Chapter 565: Four Waves of People

Scrub, scrub, scrub—splash.

The sick wolf in the next greenhouse heard Xia Qing call its name. It stepped on the dry straw spread on the ground to absorb moisture, pushed through the plastic door curtain between the two greenhouses, and walked over, flashing a brilliant smile at Xia Qing.

"Lao Er…" Xia Qing reached out and wrapped her arms around the sick wolf's neck.

The sick wolf sensed Xia Qing's grief—its ears drooped, and it obediently crouched beside her, letting her hold it. After Wolf Boss finished eating, it came clopping over and lay down next to Xia Qing as well.

"Buzz—"

Xia Qing fished out her vibrating phone from her pocket and saw it was Yang Jin calling. She took a deep breath, steadied her emotions, and pressed answer. "Captain Yang."

Yang Jin's voice was a bit hoarse—clearly from overusing it. "Xia Qing, this morning a military truck left the Safe Zone to deliver supplies and pick up people at Northern District One's territory. I had them bring along the rice seeds Liehuo compensated you with. You should have them in hand today."

"Got it." Xia Qing asked, "How's the Safe Zone holding up?"

Yang Jin knew exactly what Xia Qing was asking. "No problems with the critical supplies. Last night there was a melee inside the Safe Zone—over 1,300 dead. This time we eliminated and captured a lot of scumbags; things should be quiet for a while."

The death toll from this Safe Zone melee wasn't actually that high.

Xia Qing had heard Cao Xianyun describe the casualties from Northern District One's melee the night before: 13 patrol team members dead, 9 wounded; within the territory, 39 dead, 45 wounded; including 26 refugees who broke out of Territory Two, there were a total of 120 territory invaders last night—69 eliminated, 15 captured, 36 escaped.

So in Northern District One's territory, which only had a few hundred people, 121 died last night. The invaders had banded together, trying to destroy this territory!

After reporting the numbers, Yang Jin asked, "You heard about the wolves and leopards attacking the eastern territories last night, right?"

Xia Qing replied, "Mm, Brother Yue told me."

Yang Jin spoke slowly, his tone and word choice very careful. "If anyone comes to you, asking you to communicate with the wolves on Mountain 60—hoping to use them to resolve the grudge between the base and the wolves and leopards in the western Evolution Forest—you need to think it over very carefully."

After saying that, he added stingily, "You sticking your nose into this is a terrible deal, because you'll very likely lose the chance to trade with the wolf pack."

"Thanks, Captain Yang. I understand." After Xia Qing hung up, killing intent gradually took shape in her eyes.

In the afternoon, the patrol team began distributing the delivered rice seeds to each territory.

"If you hand the rice seeds to the Territory Management Department for nursery raising, you can get an extra fifty seedlings per jin of seed." When Tan Junjie handed the rice seeds to Xia Qing, he reminded her in a hoarse, weary voice, as required by the Territory Management Department. "If you raise the seedlings yourself in your territory, the temperature and humidity are hard to meet the requirements, and the seedlings you raise will perform poorly during the Scorching Rain."

An extra fifty rice seedlings?

Xia Qing took the two and a half jin of Yellow-Lamp rice seeds Liehuo had compensated her with, very firmly. "Captain Tan, I'll figure out how to raise the seedlings myself."

Before this, the Territory Management Department had proposed using the standardized greenhouses inside the Safe Zone to raise seedlings for the lords of Territories 1–26. Then the Territory Management Department would keep half the seedlings as a raising fee.

After evolving, a single rice seed was larger than before—one jin of rice had about 6,000 seeds.

If uncontaminated spring water wasn't used to soak the seeds, the germination rate of Yellow-Lamp seeds was about 40%. In other words, one jin of seeds could raise roughly 2,400 seedlings. Subtracting the sick and weak ones, about 2,200 seedlings were usable for transplanting. Half kept by the base, the lords would receive around 1,100.

The seedlings kept back would be sold by the Territory Management Department to lords of other territories at 10–20 points per seedling. At last July's agricultural trade fair, Xia Qing had traded grain for 400 Yellow-Lamp rice seedlings at half price—10 points each.

In other words, the Territory Management Department using the standardized greenhouses to raise seedlings for the lords charged a whopping 11,000 points per jin of rice!

If the Lords Alliance didn't have the conditions to raise seedlings, they could only pinch their noses and accept it, like ordinary lords such as Wen Nengjie.

But they had the Hidden Valley—how could they possibly let the Territory Management Department make that money off them?

Tan Junjie was only doing his duty. When Xia Qing refused, he didn't press her, just drove off to deliver rice seeds to the next territory.

Xia Qing stood outside the south gate holding the bag, quietly watching Tan Junjie's vehicle drive away before returning to her own territory.

"I think Liehuo never intended to give us the seeds in the first place!" At the lords' meeting convened the next day, Hearing Zhu Li offered her guess. "What they were definitely thinking was: let the beast tide wipe us all out, then send new lords over to use Liehuo's seeds to raise seedlings and grow rice!"

Qi Fu also agreed with Hearing Zhu Li's speculation. "The night of the beast tide, besides Xia Qing's, the territories hit hardest by the invasion were Territories Six and Fifteen. Those two territories are right next to Third Brother Yue's Territory Seven. Liehuo and Sufeng having designs on Third Brother's territory is nothing new."

Yue Haiying looked at Xia Qing. Only after Xia Qing nodded did he begin explaining to everyone the various forces that had joined the melee on the night of the beast tide. "Based on the intelligence we have so far, at least four waves of people attacked Territories 1–26 on the day of the beast tide."

"First, a squad made up of a team controlling evolved bats and high-level Evolvers. This squad should be from the Liehuo Squad, or a squad hired by Liehuo. Their target was to kill Xia Qing, then destroy all the greenhouses and sheds in this territory. Because after entering from Territory Eighteen, on their way to Territory Three, they destroyed multiple greenhouses and sheds."

"Second, the refugees inside Territory Two. According to the confessions of those captured, these refugees split into two groups—10 were sent by Sufeng to attack Territory Twelve, and 16 attacked Territories Four, Five, Six, and Ten. The target of this latter group was to seize food, kill the Lord of Territory Six, and kill or wound the other lords."

"The third wave was also mainly Evolver refugees from Guisan Base. They had previously joined Hui San's squad, and now they've defected again with some of Hui San's people. Their plan was to invade this territory, seize food and supplies, then flee to other bases. Their attack targets were Territories One, Eight, Twelve, Fifteen, Twenty-One, and Twenty-Five—the ones richer in supplies."

"The fourth wave came from the Sufeng Squad. Their targets were Territories One and Twelve."

No one expected the situation to be this complicated—everyone was stunned.

Xia Qing silently added: there was still one more wave—Seeing Xin Yu's enemies.

Lucky fellow—Lord of Territory Four, Zhao Ze, was terrified and unconsciously scooted closer to Xia Qing.

Qi Fu rubbed his face. "Territory Two wanted to use the beast tide as a chance to drive us out, then have Sufeng send people to seize the Gao Yi elemental soil. Good thing we prepared thoroughly in advance."

"These bastards who don't do anything human!" The honest Shi Chong couldn't help cursing. "Over a thousand mu of land in Territory Two is lying fallow, and they still come to seize our land."

Hearing Zhu Li asked, "Brother Yue, these four waves of people must have colluded in advance—otherwise they wouldn't have moved at the same time."

Yue Haiying nodded. "Their targets were different, but they definitely coordinated beforehand."