Chapter 483: The Fourth System Ability

Xia Qing drove the micro-tiller through wind and snow to deliver the well-fed Huo Zhun to the buffer forest of Territory Three, asked Guan Tong to send him out of the territory and hand him over to the people of Territory Seven, while she took the sick wolf to inspect the greenhouses.

The vegetables in the planting greenhouse had all sprouted and were growing well; the strawberries and mint were also thriving, which lifted Xia Qing's spirits.

Low temperatures? The greenhouse's heating wall was radiating heat nonstop. Insufficient light on a Calamity Snow day? The supplemental lights were there—however much light intensity she wanted, she got. High Calamity element content in the atmosphere? Yi Stones were their nemesis.

The green-light hens, spring-water fish, rabbits, and yellow mealworms in the aquaculture greenhouse were also doing well; Xia Qing checked the temperature and humidity, added some firewood to the stove, and carefully inspected the chimney.

The sick wolf walked to one side, turned its head, and looked at Xia Qing, hahahaha.

Wearing night-vision goggles, Xia Qing walked over, counted the eggs in the basket, and said happily, "In two days these hens laid sixteen eggs. Tomorrow morning the two of us will have boiled eggs."

The sick wolf was even happier, squinting its eyes and grinning, laughing happily.

Further ahead, Xia Qing saw the three batches of peanuts drying on the waterproof tarp and was filled with emotion. She had gone to Mountain Fifty to gather peanuts—clearly just the day before yesterday—but these past two days had stretched out as if a whole month had passed.

Xia Qing endured the pain all over her body, slowly sat down on the ground, turned on her flashlight, and observed carefully.

The dirt on the peanut shells had already dried but hadn't fallen off yet. There was no rush—as long as the peanuts didn't get moldy, a few sunny days after the Calamity Snow would dry them enough to store.

Having slept the whole afternoon, Xia Qing wasn't sleepy at all now. She had the sick wolf fetch a basket and began picking the tender peanuts. The large, plump green-light and yellow-light peanuts were kept for seed; the tenderer ones were sorted out for eating.

The tender green-light peanuts she sorted were divided into three portions: the best one was for her idol, the second was kept for herself to eat, and a small amount of peanuts along with a portion of the tender yellow-light peanuts were packed into a basket to take to the greenhouse.

Red-light peanuts couldn't be eaten directly. If Yang Jin didn't purchase them, she would trade them to Zhong Tao. The Mountain Fifty incident had blown up so much that her trip to Mountain Fifty to gather peanuts was already exposed—there was no point hiding it.

She didn't know whether the hidden valley was within the fire-sterilization range. If it was, the edible plants in the valley's cabin, the supplies in the stone house, and the family portrait of the valley's builder hanging on the wall inside would all be burned to ash by the fire.

Xia Qing's gaze turned to the large backpack beside her. She crawled over, pulled out the waterproof bag she'd found in the valley cabin—containing a phone, a notebook, kindergarten textbooks, and homework books—and hung it around the neck of the sick wolf quietly keeping her company. "Lao Er, carry the basket. Let's head back to the vehicle."

The sick wolf happily wagged its tail once, picked up the basket of eggs and peanuts in its mouth, and patiently followed behind the slow-moving Xia Qing.

Xia Qing took the sick wolf, drove the micro-tiller to the edge of the greenhouse, told the sick wolf to go home first, and carried the basket into the rapeseed greenhouse herself.

Seeing the rapeseed field in the greenhouse, which had originally sprouted very evenly but now looked as if it had gotten alopecia areata, with large empty patches everywhere, Xia Qing felt a pang in her heart.

Cherishing the land and the crops that grow on it is the instinct of a farmer.

Even knowing these destroyed crops would be compensated for, farmers still felt the pain—pain for the heart and effort they had poured into this land—and stood silently at the field's edge calculating how many jin of grain the seedlings could have produced if they hadn't been destroyed. In a year of disaster, food was the most precious thing; quality food, even if you had points, you might not be able to buy.

"Sister Qing."

