Chapter 598: Temperature Surges 30 Degrees

Although Xia Qing said she had already begun considering letting Territory Twelve join the alliance, no real action had been taken yet, so the Hidden Valley still couldn't be revealed to Tang Huai. Shi Du grinned foolishly in reply, "Thanks for the reminder, Brother Huai. My dad said to raise a few and try—if we happen to get one with high stability, we'll be rich. If they all turn out red-light, we'll just consider ourselves unlucky."

Plenty of people had swapped crab fry with his family thinking the same thing. Tang Huai chuckled, "Try it, then."

Once the group reached the foot of the Third Peak, they split into two teams. Zhao Ze, Yue Haiying, Tang Huai, and his two bodyguards would take samples in the danger zone, survey the terrain along the way, check the snow depth, and estimate the snowmelt volume. Xia Qing, Qi Fu, and Shi Du headed for the upper part of the Third Peak to clear snow that might flow into the high-danger zone and the mountain crevices in advance, easing the flood-control pressure on those two areas.

Tang Huai had wanted to go with Xia Qing, but Xia Qing flatly refused, pulling no punches, on the grounds that he was too weak and the path above was too slippery and dangerous.

She had to be direct—Tang Huai was the type who took advantage of any slackness; the moment Xia Qing's attitude softened even a little, he'd shamelessly tag along.

Shi Du stayed at the halfway point to clear snow and keep watch. Xia Qing and Qi Fu continued upward, opened the iron gate of Xiong Dong, and entered the Hidden Valley.

Seeing the neat rows of rice seedlings in the fields, Xia Qing suddenly felt the world brighten before her eyes, and even her breathing smoothed out.

Qi Fu beamed. "Beautiful, truly beautiful. Xia Qing, what variety is this green-light rice of yours? The color is really true."

The members of the Territory Alliance raised seedlings together in the rice paddies, but each household's seedlings were kept separate. Xia Qing's paddy had the most varieties—besides the yellow-light rice LD-10 with a harmful-element content of just over seven points that Liehuo compensated the lords with, most were varieties she had traded for herself.

The color of rice seedlings varies visibly depending on the harmful-element content in the plant. The lower the harmful-element content, the closer the leaf color is to that of normal rice seedlings from before the Catastrophe. When Qi Fu said Xia Qing's rice seedlings had a true color, he meant they were noticeably greener than those in everyone else's paddies.

Xia Qing explained, "The greenest patch of green-light rice and that big patch of yellow-light rice next to it are the same variety, called J-2."

"A new variety?!" Qi Fu was delighted. "When we harvest the rice in June, we'll see how this variety's yield and stability compare. If it's better than Liehuo's LD-10, we'll plant J-2 for the next crop."

After the addition of harmful and Yi elements and radioactive elements to the atmosphere, Blue Star's plants underwent survival-of-the-fittest selection. The evolved plants adapted to the new environment were not necessarily safe for humans to eat. To survive, humans had to screen and cultivate, from among the evolved plants, crop seeds that humans could safely eat and that possessed a certain degree of disaster, pest, and disease resistance.

Crop seeds developed through screening and cultivation were usually named using a combination of letters and numbers. The letters were chosen by the cultivator—one letter or several—and their meanings varied widely.

Some letters indicated the plant type, such as M for wheat, Y for corn, and D for rice; some indicated the place of origin, like the premium rice BS-6 from Bai San Base; some used place of origin plus category, like the rice variety LD-10 cultivated by Liehuo; some letters had meanings no one knew, since the cultivators didn't say—like the "J" in the Territory Seven rice variety J-2.

The number after the seed category represented the generation of cultivation. LD-10 meant the LD rice variety had been screened and cultivated for ten generations; J-2 meant the J rice variety had been screened and cultivated for two generations.

A seed cultivated for only two generations was certainly a new variety. To be recognized as a new variety, it had to show traits clearly superior to existing varieties in some aspect, and only then would the relevant agency certify it and permit its promotion.

