Chapter 52: You Will Be Even More Powerful Than Fire Phoenix

Although the possibility was extremely low, Xia Qing had indeed worried that the spring water flowed down from the mountain, and that there might still be a spring eye up there. If someone up the mountain discovered the spring eye and dammed the flow, it could cause the spring eye within her territory to reduce its output or dry up entirely.

So Xia Qing planned to wait until winter, when the evolved forest entered a low-risk period, to enter Mountain 49 and search for an uncontaminated spring eye. If one truly existed, she would find a way to seal it up completely.

As for the option of buying the mountain, she hadn't even considered it.

A densely vegetated mountain was a resource before the Great Evolution of life on Blue Star, but after the Great Evolution it became a ticking time bomb.

Lighting this ticking time bomb only required a few hours of red Calamity Rain.

To curb dangerous evolved creatures in the evolved mountain forests from entering the safe zones where humans lived, the base had long ago rolled out a policy for contracting mountain forests.

Whether a combat team or an individual, as long as they paid a certain number of points, they could contract a mountain or a certain area of evolved forest within the base. All resources produced within the contracted area belonged to the contractor, but at the same time, the contractor was also responsible for clearing the dangerous evolved creatures within the mountain forest.

If they failed to clear them, or cleared them incompletely, causing dangerous evolved creatures to spread from the contracted mountain forest to other areas and create major harm, the base would hold the contractor accountable.

In the previous few years, those who contracted mountain forests were either wiped out by evolved creatures during Calamity Rain, or, because evolved creatures escaped, lost everything and wailed about it. In recent years, no one had been foolish enough to do it again. That was why the country kept improving on the original policy and put forward the Territory Plan.

Within the scope of Xia Qing's knowledge, the only person currently holding the usage rights to a mountain and stationing over a hundred people to guard it was the female big shot of Huiyi Base, Fire Phoenix.

She bought the mountain because there was an uncontaminated spring eye on it.

So if Xia Qing suddenly stepped forward now to buy the usage rights to Mountain 49, it would be equivalent to actively exposing that there were important resources on the mountain, drawing everyone's attention to her territory and Mountain 49.

Letting the Qinglong Combat Team buy the mountain and give it to her—Xia Qing felt this was even more unbelievable than her buying the mountain herself.

Xia Qing spoke plainly, "Brother Luo, I speak bluntly, please don't take offense. Will the base agree to sell the mountain to the Qinglong Combat Team?"

The Tang family, led by the base's second-in-command Tang Zhengrong, had always regarded the Qinglong Combat Team as a thorn in their side. Whatever the Qinglong Combat Team wanted to do, the Tang family would certainly find a way to stop it.

Luo Pei explained in detail to Xia Qing, "Within three hundred li north and east of Mountain 49, it's all densely vegetated evolved mountain forest, full of dangerous Calamity-evolved creatures, with very little arable land, so that stretch of mountain forest isn't within the territory development scope."

"Establishing the Lord System, letting citizens leave the safe zones to farm in territories and expand production, is a project strongly pushed by the highest level, so our base has put great effort into advancing this work. But even though we've dispatched large numbers of troops to patrol and garrison, territories close to the evolved forest still suffered huge losses during Calamity Rain, and the base is worrying about this too."

"If the Qinglong Combat Team buys Mountain 49, which borders the territories, they'll be obligated to guard the mountain, keeping dangerous evolved animals from coming down to hurt people and damage farmland, so Tang Zhengrong won't sincerely oppose it. Even if he suspects the Qinglong Combat Team's motives for buying the mountain, he'll only think the Qinglong Combat Team wants to arrange a stable place for me to recuperate, since I've been poisoned and lost my combat ability. As for the military, their only worry is that after the Qinglong Combat Team buys the mountain, they'll threaten the garrison stationed at the old regiment headquarters. You also know the origins of the Qinglong Combat Team, so gaining the military's trust isn't difficult for us."

Put that way, buying it was indeed possible. Xia Qing continued to lay out her thoughts, "It's pretty good for the Qinglong Combat Team to set up a training base on Mountain 49. After you set up the training base, the safety of my territory will also be raised several notches. Brother Luo, once you buy the mountain, just let it stay with the Qinglong Combat Team. There's no need to transfer it to me."

