Chapter 797: Territory Alliance Training Ground

In a hoarse voice, Zhong Tao explained why he wanted to apply for a job here for his wife. "My father passed away. My wife got injured and infected with an evolution fungus. Her life was saved, but her right lower leg had to be amputated, and she lost her job. She and Ping'an live in the Safe Zone by themselves. I really can't set my mind at ease, so I want to bring them to the territory to work."

When the time came to ask a favor, he no longer feared being laughed at. Zhong Tao went on, "My wife and son are both staying in the hospital right now, sleeping in the same hospital bed. I don't dare let my son go home alone—I'm afraid someone would grab him and eat him. I don't dare arrange for him to go to Territory 48 either. Zhong He, that's my cousin. His wife is pregnant."

Xia Qing understood Zhong Tao's concerns perfectly well. Although he and his wife were both ordinary people, their son Zhong Ping'an was ten years old this year and had already been confirmed by the testing center as a Level Two Speed Evolver.

Zhong Tao didn't dare arrange for him to go to Territory 48 because he was afraid that if Zhong He and his wife had a child who turned out to be an ordinary person, then in Zhong He and his wife's eyes, Zhong Ping'an would be just like Tan Qi in Tan Junchao and his wife's eyes.

Rather than worrying day and night that his son would be cut up for meat and blood, it was better not to enter Territory 48 from the start, keep a safe distance, and the two families could still visit each other as relatives.

Xia Qing reminded Zhong Tao, "The Ninth Planting Center is run on a quasi-military basis, and the pay and benefits aren't as good as what you had in the army. If Brother Tao can accept that, get in touch with Brother Yue, report your sister-in-law's name too, and see what position can be arranged."

Zhong Tao's voice caught. "Thank you so much, sis! Don't worry—once we enter the Ninth Planting Center, we'll absolutely obey the management arrangements and never cause you the slightest trouble."

After hanging up the phone, Zhong Tao immediately called Yue Haiying, then covered his face and sat motionless for a long time.

Zheng Kui patted his shoulder and handed him a cigarette, lighting it for him.

Zhong Tao, his eyes bloodshot, held the cigarette with trembling hands, took a deep drag, his lips trembling, not knowing what to say for a long while.

Saying that heaven was cruel—one bout of blight rain took his father's life and cost his wife her leg?

Zheng Kui's mother-in-law, wife, and newborn baby had all perished in the blight rain!

"Old Zheng, retire with me too. The two of us can stick together, grow grain, and chat. If we don't grab this chance, we might not be able to squeeze in later."

The job openings at the Ninth Planting Center were fiercely competitive too.

"While my body's still up to it, I'll run a few more years. Someone's got to do this work." Zheng Kui blew out a smoke ring, watched it drift upward and dissipate, and in a daze he seemed to see his wife holding their newborn child, smiling at him.

Running the car was pretty dangerous. What was wrong with danger?

Living now, he could contribute something to the base; if he died in the line of duty, he could reunite with his family sooner.

In Territory 15, Jiang Mu was discussing with her daughter the matter of having her go work at the Ninth Planting Center. "The pay and benefits there are about the same as here, but over there it's a proper job with an official establishment."

"Mom." Jiang Ying corrected her, "The proper jobs with official establishment at the center are the ones that require skills and education. If I went, I'd only be able to work in the greenhouses. I'd be better off staying here where I have more freedom—the living conditions here are good too. And if I went there I'd have to work every day, so I wouldn't be able to go to Territory 4 for classes."

Right, how could she have forgotten that! Jiang Mu immediately nodded. "Then stay here. Classes are more important than earning points. The sooner you pass the junior high diploma exam, the sooner you can find a proper job."

Jiang Ying discussed with her mother, "Mom, you stay here too. The food and housing here are much better than what you had at the food factory."

What Jiang Mu was considering wasn't just the matter of food and daily necessities. "The food factory isn't bad either. If I stay in the Safe Zone, the two of us will have one more way out."

Disasters never announced when they'd come or where they'd strike. Keeping one more way out meant keeping one more path to survival.

So the next day, Jiang Mu boarded the patrol car heading back to the Safe Zone to return to work at the food factory. In the same car was Tan Mu, who had ostensibly come to visit her elder son and granddaughter, but was actually there to ask for a job for her younger son.

The first public planting center outside the Safe Zone was established within the protected territory of Northern District One, under the protection of the Divine Wolf, and caused quite a stir in the Safe Zone. Many people wanted to apply for jobs at the planting center.

Upon learning that the center mainly settled veterans, most people gave up hope—but Tan Junchao did not. Although he was not a veteran himself, he was a military family member.

