Chapter 55: The Sheep Standing at the Top of the Pyramid

After Xia Qing bit off a small piece of compressed rations, Sheep Boss was already raring to go.

So Xia Qing got off the vehicle and stood to one side, lifted the rations onto the bicycle, and coaxed Sheep Boss onto it. "Boss, you're stronger than me and smarter too. Boss definitely knows how to pedal a water-wheel bike, right? Pedal the water-wheel bike and you get rations."

Sheep Boss, whose eyes followed the rations, climbed onto the bicycle and settled in. The bike had already been modified to fit Sheep Boss's body. Once it sat down, its two front hooves mimicked the motion of Xia Qing's hands gripping the handlebars, and its hind hooves stepped into the pedal straps—perfect fit.

Xia Qing immediately started laying it on thick. "Boss is the best—even knows how to pedal a water-wheel bike. Come on, have some rations."

After stuffing a bit of ration to keep Sheep Boss steady, Xia Qing squatted down, held its two hind legs, and taught it how to apply force to turn the pedals. "Press down with the hoof on this side, and the hoof on this side comes up. Press down again, and this side comes up again. It looks simple, but only the smartest sheep can learn it."

Sheep Boss quickly mastered the key to the motion and pedaled the bicycle like mad. The pedals drove the rear wheel and the small wheel in the water to spin at high speed; the paddles hanging on the rope scooped water into the pipe, and it gushed out from the three-way outlet.

Xia Qing hadn't expected a sheep to learn to pedal a bicycle so quickly and was genuinely impressed. "Boss is truly the smartest sheep on Blue Star, the sheep standing at the top of the pyramid, the sheep who pioneered the history of evolved sheep…"

Sheep Boss, flattered by the praise, pedaled the bicycle while squinting at Xia Qing, signaling her to keep talking—it loved hearing it.

Xia Qing went on and on, blowing Sheep Boss up to the skies.

Sheep Boss was bursting with energy. After watering more than three mu of land, the pedals were still flying. After Xia Qing sealed the irrigation channel, she stuffed the last bit of ration crumbs into its mouth. "Boss is amazing—the land got watered so fast. Let's go home, okay?"

Sheep Boss wouldn't listen and kept pedaling like mad.

Xia Qing tried persuading again—still flying.

Only then did Xia Qing realize that the thing wasn't doing it for the rations after all—it genuinely loved pedaling this contraption.

The water being drawn up was about to overflow the channel. Xia Qing couldn't dampen Sheep Boss's enthusiasm, so she simply grabbed a shovel and quickly dug a new, bending channel beneath the three-way outlet leading to the reservoir, so the water Sheep Boss drew up would flow through the newly dug channel and back into the reservoir.

Sheep Boss squinted happily, doing useless work.

Xia Qing, no longer needing to blow rainbow farts, squatted by the channel to rest and discovered that the drawn-up water actually contained one-centimeter-long fry darting about quickly! This was the second time she had found fish in the reservoir since she had slapped the catfish to death.

No wonder the egret hung around the riverbank every day—turns out there were fish.

Could she eat these fish?

Xia Qing began testing the fry's qiang-element content—grab one, test one, test one, toss one.

She tossed one, and the egret standing nearby picked one up—their teamwork was perfectly seamless.

After testing a hundred in a row, Xia Qing found five yellow-light fry. That ratio was quite high, and Xia Qing immediately had a good idea.

She would dig a fish pond to raise fish. Once she brought the little kitten back, the kitten would eat red-light fish, she would eat yellow-light fish, and Boss would pedal the water-wheel bike to replenish the fish pond's water—three birds with one stone!

Xia Qing drove the micro-tiller over, and Sheep Boss immediately stopped pedaling the water-wheel bike, jumped onto the micro-tiller, lay down on its dedicated seat, and watched Xia Qing dig and dig.

Xia Qing spent a day and a half digging a small fish pond two meters deep and over two mu in size, a hundred meters from the reservoir.

