Chapter 488: The Phone in the Cave

Although the wolf pack seemed to think Huo Zhun was pretty useless, Xia Qing also felt that Huo Zhun, a dual-system Evolver with both leaping power and strength, was quite impressive. "Good, being able to cooperate with Brother Huo is my honor."

"Xia Qing." Yan Long's voice came through the phone. "Once the Calamity Snow period is over, we begin special training."

"Okay, thank you, Sister Yan." Xia Qing had been saving up points in the previous period, wanting to give Yan Long something as a thank-you gift. Now the points she'd earned trading snake meat had all been given to Huo Zhun, so the only thing she had left that was presentable was the green-light python meat.

So Xia Qing asked sincerely, "Sister Yan, do you need python meat?"

"I don't need any. These next few days, don't forget to use the deodorizing agent."

Xia Qing...

A ninth-level olfactory Evolver like Yan Long also couldn't stand the stench on her—was Zhang San also an olfactory Evolver?

After hanging up the phone, Xia Qing saw it was almost two in the afternoon, so she packed up and prepared to head home to cook and replenish her energy.

But before going home, she still had one very important thing to do.

Xia Qing gathered up the grass the Ram Boss had left uneaten and gave it to the green-light chickens and yellow-light rabbits in the neighboring breeding greenhouse. Then she laid the plucked green-light spinach leaves on the insect-rearing tray, put the eggs into a basket, and left the greenhouse with the Ram Boss and the Sick Wolf, trudging slowly across the frozen reservoir to reach the low-slope planting greenhouse.

During the Calamity Snow period, the rain shields on the greenhouse had all been lowered, making the interior dim. Xia Qing turned on her flashlight and walked slowly to the spring-water cave. When she opened the cave entrance, she discovered the spring water was actually still flowing slowly!

The most important resource in her territory—uncontaminated spring water—was still flowing even though the outdoor temperature had dropped to below minus twenty and the greenhouse temperature was also below minus ten. Though the flow had lessened, it hadn't stopped, which delighted and surprised Xia Qing greatly.

Although she had already stored a large amount of spring water, since she was here, she naturally had to collect some to take back. Xia Qing placed the water bucket in the pit beneath the spring's mouth and poured the water into the bucket through a clean bamboo tube.

Then Xia Qing turned her flashlight toward the two colorless, transparent Calamity Grass plants inside the spring cave—only identifiable by the faint green linear veins on their leaves—and froze.

Then the Ram Boss, who was foraging for grass in the terraced fields, and the Sick Wolf, waiting outside the cave, watched as Xia Qing squeezed half her body into the tiny cave.

After quite a while, Xia Qing finally crawled out of the cave, squatted by the entrance, and carefully studied the photos on her phone.

It wasn't her imagination—a runner, like that of a strawberry, had really grown between the leaves of that intact Calamity Grass plant. But judging by the growth at the tip of the runner, it wasn't a leaf bud for propagating seedlings, but a flower bud of the Calamity Grass.

She hadn't just kept the Calamity Grass alive—she'd grown it all the way to flowering!

If her body weren't aching, and if there weren't people in her territory, Xia Qing would have loved to let out a roar or have a tussle with the Ram Boss to release the excitement bottled up inside her.

But for now, she could only tap the image and share it with her ally—Iron Rooster Yang Jin.

Wait!

Xia Qing stopped her finger just before hitting send, deciding not to share this good news with Yang Jin for now. Next time they negotiated, she could use this as leverage and pluck a good bunch of feathers from the Iron Rooster.

Xia Qing happily pocketed her phone and headed with the Ram Boss and the Sick Wolf to the high-slope planting site, where she checked on the apple tree, jujube tree, Sichuan pepper tree, and passionfruit tree—the lower halves buried in soil, the upper halves wrapped in straw, all properly protected. The other trees were fine, but the cold-sensitive passionfruit was probably a lost cause.