The head of human resources at the Ninth Center was his brother's good friend Yue Haiying. As long as his brother was willing to put in a word for him, he was sure he could leave the food factory workshop and enter the Ninth Planting Center, taking up an easy, respectable job that paid well.

Naturally, Tan Mu's request was rejected outright by Tan Junjie. On the ride back to the territory with Jiang Mu, she chatted for a while about the dire conditions in the Safe Zone, then began gossiping about Northern District One. "Xia Qing is just a Strength Evolver. She has no diploma and no management experience. What qualifies her to be the planting center's agent? Just what is her relationship with the person in charge of this center?"

Zheng Kui pretended he hadn't heard a thing and drove on calmly.

Jiang Mu explained, "It's not what you think, sis-in-law. Xia Qing's abilities are something else—everyone in this territory respects her."

Before this bout of blight rain, Jiang Mu had also thought that Xia Qing had only managed to gain a firm footing in this territory thanks to Territory 7 and Hu Zifeng.

During the 53-hour-long blight rain, Jiang Mu was online most of the time. She heard with her own ears Xia Qing managing both Territory 3 and Territory 9, while still going out repeatedly to support other territories in clearing dangerous plants. She heard Xia Qing's calls answered by a hundred, and even Si Renjie had to curry favor with her.

Tan Mu, curious, pressed for more. "What abilities does she have? Isn't she just a bit stronger than most?"

"Her strength is no ordinary strength…"

"Bang!"

Xia Qing swiftly drew her pistol and shot off a bamboo whip that was about to lash Yu Shou. "Fall back!"

"Yes." Yu Shou immediately stepped back. He had lost an eye and couldn't accurately judge the distance of the attacking bamboo roots, which was why he had made the mistake.

Only then did Xia Qing draw her blade, hacking through one after another the iron-needle-like root tendrils and the constantly whipping bamboo roots. She reached the base of the bamboo and, with a series of clacks, chopped down this nearly 25-meter-tall bamboo, dragged it to the edge of the bamboo grove, and told the people standing nearby, "Don't push forward blindly. Cut them down one by one—chop through all the attacking bamboo whips first, then cut the bamboo itself."

The crowd immediately agreed, raised their blades, each picked a direction, and imitated Xia Qing's method to deal with the bamboo.

Upon learning that the blight-evolved attacking bamboo roots that Qi Fu had planted in the territory could sprout over two hundred hardness-evolved bamboo stalks in a single rainstorm, the members of the Territory Alliance were all tempted. They wanted to go dig up some bamboo roots from Mountain 52 and plant them in their own large territories, so they could harvest this premium building material during the third blight rain and replace all the greenhouse frames in their territories that needed changing.

Upon learning that Qi Fu and his wife were coming today to learn from Xia Qing how to cut bamboo roots, everyone put down their work and came over to learn together.

Besides the Strength Evolver allies in the Territory Alliance, Speed Evolver Tan Qi, Hearing Evolvers Tang Huai and Zhu Li, Triple Evolver Zhang Hongda, and ordinary people Kuang Qingwei, Zhao Ze, Tang Heng, and even Wen Nengjie had all come.

While the other Evolvers went to cut the bamboo roots whipping through the air with a whoosh, Zhu Li also gripped the machete Lord Huo Lei had forged for her and walked over bravely. Kuang Qingwei, worried, picked up a blade and followed.

Wen Nengjie and Zhao Ze exchanged a glance, and the two of them also charged forward. Tang Heng followed his brother, carefully edging closer.

And so the blight-evolved attacking Red-Leaf Bamboo, which looked incomparably fierce, became the Territory Alliance's training ground.

Xia Qing stood at the back with her pistol raised, ready at any moment to support allies who lacked combat experience.

"Clang!"

Zhao Ze seized the moment and swung his blade at a bamboo whip lashing toward him. The whip wasn't cut through, and his steel blade was sent flying. Startled, he instinctively wrapped his arms around his head and crouched on the ground.

Triple Evolver Zhang Hongda immediately stepped forward and caught the flying steel blade, warning Zhao Ze, "Brother Zhao, the gloves on your hands aren't as tough as a helmet."

A steel blade hitting a helmet wouldn't cause real damage, but if it struck the fingers gripping the helmet, it could chop the fingers off.

"Bang!"

Wen Nengjie, also an ordinary person, somehow managed to cut through an arm-thick hardness-evolved bamboo whip in a single stroke.

Watching this scene, Zhao Ze—whose startled soul hadn't yet returned to his body—opened his mouth, but no sound came out.