After the fish pond was dug and filled with water, Xia Qing pulled up the double-layered fine-mesh fishing net she'd set at the narrowest part of the river channel. Over the past two days, the net had caught quite a few fry, and Xia Qing stuffed them all into the fish pond.

Then Xia Qing happily turned on the walkie-talkie, planning to ask Qi Fu for advice on raising fish.

But the moment she turned it on, she heard Qi Fu complaining, "A few days ago I noticed fry growing in the river channel, and I went to a lot of trouble digging a fish pond. But who would have thought—once the pond was dug, the fry were gone!"

Xia Qing…

Zhao Ze replied, "Still gotta hand it to Brother Qi—I haven't even noticed there were fish, and your fish pond is already dug. Maybe the last batch of fry already passed by? Wait a few more days, there'll definitely be another batch."

Kuang Qingwei from Plot Six chimed in resentfully, "So that's why the water level in the channel dropped today—turns out you were filling your fish pond. Had me thinking the channel was going to dry up, rushing the workers to pump water like crazy to irrigate the wheat."

Xia Qing, who had just finished filling her fish pond…

Zhao Ze was puzzled. "The water level dropped? I've been by the channel all day—how come I didn't notice at all?"

Kuang Qingwei retorted, "What work do you have by the channel?"

Zhao Ze said cheerfully, "Picking up pretty patterned stones to pave the yard at home. I used to do landscaping, and now that the territory work isn't busy, my hands are itching."

"What's the use of paving with pebbles? One qiang-rainstorm and it's all ruined." Kuang Qingwei scoffed. "You know why I care about the water level? Because a few territories have fought to the death over water for irrigation."

That topic immediately caught everyone's attention. Zhao Ze celebrated his luck. "Lucky me—picked blind and still got a piece of land that won't run out of water."

"Your luck really isn't bad," Kuang Qingwei complained. "I had my eye on Plot Three with the reservoir from the start, but Xia Qing the girl snatched it away."

Zhao Ze brought up the topic of choosing land. "When I picked my territory, I was right behind Xia Qing. Figured she was an Evolver, so she must have good intel, so I picked a plot next to hers. Good thing I picked Plot Four—if I'd picked Plot One, I'd have been poisoned to death in the last qiang-rain."

Xia Qing pressed the button. "Same as Brother Qing—I had my eye on Plot Three's reservoir. Brother Qi, what do you feed the fish?"

Qi Fu loved being asked about agricultural knowledge and immediately gave a detailed explanation. "Back in my hometown village, some people raise fish. Fish feed comes in animal-based and plant-based types—buying ready-made compound feed is easiest. After the disaster, forget ready-made feed—you've got to make your own. Animal-based feed is mainly infusoria, rotifers, water fleas, water earthworms, and fly maggots. Plant-based feed is aquatic plants and algae; you can also feed vegetables, but they have to be blanched and chopped up. The thing is, we don't know what the evolved fry in our channel like to eat, or whether the animals we used to feed fish have evolved and can still be used as fish feed."

Kuang Qingwei cut in, "By rights, where there are small fish there should be big ones. Have you guys caught any big fish? I haven't seen a single one—only caught over a dozen evolved giant leeches. Zhao Ze, you didn't catch them all, did you?"

"I wish. But I can't hook them. I dug up earthworms to fish, and something bit through the line. I didn't dare try again after that."

Zhao Ze's territory had lots of people, all so idle they fished and picked stones. Xia Qing, alone on her own, was both farming and fixing up the house in preparation for painting—busy enough to spin like a top.

She turned off the walkie-talkie and decided to feed the fish grass. With the fish feed settled, it was time to think about top-dressing the fields.

This happened to be the lunch break for the Safe Zone construction crew, so Xia Qing dialed Sun Zhe's number.

Sun Zhe had worked with Xia Qing on the same construction squad for five years. Their relationship wasn't particularly close, but they could chat a bit normally. Sun Zhe had some brains and would definitely be interested in this matter.

"Hello?" Sun Zhe's voice carried obvious fatigue—the construction crew did all the tiring, dirty work, so his state was perfectly normal.

Xia Qing replied calmly, "Sun Zhe, it's Xia Qing."