. "Can I trade with you?"

"Of course. One 340-gram pork can in exchange for two jin of evolved perilla?"

"Deal!" A fair trade—Xia Qing agreed very readily.

Beard Feng, whose mouth had been watering over evolved perilla thanks to Zhang San and Tang Huai's nagging, smiled even wider.

After the iron umbrella was put away, Xia Qing looked at the dark green bamboo leaves stuck in the bamboo and scattered on the ground, and couldn't help feeling a chill of belated fear. Fortunately, the evolved bamboo she'd cut before the Pestilence Rain wasn't this one—otherwise she would surely have been injured.

Xia Qing was curious how Beard Feng had confirmed that this bamboo bearing the long shoot was an aggressive evolved bamboo, but she wasn't familiar with him yet, and since he didn't bring it up, she felt too embarrassed to ask.

After confirming the evolved bamboo was a green-light plant, the six of them followed its rhizome and found thirteen more green-light bamboo shoots, though none were as large as the first.

After the thirteen green-light bamboo shoots were dug up, Xia Qing looked up and found that the leaves on this mature evolved bamboo had almost all been fired off bare...

But they hadn't damaged the bamboo's roots, so in just a few days or after one rain, its combat power would refill to the max, and anything that dared touch its shoots or roots would be attacked by darts.

This was probably why no animals were gnawing on the bamboo shoots.

The harvest-bountiful shoot-digging squad was preparing to head back when Xia Qing heard rustling sounds all around. Animals were coming, and quite a few! From the noise, they weren't giant pandas.

She had just straightened up when she heard Beard Feng order, "Enemy contact, form up!"

Xia Qing was slightly stunned. Could Beard Feng be a dual evolver of hearing and vision?

The four squad members quickly faced outward, and together with Beard Feng shielded Xia Qing in the center. Xia Qing, knife in one hand and gun in the other, didn't dare show off, standing dead center and staring fixedly ahead.

Soon, the dangerous creatures making the noise appeared in Xia Qing's line of sight—a group of bamboo rats! It seemed they'd been coveting the green-light bamboo shoots for a long time, but feared the evolved bamboo's attack power and didn't dare bite. Seeing Xia Qing's group dig out all the shoots and about to take them away, these fellows got anxious.

Don't look at these evolved rats' round bodies and short little legs—their speed was extremely fast. With Xia Qing's current marksmanship, she couldn't possibly hit them. She immediately holstered her gun and gripped her machete with both hands.

Beard Feng, a level-five vision evolver, had already finished his reconnaissance: "Two hundred meters out, twelve o'clock direction, evolved bamboo rat pack spotted—thirty rodent evolvers, no fewer than ten speed evolvers. Miss Xia, protect the bamboo shoots in place. Dajiang, watch for movement underfoot. Leave the speed evolvers to me. The rest of you, take out the rodent types."

After the pleasant sound of the safety being clicked off, Beard Feng's sniper rifle quickly fired the first bullet. Xia Qing saw a speed-evolved bamboo rat fifty meters away, leaping rapidly between bamboo stalks, take the hit and fall.

The squad members also opened fire rapidly. The bamboo rats moved very fast, but they kept getting hit and falling, completely unable to close in. Reassured, Xia Qing watched the ground together with Dajiang.

Bamboo rats could burrow and might launch attacks from underground.

Picking out the sound of digging from a certain direction amid the general chaos was hard—this was the life-saving trump card Xia Qing had painstakingly trained. Hearing the sound of an animal burrowing toward them from ten meters to the northwest, Xia Qing noticed out of the corner of her eye that Dajiang, the hearing evolver, hadn't reacted. It seemed Dajiang's hearing evolution level wasn't as high as hers. She gripped her machete tight and said nothing, waiting for the evolved rat to enter Dajiang's hearing range.

When the bamboo rat burrowed within four meters, Dajiang finally spoke: "Eleven o'clock direction, four meters, twenty centimeters underground."

A squad member quickly lowered his muzzle, and after a bang of a gunshot, the digging sound beneath the soil stopped.