Chapter 665: The Changes in the Blight Withering Grass

Ram Boss, who had come charging over in a fury to teach his little follower a lesson, flared his nostrils and sniffed, then his eyes went wide. "Baa~~~"

"Right! I found a delicious green-light lettuce!" Xia Qing, bracing herself to be headbutted into the air a few times, secretly rejoiced and immediately broke off a lettuce leaf and held it out. "Boss, hurry and try it—it's super fresh."

Ram Boss clamped the lettuce leaf in his mouth and chewed fast, his eyes locked on the huge head of lettuce in Xia Qing's hand.

"Every leaf on this big lettuce is yours, I'll eat the bare stalk! Let's go, we're heading home to eat. I've been working for a day and a night and I'm exhausted—Boss, did you feed the fish and the chickens or not…" As she spoke, Xia Qing raised a hand to wave at Guan Tong up in the big tree in the distance.

No need to ask—Ram Boss had thrown a tantrum and gotten into another fight with Guan Tong.

Watching Xia Qing coax the tantrum-throwing, violently temperamental ram home with a single vegetable, Guan Tong, aching all over, finally let out a breath of relief.

After Xia Qing got home and soothed the Boss, she greeted the family of weasels in the ram shed, then began patrolling the house and the abandoned village to confirm there were no Blight Snakes. Only then did she shower thoroughly, change into some cool clothes, and pull on a Level-3 wilderness protection suit before heading out to patrol her territory.

Seeing Xia Qing about to leave, Ram Boss, who was gnawing on a vegetable leaf, immediately followed.

"Chen Zheng and Chen Cheng patrol one lap every two hours. They didn't spot any Blight Snakes, and the water-sample tests are normal." Guan Tong reported the situation inside the territory to Xia Qing. Seeing Ram Boss squinting at him, he left out the part about being chased and beaten by the Boss. "Sister Qing, how many Blight Snakes did you and our Boss catch?"

Xia Qing answered, "Besides the nest our Botai found on Mountain 49, we caught five on Mountain 50 and twenty-six on Mountain 55. Did you all find any Blight Snakes on Mountain 49 afterward?"

"No." Guan Tong shook his head. "How could so many Blight Snakes suddenly show up? Surely there won't be another major disaster, right? If this keeps up, humanity really will go extinct."

No one could answer that question.

All of last year, Hui Three suffered no major natural disasters, yet its population still dropped by ninety thousand. If the number of Blight Snakes surged, it would certainly cause more casualties.

Because the Blight Snake population had surged, beyond those who died from bites or from drinking contaminated water, there were also population losses from the chain reactions the snakes triggered—for instance, animals that preyed on snakes died in large numbers from poisoning, and human activity ranges shrank, making it impossible to gather enough food from the Evolution Forests.

Xia Qing handed the pork ribs meant for Luo Pei over to Guan Tong and saw him off from Territory Three. Then she and Ram Boss sat together at the edge of the Gao Po terraced fields, quietly looking down over them. The seeds Xia Qing had sown seven days ago had already taken root, sprouted, and broken through the soil. One glance was enough to fill a person with energy.

If only the creatures of Blue Star would stop their frantic evolution—maintaining the current balance would be pretty good too.

But that wasn't something she got to decide.

So Xia Qing could only adjust her own physical and mental state, growing ever stronger, in order to survive.

Although the Blight Snakes had increased, she had evolved the ability to sense them, so this didn't really affect her.

Xia Qing rubbed Ram Boss's head, stood up, and walked down to patrol the terraced fields. Ram Boss also stood up and followed Xia Qing down.

Xia Qing hadn't come home all night, so Ram Boss hadn't slept well all night—but compared to sleeping, sticking close to his little follower mattered more to him.

He was afraid that if Xia Qing ran off again and didn't return for a whole night, he'd be the only ram left in the territory.

"Baa—" Ram Boss stopped at the edge of a terrace and refused to move.

Xia Qing, walking ahead, also stopped. Following the Boss's gaze, she guessed what he wanted. "These are peas, Boss. Want to try some?"

The peas had been traded to her by Zhong Tao and Zheng Kui—a plant variety Ram Boss had never seen before.

