Chapter 51: Buy a Mountain?!

Returning to her territory with two Yellow Lantern bamboo rats and over two hundred jin of bamboo shoots harvested from this mountain trip, Xia Qing received an enthusiastic welcome from Boss Sheep.

Judging by Boss Sheep's posture, Xia Qing firmly believed that if it weren't for its heavy tail, the thing would have wagged itself into a gust of wind. She put her heavy backpack on Boss Sheep's back to let it carry home, then generously gave it a small, tender Yellow Lantern bamboo shoot. "Eat up. Follow your big sister from now on, work hard, and your big sister won't treat you badly."

With such a treat, Boss Sheep had no mind to spare for Xia Qing and buried itself in crunching the shoot. Crack, crack.

After putting away her supplies, Xia Qing practically dragged herself into the bathroom by both legs. Marching fifteen li at speed while carrying seven hundred jin wasn't her limit, but it also wasn't as easy as she'd made it look. After undressing, Xia Qing stood under the showerhead bracing herself against the wall, letting the warm water wash over her burning shoulders.

Thanks to solar power, thanks to her own hard work, she could finally use the simplest solar water heater and take a hot shower without lighting a fire.

After her shower, Xia Qing treated herself to a bamboo-shoot feast for a hard day's work, and was sound asleep in bed before dark.

After finishing its concentrate feed, Boss Sheep clip-clopped over to Xia Qing's table and licked every plate and bowl clean. Then it lay down on the tatami straw mat and waited for Xia Qing to clear the table.

After waiting a long while, Xia Qing just lay there snoring without getting up. Boss Sheep squinted at her for a bit, then clip-clopped back to the table, picked up a bowl in its mouth, and carried it to the kitchen.

The porcelain bowl landed in the stainless steel basin with a crisp sound.

"Clang!"

The sound jolted Xia Qing awake. Knife in her left hand, gun in her right, she leaped up and rushed to the source of the noise. She looked at the bowl shattered in two, then at Boss Sheep standing by the basin squinting at her, and her taut nerves instantly melted into a puddle.

Putting away the knife and gun, Xia Qing reached out and rubbed the short fur on Boss Sheep's head, speaking softly to praise its work. "Boss is amazing—you're even helping clear the table now. It's fine that the bowl broke; we'll get a new one."

Praised and pleased, Boss Sheep clip-clopped back and brought over a plate in its mouth. Using the broken bowl, Xia Qing repeatedly demonstrated for Boss Sheep how to place bowls and plates into the washbasin. "Like this—gently, slowly, set it down, and it won't break."

Boss Sheep squinted at the broken bowl in Xia Qing's hand, misjudging the force. With a "crack," it bit through the plate in its mouth; half the plate dropped into the washbasin, and the other half stayed clamped in its jaws.

Xia Qing took the half-plate from Boss Sheep's mouth, sat on the floor, and burst out laughing. Although Boss Sheep had broken some of her few remaining dishes, its comical look was just too funny—Xia Qing couldn't hold it in.

Xia Qing, who couldn't hold it in, got two hoof kicks from Boss Sheep. She grimaced, behaved herself, and crawled back into bed to keep sleeping.

Early the next morning, Xia Qing, well-rested and recharged, planned to pickle a jar of sour bamboo shoots. She'd helped her grandmother make pickled sour shoots as a child—the method was very simple. Xia Qing dug out a well-preserved ceramic jar from the tool room, cleaned it thoroughly, then washed several Yellow Lantern bamboo shoots—she couldn't bear to pickle Green Lantern shoots, afraid the pickling would fail and the loss would break her heart. After washing them, she sliced the shoots, put them in the jar, filled it with mountain spring water, sealed the mouth, and she was done.

If all went well, after sitting for a month she'd have sour bamboo shoots to eat.

Xia Qing carried the ceramic jar upstairs and hid it somewhere Boss Sheep would absolutely never think of or be able to reach, before pulling out her phone to message Luo Pei, wanting to bring him some shoots.

Although Xia Qing knew Hu Zifeng would definitely send Luo Pei some, what he sent was what he sent, and what she sent was what she sent—the meaning was different. It had been over half a month since Xia Qing last visited Luo Pei, and she also wanted to see how his treatment was progressing.

Luo Pei replied quickly, telling Xia Qing she could come over anytime.

Xia Qing brought one Yellow Lantern and one Green Lantern shoot and went to visit Luo Pei at the abandoned village in the southwest of her territory. This time, the person standing in the broken house to greet her wasn't Wei Chengdong, but Luo Pei himself.

Although he still needed someone to support him, Luo Pei could already stand. He had flesh on his face now and no longer looked like a skeleton wrapped in a layer of human skin. The bloodshot color in his eyes and skin had also faded considerably. The treatment for the Evolution Synthesized Poison was progressing better than Xia Qing had expected.

Following Luo Pei down to the first-floor living room, Xia Qing had already composed her shock and handed over the sealed bamboo shoots. "Captain Hu and I dug these out of the Evolution Forest. Brother Luo can cook them into bamboo-shoot rice porridge—easy to digest and nutritious."

Luo Pei, whose eyes still couldn't stay open for long, glanced at the bamboo shoots and closed his eyes again, his smile gentle. "Zifeng brought some over last night. The flavor really is better than bamboo shoots from before the Evolution. I didn't expect someone your age to know how to cook."

When the Catastrophe struck, Xia Qing was only fifteen. By rights, in that peaceful and prosperous era, very few fifteen-year-old girls actually knew how to cook. After the Catastrophe, food was scarce; even if you wanted to learn to cook, there was no chance. Xia Qing didn't mention that her family had cooked when she was young, only saying, "I collected a few cookbooks, and this kind of porridge happened to be in one of them."

The cookbook Xia Qing had collected did indeed have this porridge recipe, but it called for glutinous rice, while Xia Qing used regular rice.

After a bit of small talk, Luo Pei brought up teaching Xia Qing marksmanship. "Around mid-May, you can come over every day to learn shooting—schedule it whenever it's convenient for you. We'll start here with the basic movements and principles, and in June I'll take you to the Evolution Forest for live-fire practice."

In just two more months, Luo Pei's body would recover enough to enter the Evolution Forest and face danger head-on? Xia Qing urged, "Brother Luo should focus on treatment these next few months. I'm not in a rush."

Luo Pei smiled, raised his hand to signal the two people in the room to go out and close the door. After making sure no one could hear, he said quietly to Xia Qing, "You came at just the right time. There's something I want to discuss with you. To be safe, the Azure Dragon Squad wants to purchase the usage rights to Mountain No. 49 on the north side of your territory. Then we'll privately sign an agreement transferring that mountain into your name, making it yours."

After the Catastrophe, the earthquakes, and the Great Evolution of living things, the face of Blue Star had utterly transformed. The original place names were abandoned, and mountains and rivers were now marked with numbers.

Hearing Luo Pei say he wanted to buy Mountain No. 49 and then transfer it to her, Xia Qing was completely stunned.

Luo Pei kept his eyes closed, his expression gentle. "Whether the spring water in your territory wells up from underground or flows down from inside Mountain No. 49, once the spring's source is exposed, the still-unowned Mountain No. 49 will definitely become a key resource that every faction will fight over. Buying it directly in your name isn't realistic, because on the surface you have no motive or means to buy a mountain. That's why I proposed having the Azure Dragon Squad buy it under the pretext of establishing a team-member training base, and then transfer it to you. There's no rush on this—think it over for a day, and give me your answer once you've figured it out."

Only one day to think it over, and that's not considered a rush?