Chapter 67: Brain-Evolved Animal Alliance

Xia Qing excitedly shared her strawberry-growing experience with Luo Pei. "At first I planted the strawberries in the terraced fields, but after they bloomed the smell attracted too many bugs, so I transplanted them into pots and brought them home to grow indoors. When the sun's good, I move them out to the courtyard for some sun."

"Don't keep them inside the house. A fruit this fragrant would definitely get gnawed by evolved bugs." Luo Pei warned Xia Qing, "Seal your doors and windows tight. Be careful the evolved poisonous bugs don't get drawn in by the strawberry smell."

Xia Qing nodded. "I've been careful. Yesterday I just traded a bucket of odor-removing agent with the lord of Plot Seven. The effect is excellent — that danger has dropped a lot."

"Coming from Zhang San of Plot Seven, of course it's good stuff." Luo Pei smiled gently. "That's good then."

After chatting a bit more, Luo Pei returned to the main topic. "After the Great Biological Evolution, brain-evolved animals at the top of the food chain — elephants, wolves, lions, tigers, orangutans, monkeys and so on — no longer just hunt brain-evolved herbivores. They even form alliances with them to exchange for greater benefits. You and A-Jin are both certain that wolf is a very clever brain-evolved one. So the only reason it gets along with your evolved sheep is if your sheep is also a brain-evolved one."

Brain-evolved animals take a leading role within their species. If different kinds of brain-evolved animals form alliances, that's a joining of strength with strength — and for humans, it's a disaster. Just how far must this natural catastrophe push humanity into despair and collapse?

The happiness brought by the strawberries fading completely, Xia Qing's face grew solemn. "Luo-ge, this is terrifying."

Luo Pei nodded. "That's exactly why this hasn't been made public. Xia Qing, how is your relationship with your sheep?"

Xia Qing understood why Luo Pei was asking. Although she'd only been with Sheep Boss for a little over two months, she trusted him completely. "We share territory, share the edible plants within it, and already treat each other as companions. Of course, if the wolf shows up and Sheep Boss stands on the wolf's side and turns against me, then he's no longer my companion."

Yang Jin, who had been lowering his head to eat cucumber slices, spoke up. "You allowed the evolved sheep to take food outside the territory to wait for the wolf — you want to test the relationship between them?"

"Yes." In front of the two big shots, Xia Qing didn't hide her plan. "If my sheep is food the wolf has been raising, I can lure it out and remove the hidden danger. If my sheep and that wolf are companions, maybe I can benefit from it too."

Luo Pei was surprised. "You want to form a companion relationship with the wolf? Post-evolution wolves are extremely intelligent, and their combat power is formidable. Humans have been trying to tame wolves or form companion relationships with them for years, but now we can't even coexist peacefully with them. What you're doing is a bit risky."

Xia Qing shook her head. "That's the most ideal and least likely scenario. I was thinking — if I could connect with the wolf pack through Sheep Boss, maybe I'd have another channel for trading supplies. That alpha wolf is very clever, and it lives in the evolved forest. It must have a lot of good stuff."

After Xia Qing left, Luo Pei couldn't help sighing. "She actually wants to trade supplies with wolves. No wonder… no wonder you like her. It's been ten years of catastrophe, and people with light still in their eyes are getting rarer and rarer."

People nowadays — except for those youngsters protected by the great families — mostly live numb, desperate, indulgent, crazy lives. But in Xia Qing, who has no one to rely on, Luo Pei couldn't see a trace of pessimism or letting go. She's low-key, clear-headed, independent, principled, and full of hope for the future.

Seeing Xia Qing, Luo Pei felt humanity still had a future.

Yang Jin munched on his cucumber without responding. He liked Xia Qing — no need to say it, and he couldn't say it.

Because Xia Qing had no intention of getting a boyfriend — she only wanted to live her own life well. Before, she devoted herself single-mindedly to learning all kinds of independent living skills. Now that her skills were mastered and she'd left the Safe Zone, she devoted herself single-mindedly to farming and improving her life.

All these years she'd been alone, and it was foreseeable that for a long time to come, it would stay that way.