If the mountain went to Xia Qing, how would she guard it? With just her, or Sheep Boss?

Spend points to hire a large group of people to guard the mountain? Hire who? The Qinglong Combat Team?

The Qinglong Combat Team buys the mountain, transfers it to her, and then she spends points to hire the Qinglong Combat Team to guard the mountain...

Isn't that taking off your pants to fart—completely unnecessary? She couldn't help but suspect their motives.

Brother Luo might put himself in Xia Qing's shoes and consider things for her, but Yang Jin, the iron rooster who won't pull out a single hair, wouldn't. Neither would Xie Yu, who after his brain domain evolution is so clever he's almost lost every last hair.

They might be trying to use this deal to make her lose the spring eye along with everything else.

Xia Qing wasn't like Sheep Boss; she wouldn't blindly and confidently assume that she and the two big bosses of the Qinglong Combat Team playing mind games would mean she couldn't get the better of them.

Better to let the mountain stay with the Qinglong Combat Team and let them guard it. She and the Qinglong Combat Team were in a cooperative relationship; they wouldn't actively expose the secret of the spring eye, and they could help her draw attention, making everyone think the secret was on Mountain 49.

Xia Qing would just be the thing hidden in plain sight, quietly and safely lying low.

The only loss for Xia Qing in doing this might be that she couldn't enter Mountain 49 to gather Green Lantern plants.

If she couldn't enter Mountain 49, she could still enter other mountains! With green hills everywhere, why insist on hanging herself from a single tree?

Couldn't dig Green Lantern bamboo shoots anymore?

Even without digging, she still had food. Once the Qinglong Combat Team dug out the bamboo shoots, she could just fill a bucket with spring water and trade for them.

Luo Pei understood Xia Qing's concerns, but still tried to persuade her to accept it. "Important resources are safest in your own hands. You can trust me now, and cooperate with the Qinglong Combat Team. But when I'm gone, and Yang Jin and Xie Yu are gone, no one can guarantee that the next, or the next-next leader of the Qinglong Combat Team will still be trustworthy."

Actually, the three heads of the Qinglong Combat Team weren't united on this matter either. Luo Pei and Xie Yu advocated that Mountain 49 belong to the combat team, but Yang Jin advocated handing it over to Xia Qing.

In the end, Yang Jin convinced Luo Pei and Xie Yu.

Xia Qing listened to Luo Pei's words and couldn't help but sigh.

If the situation deteriorated to the point where Hui San Base's top combat power, the three heads of the Qinglong Combat Team, were all dead, then Hui San Base would be finished too. For a rookie like her to survive, she could probably only abandon her territory and flee to another base.

Luo Pei heard Xia Qing sigh, opened his still-reddened eyes and stared at her, speaking with great seriousness, "Xia Qing, you're only twenty-five this year. You still have ten years to improve your three-system evolution abilities. As long as you want to, you'll definitely be more outstanding than the three of us in the future, and you'll be even more powerful than Fire Phoenix of the Liehuo Combat Team. If Fire Phoenix can hold onto a spring eye, of course you can too."

Yang Jin said that Xia Qing would become a powerful combatant that no one in Hui San, or even the entire Hui Cheng Base, would dare look down upon. The Qinglong Combat Team doing her a favor now would absolutely not be a loss in the future.

Yang Jin said that an ally and a spring eye weren't mutually exclusive options. Buying the mountain and giving it to Xia Qing, they could have both the fish (the ally) and Xiong Zhang (exchanging spring water).

At the time, Xie Yu asked Yang Jin why he was so certain that Xia Qing, who worked hard to make a living, would become a powerful combatant on par with them in the future.

Yang Jin gave a reason the other two couldn't refute:

Because Xia Qing's will to survive was stronger than anyone he had ever known. A person who was single-mindedly determined to rely on their own ability to live would surely seize every available opportunity to make themselves stronger.

Her biggest secret exposed right to her face, Xia Qing's eyes instantly widened, and her mind raced: should she run immediately, or silence Luo Pei first and then run?

"Heh." Her reaction amused Luo Pei, a Level-10 visually evolved person. "You little girl, you don't think that after going on so many missions with me, I'd be so blind I haven't figured out your abilities, do you?"