Chapter 499: My Name Is Liu Zongying

"Beep."

Hearing the camera's warning chirp, Xia Qing, who had been sleeping, opened her eyes and listened closely—it turned out a red squirrel had arrived on her windowsill.

Xia Qing got dressed and out of bed, poured some warm spring water into a small bowl on the cabinet, dripped in a tiny bit of anti-qiang agent, opened the window, and set it on the windowsill along with three yellow-light peanuts.

The red squirrel now looked dull-coated and emaciated—most likely because after being stabbed by a green-light peanut, it had toughed out the qiang-snow period without any protective measures, raising the qiang-element content in its body, which was eating away at its body and evolution ability. Xia Qing didn't want to lose this neighbor who was so good at finding food, so she decided to share a little of her own and the sick wolf's anti-qiang agent with it.

Boss Sheep?

That fellow's body is rock-solid—sliced and sold as meat, it'd be snapped up in a rush. It doesn't need any anti-qiang agent at all.

After Xia Qing stepped aside, the red squirrel hopped onto the windowsill, drank its fill at the small bowl, and instead of running off, it squatted on the windowsill and went crunch crunch crunch, eating all three peanuts. Then it rubbed its little paws, swayed its patchy tail, and gazed at Xia Qing with eager eyes.

Xia Qing…

"Still hungry?"

The red squirrel kept swaying its tail.

"Fine." Xia Qing fished two chestnuts from the pocket of her protective suit and set them on the windowsill.

The red squirrel immediately grabbed the two chestnuts and ran off. Before long it reappeared on the windowsill, swaying its pitiful tail at Xia Qing, who was folding her bedding.

Xia Qing understood. "Too little food in your den, making you feel insecure? Fine."

Xia Qing found a few boards, sawed them to size, and in a few bangs and clatters nailed together a wooden box. She then cut a small door, nailed on an emergency blanket as a door curtain, loaded all the red squirrel's food into the box, hoisted it up, and climbed the big tree in the western buffer forest where the red squirrel lived. With more bangs and clatters she secured the wooden box next to its nest. "There, all your food's stored inside."

After Xia Qing left, the red squirrel immediately darted from the branch into the wooden box and started hiding the food inside its tree hollow.

Today Xia Qing's body didn't hurt at all, and she felt her abilities had recovered a bit more. She took the sick wolf on two slow jogs around the territory, patrolled the grounds, then went home to make breakfast.

When Xia Qing set the nutritious breakfast on the table, she noticed the sick wolf baring its fangs at the window and growling low.

Xia Qing looked out and saw the red squirrel had come again, squatting on the wooden post holding the surveillance camera, swaying its tail, rubbing its little paws, and gazing at her with eager eyes.

Xia Qing was speechless. "Freeloader, are you planning to sponge off the rich?"

The "rich" she referred to was herself.

The red squirrel didn't understand what Xia Qing was saying, just kept rubbing its little paws and gazing at her eagerly.

"So much food and you still don't feel secure?" Xia Qing understood the anxiety of food shortage all too well—if she didn't supplement the red squirrel's food, it would definitely risk digging through qiang-snow to look for more.

Fine, let it sponge off the rich if it wants.

After breakfast, Xia Qing went to the basement, filled a small half-bag with yellow-light chestnuts, corn, and mung beans, carried it to the red squirrel's place, and poured them into the wooden box. She then told the sick wolf and Boss Sheep to guard the house, asked Guan Tong and Chen Cheng to watch over the territory, and she went with Zhao Ze and the others to the assembly point east of the passage, boarded a big truck, and headed for Mountain Fifty.

Today was the first day of clearing the firebreak. Xia Qing wasn't a member of the task force, but she was the manager of Mountain Fifty and needed to go inspect it.

According to the work plan Xia Qing and Yang Jin had drawn up yesterday, the task force today would first clear the passage from the firebreak to Mountain Fifty, then go up the mountain to clear the firebreak itself.

Bulldozers, explosives, plus manual labor—within just over an hour they had widened the valley passage and arrived at the base of Mountain Fifty's Third Peak.

Under Zhao Ze's command, the group split into teams and got to work. Xia Qing followed Tan Junjie to inspect the danger zone cordoned off with warning tape.

Zhang San had already marked the danger zone on the map, but seeing it on the map was nothing compared to the shock of seeing it in person.

At the base of Mountain Fifty's Third Peak, the more than twenty mu of forest that had once been covered by toxic substances—the qiang-snow there was actually reddish-brown, and the tall pine trees in the area had clearly lost their vitality.

Yellowed pine needles, reddish-brown qiang-snow, a forest with not even a bird call—despair permeated everything.

"Such thick trees…" Su Ming, following behind Tan Junjie, murmured to himself. "So this is the power of super-evolution microorganisms? Can this land still be saved?"

"This place needs to be burned completely and replanted with saplings." A familiar voice rang out. Assistant Xiao Liu from Territory Nine walked over slowly, looking at Xia Qing through the faceplate of her airtight protective suit.

"It's best to plant this kind of pine, because the soil here is suited to its growth. We've already tested it—the chemical substances produced when this pine's needles decompose can inhibit the sprouting of other plants, and have a certain effect on qiang grass too."

The "prisoners" from Territory Nine had been assigned by Zhang San to the first and second disaster-clearing echelons, responsible for guarding the danger zone. Assistant Xiao Liu was among them.

Xia Qing nodded and asked, "Assistant Liu, is this kind of pine propagated by growing from pine nuts?"

Assistant Xiao Liu, whose protective suit was smeared with mud and dirty snow, proactively introduced herself to Xia Qing. "Territory Nine has been reclaimed, so I'm no longer an assistant now. I'm Liu Zongying. Both seed propagation and cutting propagation can be tried. Comparatively speaking, cutting propagation is faster, but the plants grown from seed are more stable—each has its pros and cons."

"Understood, thank you." Xia Qing nodded and expressed her thanks.

Seeing that Xia Qing was still polite to her, Xiao Liu tentatively asked, "Miss Xia, may I have a few words with you alone?"

"Go ahead."

Xiao Liu walked a ways up the mountain before stopping, wiped the mud from her protective gloves on her suit, and began writing quickly on the qiang-snow:

Don't listen to anything Fire Phoenix says—she's very good at fooling people. Thank you for letting a few of us escape Fierce Fire and start over.

Seeing Xia Qing's expressionless face, Xiao Liu assumed she didn't understand, and wrote another line:

This chance was traded for by Fourth Sister using antidote.

Xia Qing nodded to show she understood.

Xiao Liu wiped the words off the qiang-snow, stood up, and returned to the danger zone. On her refined, fair face, beneath the dark circles, there was also a relaxed, brilliant smile.

Xia Qing's gaze moved from the four characters "start over" that Xiao Liu had smoothed away, toward the direction of Xiong Dong halfway up the mountain. In the years of natural disaster, the vast majority of people had taken the wrong path and never had any chance to start over.

She herself didn't have such a chance either. Because Xia Qing wasn't a scientific researcher, she didn't have that kind of value to begin with. So she had taken each step very carefully, and would have to be even more careful in the future.

Xia Qing walked toward Xiong Dong, which Yang Jin was using as the disaster-clearing office. She had another purpose for coming today—to take spring water from the hidden valley back for water-quality testing.

Since her idol wasn't interested in this cave, she'd test it herself.