After finishing her inspection, Xia Qing led her two companions back to the low-slope planting greenhouse, hauled out the 20-liter water bucket with some effort, loaded it into a carrying basket, and had the Ram Boss carry it on his back. Then she had the Ram Boss use his head to push the stone blocking the spring cave entrance back into place. Only then did the little family of three leave the low-slope planting greenhouse and slowly head down the slope.

Seeing this person, sheep, and wolf crossing the stone slab bridge from afar, Chen Cheng, who was patrolling the territory, was full of envy. He also wanted a wolf that could carry baskets and a sheep that could bear heavy loads.

Xia Qing got onto the tiller with her two companions, warmed up the machine, started it, and greeted the Beard Blade Squad guarding the farmland along the way before heading home.

When she got home, Xia Qing noticed the Alpha Wolf and the Broken-Waist Wolf hadn't returned yet. She started the rice steaming first, then took out her phone to check the surveillance footage, wanting to find out when the two wolves had left the territory.

The Alpha Wolf had left just before dawn, still as dashing as ever in his posture. The Broken-Waist Wolf had left in the morning when she went to Territory Seven. That door-loving fellow hadn't used the door—he'd climbed back and forth over the wire mesh wall several times before entering Mountain Three, Area Forty-Nine.

No wonder she hadn't heard the notification from the north gate.

Xia Qing put away her phone and began preparing lunch.

Territory Four had sent her a big handful of green-light alfalfa sprouts. Xia Qing divided them into three portions: one mixed with concentrate feed for the Ram Boss, one cooked into vegetable porridge for the Sick Wolf, and one blanched and served cold. Then she made a dish of chives scrambled with eggs, plus a snake meatball soup. Her idol had told her to eat 150 jin of high-level evolved green-light python meat over three months, so Xia Qing distributed that meat evenly across two meals a day to ensure balanced nutrition.

After preparing a nutritious lunch with both cold and hot dishes, meat and vegetables, soup and rice, Xia Qing set up two tables in front of the fireplace—one for herself, one for the Ram Boss and the Sick Wolf.

It wasn't that she didn't want the family of three to eat at the same table, but these two were simply unsuitable tablemates—one splashed soup outward, the other shoved grass outward while eating.

After the meal, Xia Qing didn't rush out to the fields. She first did a full disinfection and deodorizing routine, then lay down on the recliner by the fireplace, picked up the fully charged phone she'd found in the hidden cave, and turned it on.

The phone booted up after a little over a minute, but the yellowed, dimmed screen displayed a number keypad, asking Xia Qing to enter the startup password.

Xia Qing entered the date on the family portrait hanging on the stone house wall—and it was correct.

After the phone opened, Xia Qing flipped through it briefly, then began looking through the photo album starting from the year the Calamity began.

Like most people, in the early days of the Calamity, the phone's owner had recorded the heavy rains, acid rain, hailstorms, flocks of birds, and wild animals that had appeared out of nowhere with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. In less than a month, the videos had fast-forwarded to tearful pleas for medicine and rescue.

After that, the great earthquakes, red fog, and insect swarms were barely recorded, because she no longer had the heart to document them.

In the autumn of the second year of the Calamity, this family fled their home and took shelter in a quarry dormitory, where they celebrated birthdays for their two children. Fortunately, the whole family was still alive.

A video from the second year's winter showed over twenty people in heavy clothing cleaning up Xiong Dong. Regardless of how tattered their clothes were, or how severely their faces and hands had been burned by acid rain, the men, women, and children in the video all had light in their eyes.

Although they had suffered a world-destroying Calamity, they had found a suitable place to live and remained full of hope for the future. In this video, Xia Qing didn't see the family's two elders or one of the children.

The second-to-last video was from the autumn of the third year of the Calamity. The family was celebrating a birthday for their child—thin but beaming with a brilliant smile—in the brand-new stone house they'd built. In this video, only three of the eight family members remained.

In the last video, only one person was left.