Chapter 509: How About We Pool Together for a Three-Ingredient Dumpling Meal?

Seeing Xia Qing come out, Zhong Tao's first words upon jumping off the vehicle were: "Missy, are you feeling any better?"

Although Zheng Kui said nothing, he also watched Xia Qing with concern.

Although the man-made disaster and beast tide at Mountain No. 50 never made it onto the base news broadcast, Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui, who serve in the military, had not only heard about the incident but also about Xia Qing's feat of killing three out-of-control wild boars in two moves after taking the Yi-element stimulant.

Xia Qing gave a wry smile. "Much better, but my combat strength hasn't recovered yet."

"You could say you've turned misfortune into blessing this time. Rest up well this winter, and by next spring you should be recovered one way or another." The "blessing" Zhong Tao referred to was Xia Qing becoming the manager of Mountain No. 50.

After saying that, he took a bag wrapped in insulation film out of the vehicle. "These are 300 Yellow-Light pea seeds Lao Zheng and I got from Huiyi Base. The stability isn't high—only two generations. Our storage conditions weren't good enough, so we brought them straight to you as soon as we got them. Don't turn your nose up at them, missy. When we get our hands on better-quality seeds later, we'll make it up to you."

Xia Qing gave the two of them eight jin of high-grade evolved Green-Light python meat—that was the "return gift" she had prepared for them. Although they were only Yellow-Light seeds, it had taken the two of them tremendous effort to get them.

This was a seed type she didn't have. How could a farmer like Xia Qing possibly turn her nose up at them?

She accepted it with both hands, thanked them, then handed over another bag. "These are Yellow-Light wild vegetables I dried myself. Brother Tao, do you think it's enough to trade for a bag of salt or other Green-Light seasonings?"

Zhong Tao passed the bag to Zheng Kui to weigh, then took a bag of salt out of the vehicle compartment and handed it to Xia Qing with both hands. His hands trembled slightly, and his eyes behind the protective mask were full of entreaty. "The only Green-Light seasoning I brought this time is salt, but your bit of dried wild vegetables isn't enough—you still need to make up another two jin."

Xia Qing took it and nodded calmly. "Sorry to trouble you, but please wait here a moment. I'll go back and get another pack of dried wild vegetables."

"Good, good." Zhong Tao steadied himself, trying to keep his voice from trembling as he spoke. The people from Territory No. 2 were surely watching from not far away.

Xia Qing went home, brought up a pack of dried wild vegetables from the basement, along with ten jin of rock-hard frozen high-grade evolved Green-Light python meat.

While giving her the salt, Zhong Tao had also passed over a slip of paper, asking whether Xia Qing could trade another 10 jin of python meat.

Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui were doing fairly well among ordinary people. Especially after the special lord policy was implemented, they had traded quite a bit of Yellow-Light and Green-Light vegetables with the lords, and their own and their families' physical resistance had improved.

But such precious supplies as high-grade evolved meat—the lords didn't have any, had no qualifications or ability to hunt in the Evolution Forest, and couldn't even get their hands on it. So, after Xia Qing voluntarily brought out python meat, the two of them decided to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and each trade another 5 jin with her.

10 jin was already the limit. It wasn't that they couldn't scrape together enough points to trade for the meat—they were too embarrassed to ask. Because anyone with a brain knew how precious this kind of meat was.

Xia Qing lived alone in her territory and had offended the Blaze Squad, so life would only get harder for her from now on. Therefore, she would surely need to use this meat to trade for even more precious supplies and to seek the protection of the Green Dragon Squad and Zhang San.

Perhaps the reason she had been able to become the manager of the Mountain No. 50 experimental zone this time was because she had traded snake meat with Zhang San, the big shot from Territory No. 7.

So the two of them had already prepared themselves for the possibility of not getting the snake meat. But they hadn't expected Xia Qing to agree.

When Xia Qing handed the bag to Zhong Tao, she emphasized one point: "Brother Tao, see if it's enough. Any more and I really can't come up with it."

Xia Qing carried the bag, which felt light as a feather, but when Zhong Tao took it, it felt as though it weighed a thousand jin. This thirty-five-year-old man, with elders above and children below, burst into tears on the spot.