Xia Qing nodded. "It should be better than D-10."

It wasn't blind confidence on Xia Qing's part—she trusted Territory Seven's technical standards.

Qi Fu went from field to field inspecting the seedlings' growth, while Xia Qing went to find the plucked weasel that guarded the valley for her. "Plucked! You around? Plucked…"

Xia Qing had only called for a minute before the weasel's round little head poked trembling out of a crack in the rock. It first glanced at Qi Fu with its shiny black eyes, confirmed he posed no threat, and only then looked at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing placed a fist-sized piece of roasted meat on the rock to thank this meritorious guardian who had watched over the cave for her. "Plucked, Happy New Year! This is rabbit meat I roasted this morning—eat it while it's hot."

The weasel immediately snatched up the meat and darted into the crack. Before Xia Qing could leave, it poked its head out again, its two round little ears perked up, looking at her with its shiny black eyes.

That expression was exactly the same as the freeloading red squirrel back in Xia Qing's territory.

Xia Qing laughed, then felt in her pocket again and pulled out a piece of jerky she'd roasted for the sick wolf. "No more roasted meat, only jerky. Take it and eat—thanks for guarding the valley for me."

The weasel sniffed it, snatched up the jerky, and ran off.

Watching this from a distance, Qi Fu chuckled. "My wife says every time she comes to work in this valley, knowing the Yellow Immortal is guarding the place, she feels especially at ease."

Xia Qing laughed too. "The title 'Yellow Immortal'—I haven't heard that in ages."

Qi Fu opened the irrigation channel, watering the seedlings as he chatted with Xia Qing. "Before the Catastrophe, the two of us drove big trucks nonstop on long hauls. We were terrified of taboo things—running over even a single snake on the road, we'd have to find a temple and burn incense for peace and safety. Running into a weasel, we'd go even further out of our way to avoid it…"

Chatting as they worked, the two began installing water-blocking diversion boards over the crevices at the top of the valley.

Blue Star's climate after the Catastrophe was vastly different from before. Over the next half month, Hui San Base's temperature would climb from below minus twenty to above zero, with highs possibly reaching eleven or twelve degrees.

A temperature surge of nearly thirty degrees would bring enormous challenges to all kinds of infrastructure and human health, while also causing accumulated snow to melt. Mountain snowmelt would converge into streams flowing into the valley, turning calm rivers into surging torrents.

If water-blocking diversion boards weren't installed over the mountain crevices above the Hidden Valley, the snowmelt mixed with rocks pouring into the crevices would form waterfalls, smashing and washing away the soil and seedlings in the valley's farmland.

The easiest and most direct way to avoid this disaster was to cover the tops of the mountain crevices with tarps, letting the snowmelt flow straight down. But that would reveal from high above that something was off about the crevices, exposing the valley's existence.

So, after discussion, the Territory Alliance members decided to keep using the method employed by the people who had lived here before—continuing to install boards at the top of the Hidden Valley, so the incoming snowmelt wouldn't slam into the farmland. Instead, the snowmelt would pass through the boards and flow out through the crevices on the east and west sides of the valley.

The steel pipes, timber, and tarps needed for this project had long been prepared. Today, Xia Qing and Qi Fu's task was to install the water-blocking diversion boards.

For two strength-evolvers who had worked on construction crews for years, installing over seven hundred meters of water-blocking diversion boards was a trivial task.

With the boards installed and the seedling fields irrigated, the two left the cave, circled around to the top of the mountain crevices, and began clearing the snow covering the upper mountain body. This was to prevent the snow, when it melted in large volumes, from carrying loose rocks down with it and damaging the water-blocking diversion boards they had just built.

This work took the whole day.

At four-thirty in the afternoon, Xia Qing, Qi Fu, and Shi Du descended the mountain, regrouped with Zhao Ze and the others, and headed back to the safe zone together. Tang Huai dragged his two legs along beside Xia Qing, listless and wilted.