Xiao Jiang, who was on duty, ran over and asked with concern, "Why haven't you gone back to rest yet? Can you hold on?"

Xia Qing pointed to the basket beside her. "I'm much better. Keep these eggs and peanuts for your late-night snack and breakfast. Eggs can't be taken out of the territory—that's the condition I promised Third Brother."

"This many? We're in for another treat!" Xiao Jiang lifted the insulating layer covering the basket, saw ten eggs and half a basket of peanuts inside, and was overjoyed.

The Calamity Snow level at this time was yellow, belonging to the "stable period" of the Calamity Snow. Xia Qing walked forward slowly and still spotted a rapeseed seedling right under her nose that had rapidly grown from palm-height to forearm-height.

Xiao Jiang immediately rushed over and uprooted the Calamity-evolved rapeseed seedling. After clearing it, Xiao Jiang had wanted to chat with Xia Qing for a bit, but spotted another rapeseed seedling over ten meters away starting to shoot up, and hurried over.

Xia Qing stood at the edge of the field, focused her mind, and relied on her sense to catch any anomalies in this farmland. She confirmed once again that before ordinary Calamity-evolved plants underwent mutation, she couldn't sense anything abnormal about them.

She slowly walked forward over twenty meters, her gaze settling on a rapeseed plant about a dozen centimeters tall with very ordinary-looking leaves.

This rapeseed plant looked perfectly normal, but Xia Qing could sense its difference through her "feeling." It was a sensation that couldn't be accurately described in words; if she had to describe it, it was similar to catching a whiff of "danger."

She just couldn't see where its danger lay, but out of some intuition, she felt something was off about it.

Although this plant hadn't shown any changes yet, Xia Qing was now certain it would Calamity-evolve, and into an aggressive form at that.

Yesterday morning, during the pursuit of the fugitive, Xia Qing had relied on this intuition to steer Huo Zhun and the broken-backed wolf away from several large trees and several areas. One of those large trees had its aggressive nature proven by a rampaging wild boar—at the cost of its life.

Now, Xia Qing's grasp of this feeling was stronger. She quietly watched this rapeseed plant; she wanted to see the process of its Calamity evolution clearly, confirm its attack method, and then have Guan Tong and the others clear it, after which she would post a reminder announcement in the territory channel.

"Sister Qing, shall I walk you back?" Guan Tong, who had been clearing snow outside, walked into the greenhouse. Seeing Xia Qing standing motionless, he hurried over, thinking she couldn't hold on any longer.

Xia Qing explained, "I'm fine. I was thinking about what to replant in these empty spots after the Calamity Snow."

Guan Tong knew Xia Qing must be heartbroken over the seedlings. "Other territories' situations are about the same as ours; their wheat seedlings suffered even greater losses than ours."

The yellow-light rapeseed seeds everyone planted were all exchanged from the territory management department, with Calamity element content between 8-10‰, and the growing conditions were the same, so the Calamity evolution rates were about the same.

Xia Qing's yellow-light wheat had a lower Calamity evolution rate because her wheat seeds weren't saved from the first crop of wheat, but were quality yellow-light wheat seeds with about 6‰ Calamity element content that she'd exchanged with her idol.

However, Xia Qing had promised her idol that the wheat seed exchange couldn't be revealed to outsiders, so she changed the subject. "Luckily we used Yi Stones to protect one patch."

The Yi Stones Xia Qing had given to Hu Zi Feng didn't just protect half a mu of green-light wheat; the extra Yi Stones also protected about 15 square meters of yellow-light wheat and 9 square meters of yellow-light rapeseed. Other areas visibly lacked seedlings, while the crops within the Use Yishi protection zone remained lush and green.

Hearing Xia Qing bring up Yi Stones on her own, the three of them—Guan Tong included—opened their floodgates, chattering away about the wonders of Yi Stones.

Xia Qing listened with a smile, devoting most of her attention to monitoring that odd rapeseed seedling. Relying on her sense, she knew that seedling's Calamity evolution was about to begin.