Strictly speaking, she wasn't alone anymore now — she had a companion: a silly sheep.

In her eyes, he was, at best, a trading partner who happened to be easy on the eyes.

In Xia Qing's eyes, he couldn't even compare to a silly sheep. How could the always-proud Yang Jin bring himself to say it?

Seeing Yang Jin stay silent, Luo Pei smiled. "Don't tell me you don't like her. If Plot Three weren't Xia Qing's, you'd have taken it long ago."

After Yang Jin finished the cucumbers from Luo Pei's fruit platter too, he leaned back in his chair and asked, "Luo-ge, how much have you recovered now?"

Neither answering nor denying — looks like he really did like Xia Qing. When had he started liking her? Luo Pei knew that whatever this guy didn't want to say, you couldn't pry it out of him even if you knocked his teeth out. Not wasting any more effort, he answered directly, "About seventy percent. I should be back to ninety in a month. What's your plan?"

"Once you're back to ninety, I'll go track that wolf." Yang Jin's calculations clicked away. "That wolf probably knows there's an unpolluted water source inside Plot Three, but it didn't firmly occupy Plot Three. There's only one possibility left: its core territory has another unpolluted water source."

Luo Pei's eyes lit up too. "Bring plenty of supplies the wolf would be interested in. Xia Qing's right — if you can trade with wolves, don't fight them."

Trade? He wished. Yang Jin lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and said slowly, "If we weren't evenly matched, one of us would definitely have died yesterday."

Luo Pei, much recovered and now in the mood for jokes, asked, "A male wolf?"

Yang Jin was speechless for a few seconds. "Female."

Luo Pei laughed twice before getting to business. "The Safe Zone will definitely make trouble for us over the evolved wolf hurting the wild boar. Can Xie Yu handle it alone?"

Yang Jin, the iron rooster, trading with people — how could he leave such a loophole? "No need to handle it. I signed a written document: after buying the mountain, starting from the third month I send people to guard it. Any dangerous evolved creatures coming down the mountain before that has nothing to do with us."

Luo Pei was impressed. "It's such a shame a brain that clever didn't evolve — otherwise you'd take over the whole Blue Planet."

Xia Qing went home, ate three hot scallion pancakes for lunch, took a short nap, then put on her big straw hat, shouldered the water bicycle, and headed to the fields with Sheep Boss.

After more than a month of feeding them grass and evolved insects, the biggest fry in the fish pond had already grown to three centimeters — big enough to scoop up and fry.

As long as she fed them well, the fry would definitely grow to palm-length by the end of July. The dried small fish were already prepared — how far could her cat be? The more Xia Qing thought about it, the happier she got. After wildly praising Sheep Boss, who was pedaling the water-cart like crazy, she went to inspect the fields.

Xia Qing first went to the planting zone on the low slope north of the reservoir, carefully pinched off a spinach leaf, confirmed the spinach seeds weren't ripe yet, and continued upward. Green beans, eggplants, tomatoes, and chili peppers had all bloomed and set fruit. In another half month or so, her dining table would be even more abundant.

As Xia Qing passed each vegetable seedling and the cucumber and green bean trellises, she shook the plants or bamboo frames to achieve artificial pollination. Actually, if the wind is strong, there's no need to manually shake the plants for pollination, but for peace of mind, Xia Qing still shook all the vegetable plants inside the insect-proof netting.

Passing the cucumber vines, Xia Qing picked off a blooming male flower and pressed it onto a female flower to pollinate it. Then she casually picked off the extra male flowers and stuck them in her straw hat. By the time she walked out of the insect-proof netting around the planting zone below the spring, her hat already had over a dozen fresh cucumber flowers stuck in it.

She put on her hat and continued upward.

The insects drawn over by the cucumber flowers' fragrance were all killed by Xia Qing and stuffed into a small basket. Passing the spring, Xia Qing washed a spinach leaf, stuffed it in her mouth, and continued upward.

Zhang San was a picky eater — his favorite was spinach leaves. Xia Qing didn't think spinach leaves were particularly tasty, but she wouldn't waste a single leaf of green-light vegetables.