Chapter 5: A Stranger's Message

"Outside the safe zone, the territories with higher safety ratings, besides those surrounding the safe zone, are: 2, 15, 68, 113, 166. The Tang family intends to claim three of them."

Because Xia Qing had been keeping close watch on territory information, she knew that the five territories listed in this message were indeed all higher-safety territories, making the message highly credible.

Xia Qing had been secretly monitoring the Tang family, knowing they were scheming for territories, which was why she had gone to queue early at the mission hall, waiting for the Tang family people to arrive.

To accelerate the utilization rate of farmland on the outskirts of the safe zone and resolve the food shortage crisis as quickly as possible, the nation's highest authority demanded that military and government at bases of all sizes work together to push forward the territory pilot program.

Under the supervision of the Hui-Three Base military, the Tang family didn't dare brazenly seize the good land; they had to put on an adequate show.

No matter how thorough the show, there were still loopholes. Xia Qing intended to seize one and claim Territory Three while she could. Because within that territory lay a vital resource she needed to survive.

After sending a message to the number she used publicly inside the safe zone, this person quickly used a communications satellite to send the same message to a number she hadn't used in seven years — but unfortunately Xia Qing's phone had been off and she never saw it.

Xia Qing's smooth acquisition of Territory Three was thanks to this message. As for who this person actually was, and whether the message was sent out of goodwill or some other motive, the truth would come out sooner or later — no need to rush.

Xia Qing deleted the message once more, yawned, and crawled into her sleeping bag. She needed to rest well and start her new life.

Rising early the next day, Xia Qing cleared the wild grass and shrubs from the courtyard, then set off with a ration clenched between her teeth, heading north out of the village, crossing vast stretches of scorched farmland, skirting a long narrow reservoir, and climbing up the slope.

The farmland here was ringed by mountains on the northwest sides. To keep evolved creatures from disturbing and damaging the farmland, the base had dispatched people to clear an isolation belt at least fifty meters wide, serving as a transitional zone between the uncleared evolved forest and the farmland. The isolation belt was regularly sprayed with insecticide to keep evolved insects in the forest from crawling across into the territory.

To protect the farmland and the lord's safety, there was also a buffer zone between the isolation belt and the farmland. The more than three thousand mu of mountain forest cleared on the northwest two sides of Territory Three belonged to this buffer zone, and this buffer zone was also incorporated into Territory Three's boundaries — which was why Territory Three reached a staggering six thousand mu.

The buffer forest had only had its harmful evolved creatures cleared; the vegetation remained dense, standing in sharp contrast to the charred black farmland below.

Xia Qing used a wooden stick to beat her way up through the grass, taking twenty minutes to reach her destination — a small stone cave with a spring.

This spring was something Xia Qing had stumbled upon by chance when her squad was clearing the mountain forest. The water from the spring seeped gently out along the inner wall of the narrow stone cave — half a meter deep and thirty centimeters high — then trickled through cracks in the rock back underground, soundlessly.

If a speed-evolved squirrel hadn't suddenly darted out of the stone cave at that moment, Xia Qing would never have discovered the spring.

To solve the drinking water problem, Hui-Three Base had drilled three deep wells inside the safe zone, but the water drawn from them was all contaminated and had to be purified before it could be drunk.

Because the cost of purifying contaminated water was steep, the base's mission board carried a year-round task of searching for uncontaminated water sources. Every squad, regardless of what mission they took outside the safe zone, would look for water along the way.

Over ten years, four uncontaminated water sources had been found within Hui-Three Base's range — without exception, all were springs seeping out from the mountains. But because the flow was too small, they could only supply a handful of people.

Xia Qing, who earned her living by the sweat of her brow, was of course not among that handful.

Of course, not every mountain spring was uncontaminated. So when Xia Qing used her portable detector and saw the green light, she immediately marked this territory as her top choice.

Water is the source of life.

Now, at last, this spring belonged to her alone. After Xia Qing scooped half a bowl of water and drank it down in one gulp, a certain water brand's advertising slogans echoed over and over in her heart.

It felt so refreshing!

Such clean spring water — she could drink as much as she wanted.

Not only drink — she was going to use it to wash her face. That was how lavish she felt!

Xia Qing, her face freshly washed, grinned foolishly as she cleared and enlarged the stone cave. For a strength-evolved person, this was child's play.

The sound of spring water trickling along a bamboo sliver into the bucket was, to Xia Qing's ears, heavenly music.

Collecting water took time, so Xia Qing stood up and looked down over her territory.

Hui-Three Base's range had no volcanoes and had never suffered a major earthquake, so the terrain here differed little from before the disaster — but within the dense mountain forests lurked many evolved creatures that could easily take a human life.

The mountain forest and farmland within Xia Qing's territory had, three months ago, still been occupied by those creatures. The pits several meters deep still scarring the ground were the marks of fierce battles between humans and evolved creatures over this land.

After filling two twenty-liter water buckets, Xia Qing stuffed them into an oversized backpack to hide them, then blocked the small stone cave with rocks and branches to keep anyone from finding it.

After carrying the water down the mountain and storing it at home, Xia Qing went to a small shop in the abandoned village, pried open the reeking rubble, and pulled out a dented stainless-steel solar standing water tank. She restored it to shape, then used it to fetch water from the reservoir.

Just as she reached the reservoir's edge, a dark shadow suddenly shot up from the water's surface and lunged straight at Xia Qing's face. Xia Qing slapped it flying five meters away, where it smashed against a rock at the water's edge.

After the dark shadow tumbled a few times and went still, Xia Qing grinned.

What had ambushed her was an evolved catfish thicker than an arm. Like many carnivorous creatures after evolving, this evolved catfish had added humans to its diet and would actively attack them. Had Xia Qing been bitten by its file-like evolved teeth just now, a large chunk of flesh would surely have been torn away.

But now...

Xia Qing cut off a small piece of the fish flesh with her knife, placed it in her portable multifunction detector — the green light came on.

This evolved catfish was edible!

Xia Qing immediately stuffed the catfish into a water basin and hid it, to keep evolved raptors diving from the sky from snatching it away.

After carefully filling the tank, Xia Qing hauled the four-hundred-jin water tank back home, then made a simple filter from fine sand, fine gravel, and several layers of gauze to purify the water once, then fitted it with the base-issued primary purification filter cartridge for a second purification.

While the water filtered slowly, Xia Qing found suitable tools and scraped off all the moldy, yellowed, mottled walls inside the two-story building, then threw the debris away. She scrubbed the big iron pot at home clean, boiled the filtered water, and took a gloriously hot bath.

After gulping down a cup of mountain spring water, Xia Qing — her stomach growling with hunger — grabbed her knife and headed straight for the big catfish.

For her first proper meal as the lord of her territory, she was going to eat meat.