"Baa~"

"Alright, I'll pinch off a few leaves for Boss to try." Xia Qing pulled open the thorny sheep fence at the edge of the terrace, stepped inside, picked out the fastest-growing plants, and pinched off a few small leaves for the Boss.

Ram Boss didn't eat his fill and kept staring at the seedlings in the field. Looks like he thought the yellow-light pea seedlings tasted pretty good.

"These seedlings just sprouted—pinching off any more will leave them bald. Wait half a month and I'll pinch some off for Boss again." Xia Qing rubbed the little curls of wool on her companion's head.

When Xia Qing stopped feeding him, Ram Boss didn't make a fuss either and kept following her down.

When they reached the spinach terraces, Xia Qing began pulling out the small weeds poking up in the field.

The little spinach seedlings, with pale purple stems topped by two slender green leaves, looked pretty much the same as the weeds in the field. Last year's Xia Qing still didn't dare weed at this stage, afraid of pulling the wrong plant. But this year's Xia Qing could already pull weeds while chatting with Ram Boss.

"Boss, the outside is so dangerous—our territory is still the best."

"Baa." Ram Boss lay down outside the thorny fence, squinting as he tossed out a casual reply.

"I saw four giant pythons on Mountain 55—the biggest one had to be at least fifteen meters long. But I still finished the mission and gathered the herbs."

"Baa."

"Boss is amazing too. While I was gone, you protected our territory really well, and you fed the fish and the chickens."

"Baa…" Ram Boss gave a low reply, his head drooping as he fell asleep.

In the spinach terraces, only 150 ordinary spinach seeds and 150 Gao Yi Element spinach seeds have been planted so far. To maximize the use of the Yi Stones here, Xia Qing also buried five green-light purple sweet potatoes and fifteen green-light red sweet potatoes around the four sides of the Gao Yi Element spinach plot, to grow seedlings.

Yesterday, when Xia Qing went to patrol the hidden valley, she found that the sweet potatoes being grown for seedlings in the valley had already sprouted, but the sweet potatoes and purple sweet potatoes in the terraces hadn't sprouted.

The soil here was very fertile, so it must be that the temperature wasn't up to standard.

"Baa." Ram Boss, who'd dozed off, opened his eyes and, finding Xia Qing standing motionless, stood up and baa-ed.

"It's nothing." Xia Qing patted the dirt off her gloves and stood up. "I was just looking at the sweet potatoes that haven't sprouted and wondering whether I should dig them up and check."

She was being impatient again.

The person and the ram continued walking down, passing through the old quarantine belt into the low-slope terraces. Xia Qing listened carefully, then glanced at the sky. After confirming there were no scout birds or personnel monitoring the airspace above her territory or the area outside, she let Ram Boss sleep here without worry while she ducked into the spring-water cave, turned on her flashlight, and carefully examined the growth of the Blight Withering Grass.

With the increase in Blight Snakes, Blight Withering Grass—the main medicinal ingredient for synthesizing the Blight antidote—had become even more important.

The Blight Withering Grass plant that had never had its leaves cut grew a flower stalk last winter, bloomed with fourteen-plus small flowers this January, and produced seed pods.

It was now early March; the flower stalk had not yet withered, and the seeds were still attached, not having fallen off.

The《Blight Withering Grass Cultivation Guide》Zhang San had given her said that Blight Withering Grass seeds only counted as mature once they naturally fell off, so Xia Qing hadn't touched these seeds. She checked them twice a day, patiently waiting for them to drop.

She turned her flashlight toward the Blight Withering Grass plant beside it. That plant had had seven leaves cut off and had not grown a flower stalk.

Wait!

Xia Qing closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them as wide as possible.

Because this plant was colorless and transparent, even with her Level-9 visual evolution ability, Xia Qing still couldn't quite believe her eyes.

At the spots on this Blight Withering Grass plant where leaves had been cut off—spots the《Cultivation Guide》called "leaf axils"—it looked like tiny buds had sprouted?

She took out her phone and snapped over a dozen photos from various angles with click-click-click, then crawled out of the cave and enlarged the images on her phone, confirming that lateral buds really had grown in the leaf axils of this Blight Withering Grass plant.

And not just one!

The《Cultivation Guide》Third Brother gave her said that Blight Withering Grass only has a terminal bud and doesn't grow lateral buds—what was going on with the one in her territory?