Chapter 645: Secret Photography

In early March, the weather warmed and grass and trees began to sprout — the perfect time for planting trees.

After returning to her territory with two Green Lantern orange saplings she had traded for, Xia Qing walked a lap around the Green Lantern orchard on Gao Po, greeted Old Sheep who was guarding the big Chinese toon tree, then carried the orange saplings back down the mountain.

Unlike apple trees, which prefer slightly alkaline soil, orange trees like slightly acidic sandy soil. Her Green Lantern orchard soil was neutral to weakly alkaline, not suitable for orange trees.

After picking and choosing, Xia Qing chose to plant the orange trees in the courtyard of her home. There was no other reason — she simply thought orange trees looked lovely when fruiting.

Near the east wall, Xia Qing picked a spot, mixed in animal manure to boost fertility, then added decomposed pine needles and willow leaves to raise the soil's acidity, before planting the orange trees.

After planting the orange trees, while she still had time, Xia Qing turned over another patch of soil near the east perimeter wall and planted thirty-nine Green Lantern jujube pits.

Last year her two Green Lantern jujube trees had produced a total of 136 jujubes; when they were knocked down by hail at the end of July, the fruits were still green, and Xia Qing wasn't sure whether the pits were mature. But she dug out all the remaining pits anyway, soaked them in pollution-free spring water warmed up for a day and a night to soften their hard shells, then planted them in fertile soil.

Even if only two or three of these thirty-nine pits sprouted, she would be content.

Xia Qing used thorny branches to fence off the Green Lantern orange and jujube-pit planting area, and told Old Sheep, who was watching nearby, that the fenced-off zone must not be trampled.

Even after instructing Old Sheep, Xia Qing still wasn't at ease, so she found a piece of insect-proof netting and covered the patch where the jujube pits were planted. What she was guarding against wasn't Old Sheep, but the red squirrels. Jujube pits are also a type of nut, and are food for red squirrels.

That fellow's thieving nature hadn't changed — just this morning it had run into her territory, scratching and digging around the greenhouse looking for food. Xia Qing had seen it all clearly through the surveillance camera.

After finishing her work, Xia Qing took a small pouch of Chinese toon sprouts and a few eggs to visit her good friend Xin Yu, planning to have a casual meal before heading back.

The purpose of this visit was to establish a plausible origin for the rice seedlings she would be bringing out of the hidden valley in a few days.

The standardized planting greenhouse inside Territory Eight was, in name, the Lord Alliance's rice seedling breeding base. To make outsiders believe she had indeed bred the seedlings within Territory Eight, Xia Qing and Xin Yu had already laid groundwork several times beforehand — anyone who analyzed it carefully would see this point, and wouldn't suspect Mount Fifty.

The reason they chose Territory Eight rather than Territories One or Seven was that Xin Yu lived alone in the southern half of Territory Eight, which had both the conditions for breeding seedlings and excellent concealment. Apart from Zhou Zhaoping, no one knew that the flowers and plants Xin Yu grew inside her greenhouse outnumbered her grains and vegetables.

In a few more days, the rice seedlings from the hidden valley would be quietly moved into Territory Eight, then transported out from Territory Eight and planted in the rice paddies of various Lord Alliance territories.

Thinking that in a few days her rice paddies would be filled with high-quality rice seedlings, Xia Qing's steps were very light.

Xin Yu was also happy to see Xia Qing, but the happiest was the brain-evolved raven perched on her shoulder — Molli.

After greeting Xin Yu, Xia Qing very formally greeted this little bird that, like the black-feathered rooster in her own territory, was entirely black from head to toe: "Hello, Molli. I'm Xia Qing."

Molli hopped twice on Xin Yu's shoulder, raised her right wing, and cheerfully greeted Xia Qing in a very clear yet distinctly bird-like tone: "Hello, Shrimp."

Shrimp? Xia?

Although her fine was below standard, she was far more capable than that silly sheep in her territory who couldn't say a single word. Xia Qing smiled and nodded: "Yes, I'm 'Xia' Qing."