After the patrol vehicle slowly left Territory No. 3, and also evaded the surveillance from Territory No. 2, Zhong Tao took off his gloves and protective mask, covered his face with his hands, and couldn't get a word out for a long while. The hot breath he exhaled seeped through the gaps between his fingers, then quickly dissipated.

Red-eyed Zheng Kui patted his old teammate's shoulder, gripped the steering wheel, and stared ahead with a firm gaze at the overwhelming expanse of dirty-yellow blizzard snow.

After watching the patrol vehicle drive off into the distance, Xia Qing locked the south gate of her territory and ran home without delay.

Hiding behind the wild-grass wall of Territory No. 2, Zhou Xun tightened his cold-weather suit and cursed in a low voice, "Damn it, freeze me to death for all I care!"

Liu Jing, a Level-5 auditory evolver who had just been dispatched by the Sufeng Squad to Territory No. 2 to carry out a monitoring mission, also pulled his cold-weather suit tighter and raised the point he felt was off. "Xia Qing is already the manager of Territory No. 50 now—why would she still run back and forth twice just to trade for a pack of salt? And why was Zhong Tao so attentive and excited when talking to her?"

Zhou Xun snorted. "You really don't know how the starving man feels while the well-fed man eats—that's Green-Light salt. Xia Qing isn't just Crazy Hu's woman now, she's also hooked up with a big shot. A guy as good at currying favor as Zhong Tao—how could he not get excited seeing her?"

Liu Jing stared greedily at the wire-mesh wall of Territory No. 3. "There must be a lot of good stuff in her territory."

"Right." Zhou Xun reminded his teammate who was looking to die: "If you think you're tougher than the Blaze Beast-Hunting Team, be my guest."

"Xin Yu, are you there?"

Xia Qing's voice came through the lord walkie-talkie. Tang Huai, who was in Territory No. 12 leaning on a single crutch while feeding worms, immediately pricked up his ears.

Twenty-some seconds later, Xin Yu calmly replied with one word: "Here."

Xia Qing asked in a casual tone, "Want some chive-and-egg dumplings? The Green-Light chives I planted are ready for cutting."

Xin Yu finally said a few more words: "Good, come over and we'll have lunch together."

"Okay." Xia Qing happily accepted her "friend's" lunch invitation.

Tang Huai immediately jumped in to join the fun. "How can you have chive-and-egg dumplings without dried small shrimp? Xia Qing, you put up the chives and eggs, Xin Yu puts up the flour, I put up the dried small shrimp—how about the three of us pool together for a meal of dumplings?"

Zhou Xun, hiding in his snow nest, listened and cursed nonstop.

Xia Qing said nothing. Xin Yu refused in two words: "Don't need."

Zhang San came online. "Xin Yu, Tang Huai, what quality are your dried shrimp?"

Tang Huai immediately answered, "It's dried shrimp made from small river shrimp, Yi-element 1.4?, Harm-element 4.3‰. My sister had Captain Zhong bring me half a jin. Third Brother, how much do you want?"

Xin Yu responded, "Dried shrimp from hair shrimp raised in artificial seawater, Yi-element 2.4?, Harm-element 3.6‰. I have two jin. Third Brother, how much do you want?"

Tang Huai……

Xia Qing, who was putting on her snake-skin bulletproof vest, laughed. Tang Zhengpo's family ran a restaurant, but when it came to abundance of supplies, they still couldn't compare with Xin Yu.

This was an easy choice. Zhang San asked, "Xin Yu, I'll take one jin of dried hair shrimp. What do you want to trade for it?"

Xin Yu asked, "Do you have a medicament for treating infection from the evolved Coxsackie virus? Can we trade for it?"

Zhang San responded, "Yes, we can."

After being infected with the evolved Coxsackie virus, symptoms such as severe upper respiratory tract infection and acute myocarditis would appear. If an evolver was infected with the evolved Coxsackie virus, they might be able to tough it out without medicine, but the mortality rate for ordinary people after infection was very high.

Xia Qing still didn't know whether Xin Yu was an ordinary person or an evolver, so upon hearing her trade antiviral medicament from Zhang San, she put another jin of Green-Light rice into her insulated bag.