Chapter 61: Evolution Wolves Attack

Kuang Qingwei asked, "Old Qi, I have a cotton plant in my field where the main stem split into two main stems at the fourth leaf — what should I do about that?"

Xia Qing immediately pricked up her ears, because her field also had several cotton plants growing so independently and wildly.

Qi Fu continued sharing his experience, "Then keep both forks. Strip off the vegetative shoots below the forks and on the forks themselves, and only leave the fruiting branches."

Xia Qing felt the name "vegetative shoot" was very fitting: a leaf branch that grew leaves madly without producing flower buds — wasn't that exactly a vegetative shoot?

Kuang Qingwei grew even more worried, "No matter how I look at it, I feel like both forks are full of vegetative shoots."

Qi Fu said with a smile, "Then strip the lower ones first, let the small shoots on top grow a bit longer, we'll talk about it when they're bigger. Don't worry, as long as the cotton plant has no problems, it'll grow fruiting branches sooner or later. Don't be afraid of making mistakes — just leave six or seven fruiting branches per plant, any more and you have to pinch off the tops. If you leave too many, the bolls won't set."

Hearing Qi Fu say that, Xia Qing was immediately reassured and snapped away the cotton plant she'd been staring at for over ten minutes, cleaning it up.

Stripping the vegetative shoots from the main stem downward, turning a cotton plant into a lone commander — why did that feel inexplicably satisfying?

Xia Qing beamed, squeezing the stripped vegetative shoots to test their qiang element content.

Wherever Yang Jin was, there she was.

Still beaming. No problem — the red light means the cotton seeds can't be eaten, but as long as it grows cotton, that's fine, keep it.

Su Ming glanced at Squad Leader Tan at the front, lowered his voice and told the group, "I heard — and this is just a rumor, don't you dare spread it… I heard Jin-ge doesn't like women."

Yuan Rui, a member of the Olfactory Evolution Squad who rarely joined the big discussions, suddenly spoke up, "Tang Lu is actually pretty smart."

Su Ming said with a grin, "Haven't you heard that saying? What you can't have is always stirring."

Everyone…

"Baa."

Yuan Rui countered, "How would you know you can't catch her if you don't try? She's not that old anyway, and Yang Jin doesn't have a girlfriend. If she succeeded, there'd be nothing to worry about for the next hundred years."

"Fifty laps with weights when we get back."

"Sizzle—"

Green light?

Hu Zi complained, "The more she acts like this, the less likely Jin-ge is to like her — what's she even thinking? Wouldn't it be better to switch targets? Xu Pin has always been pretty fond of her."

The wild boar's cry also startled Xia Qing, who had been listening to gossip on Gao Po inside Territory Three. The call was too unusual — Xia Qing immediately sprinted north, climbed a big tree near the breeding center inside the territory, and looked out over the valley where the wild boars were raised.

Before Su Ming could answer, the wild boar breeding center suddenly erupted with heart-wrenching, world-weary squeals from the boars. The patrol team that had just passed by the breeding center immediately changed direction and ran toward it with guns raised.

Ah, huh?

Both Hu Zi and Su Ming widened their eyes, "Rui-ge's taste is pretty unique."

Sheep Boss, lying in the shade of a tree over ten meters away chewing its cud, thought Xia Qing was praising it and gave a perfunctory reply.

Xia Qing was delighted and went back to bending over and stripping vegetative shoots.

One moment she said her pet white rabbit had run off and demanded the patrol team negotiate with Territory One so she could go look for it. The next moment she said the patrol team's work was inadequate, that Territory Two was full of large dangerous evolved insects, and she was going to file a complaint.

Su Ming wished he could gag the woman whose noise was splitting his head, "And that's only because her old man is Tang Zhengsu!"

Tang Lu couldn't storm into Territory One, and the Blue Dragon Squad members on guard duty wouldn't help her pass a message to Yang Jin, so she kept finding new ways to torment the patrol team that had direct contact with Territory One.

Without Tang Zhengsu, a woman with no real ability who dared throw tantrums like this during the catastrophe would have died countless times over.

Xia Qing couldn't make out what the technicians were saying, but she could hear the people in camouflage protective suits shouting, "Its neck was bitten… it's an evolved wolf, extremely fast — researchers, get back to the safe house now!"

Yang Jin stayed in Territory One to oversee the development of the Mount Forty-Nine training base. Tang Zheng spent two days at Mount Forty-Nine with no results and flew off. Tang Lu naturally stayed in her own territory.

Tested over a hundred plants to find just one! Of course she had to tie a conspicuous red cord on it for special protection — she was going to use this one for seed.

Hearing the clucking sound of evolved locusts flapping their wings, Xia Qing straightened up, her hand just reaching for the steel pellet pouch, when two evolved crows swooped in and swallowed the locusts — she didn't need to lift a finger.

Thanks to her excellent eyesight, Xia Qing saw two people in camouflage protective suits carrying an adult wild boar, rushing toward a row of white buildings, while two technicians in pure-white fully-sealed airtight protective suits burst out of the building to meet them.

Yellow light.

Stripping vegetative shoots took Xia Qing two days. The morning of the first day she bent over standing; after that she switched to sitting for the remaining half-days. Xia Qing made a small stool of just the right height and tied it to her body, sat between two rows of cotton, stripped the few plants within reach, scooted forward two steps, and kept stripping while sitting.

Pruning and disbudding over eight thousand two hundred cotton plants across two mu was a repetitive and tedious farm task, but Xia Qing, who had endured ten years of catastrophe, loved every minute of it. She was absolutely addicted to the feeling of being immersed in tending the cotton — even the clattering fight between two evolved crickets in the distance sounded pleasant to her ears.

Xia Qing gave a thumbs up, "Awesome!"

Yuan Rui was a few years older than them, had seen more, thought more, "Tang Lu is just an ordinary person without the ability to evolve. If she wants to keep living a comfortable, respectable life, she either has to help the Tang family win over their number one rival, the Blue Dragon Squad, or produce an outstanding next-generation evolved person herself. Either way, Yang Jin is her first-choice target."

It wasn't just Xia Qing who found Tang Lu a nuisance — the patrol team did too.

Red light.

Xia Qing, wearing a big straw hat woven from mosquito-repelling grass, was in her element. The only flaw was the noise drifting over from Tang Lu in Territory Two — it grated on her ears.

Still beaming. Yellow light is good — yellow light means the cotton seeds can be pressed for oil, can be sold for more points. Tie a grass cord on it to mark it.

"…here."

How would you know you can't catch her if you don't try? Hu Zi fell into thought.

After they'd walked quite a distance in silence, Su Ming finally broke it, "Even if her target is right, it doesn't matter if she can't catch him."

Tan Junjie, without turning his head, "Su Ming."

Wolf!!!

Xia Qing tensed up too — the terror of evolved wolf packs was seared into her memory. Hadn't they already cleared out all the large high-risk evolved animals around the territory? Where did this wolf attacking the wild boar come from?

"Baa—"

Not long after this breeding center was built, over a dozen researchers in pure-white fully-sealed airtight protective suits went in, and after that there'd been no further activity — so quiet that Xia Qing had forgotten the existence of those people and those pigs. That howl just now was truly unusual.

Hearing Sheep Boss's call, Xia Qing immediately climbed down the tree, rushed down the slope to meet it, "Boss, you heard the boar too?"

Sheep Boss nuzzled Xia Qing with its head, butting her down the slope, clearly agitated and uneasy. Xia Qing was nearly shoved off the slope by it, so she immediately led the Boss down the mountain at a run.

Evolved wolves hunted even the thick-hided wild boars, let alone a plump Sheep Boss!