Chapter 753: End of Special Training

On the third day's return from special training, Yanlong drove Xia Qing's "beat-up" car into Territory Three. Exhausted, Xia Qing had Boss Sheep carry her back to the house; she fell asleep sprawled on the living room sofa, without changing clothes or eating dinner.

When she opened her eyes the next morning, Xia Qing saw half a cucumber placed in front of her. No need to ask—this was Boss Sheep, seeing she wouldn't get up to eat, specially leaving it for her.

Xia Qing and Boss Sheep were now mutually trusting partners, so Boss Sheep walking around didn't startle her awake; on the contrary, hearing the clip-clop of Boss Sheep's hooves made her feel more at ease and sleep more soundly. That was also why Boss Sheep went to pick a cucumber, gnawed half of it, and left half for her, and Xia Qing still didn't wake up.

Why half? Because whenever Xia Qing got tired working in the fields, she'd pick a cucumber to quench her thirst—one half for her, one half for Boss Sheep. So Boss Sheep leaving her half was perfectly normal.

Xia Qing took the cucumber to the kitchen, washed it, crunched through it, then went upstairs to take off her protective suit and shower.

In these three days, she had learned how to defeat a crocodile without weapons, how to survive in rapids; the patches of blue-purple bruises and the aching muscles on her body were all proof of her growth.

Unfortunately, there were no pythons of suitable size in the nearby Evolution Forest, so she hadn't seen with her own eyes how Yanlong fought pythons. In recent years, Xia Qing hadn't had the chance to witness it either.

Because Yanlong's bodyguard mission in Territory Seven would end at year's end—this was the last time she would take Xia Qing and Tan Qi on special training. At year's end, she would return to Huiyi Base to carry out other missions.

Although she hadn't said so, Xia Qing believed her next battlefield should be near a body of water, because when Yanlong mentioned the next mission, she clearly held anticipation.

In lakes, in rapids, Yanlong's eyes would flash with a brilliance she didn't usually have. She loved water, loved fighting in water; a mission that could make her feel anticipation should be near a body of water.

Xia Qing shook the water from her short hair, reached out her aching arm, grabbed a towel, and wiped the water from her body.

Yanlong loved water, so this place was not her home. But Xia Qing loved this place—this was her territory, her home, and the place she was striving with all her might to protect.

After changing clothes, Xia Qing began washing rice again, adding pollution-free spring water, and simmering rice porridge over a low flame.

It wasn't that she was especially fond of rice porridge, but because among her stockpiled Green Light food, rice was the most plentiful.

In early winter last year, Xia Qing had traded with Yang Jin for 400 jin of Green Light rice with a qiang element content of 4.3‰ BS-6. Over the past half year, to regulate her body, lower the qiang element content in her body and raise the yi element content, Xia Qing ate Green Light food as much as possible; rice, with the largest stockpile, was naturally her staple of choice.

Because she was a high-level Evolver, her appetite was much greater than ordinary people's; in just over five months she had eaten more than 310 jin of rice, with over 80 jin remaining.

Once this remaining rice was finished, her Green Light wheat, Green Light mung beans, Green Light corn, Green Light soybeans, Green Light sweet potatoes, and other grain crops would mature one after another, and her staple options would become richer.

To get a good harvest farming, it mainly depends on the weather. To harvest these crops successfully, first, no extreme natural disasters like hail, hurricanes, or insect swarms must occur in the coming period; second, the second qiang rain half a month from now must not come too violently.

Humans cannot prevent natural disasters, only prepare thoroughly and respond actively. For the next half month, Xia Qing's main task was to manage the farmland, reinforce the greenhouses and the sheds, and when the disaster struck, minimize the losses as much as possible.

After feeding the chickens, she had just stepped out of the abandoned village when she ran into Boss Sheep, who was carrying a small basket in his mouth catching bugs. She immediately greeted him with great enthusiasm, "Boss, morning! Thanks for the cucumber you picked for me last night."

Boss Sheep, seeing his little subordinate lively and bouncing again, set the small basket containing a few dead bugs on the ground and turned to go eat grass.

"Got it, leave it to me, Boss, you rest." Xia Qing very naturally picked up the small basket, catching bugs while patrolling the territory.

Locusts, crickets, cabbage worms, caterpillars, centipedes, snakes… whatever Xia Qing saw, she caught.

When patrolling to the reservoir, Xia Qing poured a small portion of the bugs into the iron cage in the reservoir that held the big fish, feeding the ten Green Light and Yellow Light big fish that had been transferred from the water tanks into the reservoir; the larger portion she poured into the pond after lifting the net covering the fish pond, feeding the small fry.

The fry had hatched and grown quickly; the big ones were already two centimeters long. After the bugs were poured in, the fry immediately swarmed over, tearing at them; the water surface rippled in circle after circle from the little fish's movements.

Because there were always egrets, night herons, spot-billed ducks, and other water birds, as well as water snakes, grass snakes, and other serpents, always sneaking into the fish pond to eat her precious fry whenever Xia Qing wasn't looking, Xia Qing could only cover the entire pond with a fishing net to keep the birds out.

This fishing net was something Xia Qing had traded for from Territory Ten. Territory Ten had also dug fish ponds, and they faced the same problem. Xia Qing had heard Shi Mu say at the alliance meeting that Shi Zhong wove fishing nets, so she asked him to weave one extra for her.

If the water birds could be kept out, the loss of fry could be greatly reduced.

To protect the fry well during the qiang rain, Xia Qing decided to adopt two methods.

The first was Territory Five's method: first, raise the dikes around the fish pond to stop the surface runoff formed during the qiang rain from flowing into the pond; second, the day before the qiang rain, use the fishing net to drive the fry into the small fish pond, then cover the small fish pond with rainproof cloth. Doing this could prevent qiang rain from falling or flowing into the pond, causing the qiang element content in the pond water to rise and the fry's quality to drop.

The risk of doing this was that if the wind during the qiang rain was too strong, it could blow the rainproof cloth over, causing the qiang rain to fall into the fish pond.

So Xia Qing had a second method. When using the fishing net to drive the fish, she would scoop out a portion of the fry and temporarily raise them in water tanks; after the qiang rain passed and the qiang element content in the atmosphere and water returned to normal levels, she would put the fry back into the pond to continue growing.

Her allies thought Xia Qing's method was good and also decided to adopt two methods to spread the risk. Moreover, to further improve safety, they wanted to put the water tanks into concealed valleys, directly shielding them from qiang elements during the qiang rain period.

Xia Qing went along with the flow, like everyone else, and transferred part of the fry into the concealed valley. Doing this meant she no longer had to specially use a small piece of yi stone to protect the fry in the water tanks.

After feeding the fish, Xia Qing continued carrying the small basket, patrolling the hillside. When passing the terraced fields where Green Light rice was planted, Xia Qing looked through the insect-proof net at the five BS-6 Green Light rice seedlings in the paddy and sighed.

These five rice seedlings were grown from unhusked rice seeds she had picked out from the 400 jin of Green Light rice. Because the BS-6 Green Light rice from Bai San Base tasted very good, Xia Qing was full of expectations for these five seedlings.

But these five seedlings might be unaccustomed to the soil and water; not only were they inferior in vigor to the J-2 seedlings cultivated in Territory Seven, but their qiang element content had also risen by 0.3 points, reaching 4.6‰.

At this growth trend, even if these five BS-6 rice plants could successfully flower, set seed, and mature, their quality would drop from Green Light to Yellow Light.

This was still the result of planting in Gao Yi element soil; if switched to ordinary soil, the result would be even worse.

This was really too discouraging for a farmer's enthusiasm.