"You're the third person Molli has remembered." Xin Yu raised her index finger and rubbed Molli's little head.

No need to ask — the second must be Zhou Zhaoping. Xia Qing asked curiously, "What does Molli call Uncle Ping?"

"Just 'Uncle Ping.' Molli doesn't pronounce fourth-tone syllables very clearly."

Indeed not clearly — she'd even swapped out the biological category. Xia Qing followed Xin Yu back inside, first watching a video of a nest of yellow weasels and swallows from her own territory, then observing a beautiful parrot called Peony-Flower Peach that was incubating eggs in the glass room, before discussing the specific plan for moving the seedlings while making lunch.

After the meal, on her way back to her own territory along the isolation belt, Xia Qing passed by the Heavy Construction crew that was working, and suddenly grabbed one crew member's arm with one hand and clamped the back of his neck with the other.

Her sudden attack on the crew member caught both the construction squad and the security personnel off guard.

The remaining crew members immediately retreated. Two Heavy Construction security personnel stepped forward, aimed their guns at Xia Qing's heart and neck, and said in a cold voice: "Three seconds. Let go, or I shoot."

Xia Qing raised the crew member's right wrist, exposing the watch he was wearing. "He was secretly photographing me."

Seeing the guilty look-away of the crew member Xia Qing had seized, the security personnel understood what had happened. After silently cursing their own man for being useless, one security guard kept his gun aimed at Xia Qing while the other holstered his weapon, walked over, and raised a hand: "Young Lady Xia, we need to examine the evidence first before we can handle this according to company regulations."

Examine the evidence or destroy it? Xia Qing removed the crew member's watch and, instead of handing it to the Heavy Construction security personnel, directly pulled up her own front-facing photo from the electronic watch and showed it to the security guard. After confirming that this crew member had indeed been secretly photographing her, she immediately used the Lord walkie-talkie to call Xin Yu.

"Xin Yu, are you there?"

Hearing Xia Qing call Xin Yu, the faces of both the Heavy Construction crew members and the security personnel changed.

Xin Yu answered calmly, "I'm here."

"On my way back to my territory along the isolation belt, I was secretly photographed by a Heavy Construction crew member. How should this be handled?"

Photographing lords or territory images outside the territory without the lord's permission is a criminal violation of the Territory Law.

Xin Yu answered calmly: "His actions have already violated Heavy Construction employee management regulations. Hand him directly over to the Investigation Team for handling. Uncle Ping will report it to group headquarters, and the group will deal with it seriously."

"Copy."

"Copy."

Xia Qing and Zhou Zhaoping responded almost simultaneously. Investigation Team leader Tan Junjie came online and asked: "Xia Qing, report your current location. Has the perpetrator been apprehended?"

Xia Qing pressed the walkie-talkie button again: "West isolation belt, near the boundary between Territory Eight and Territory One. Perpetrator has been apprehended."

"Copy. Arriving in three minutes." Tan Junjie responded.

Things had already reached this point — there was no point in saying anything more. The squad leader in charge of this section of wall construction and the security personnel all fell silent, considering how to avoid getting themselves involved.

The crew member, whose neck was being gripped by Xia Qing and who had been dejected, suddenly exploded into action, broke free of Xia Qing's grip, turned around, and reached for the watch in Xia Qing's hand, trying to destroy the evidence.

This crew member was indeed fast enough, but his strength was far inferior to Xia Qing's. He grabbed Xia Qing's hand, but couldn't wrest the watch from her palm.

Xia Qing used her right hand to grip his hand, squeezed and twisted it, then kicked the back of his knee, and the man dropped to his knees on the ground.

"Ah—" the captured crew member cried out dramatically, "Mercy, Young Lady Xia! I only admire you, don't kill me—"

"Young Lady Xia…"

When the security guard opened his mouth to stop Xia Qing's rough behavior, he was frozen by her fierce gaze. Just as the intel they had received said, Territory Three Lord Xia Qing was a reclusive, brutal Evolver — no wonder she could be friends with the equally reclusive Xin Yu.

When Su Ming arrived by car, this was the scene he saw.