Chapter 806: Ground Hawks and Little Swallows

Xia Qing knew perfectly well why Tang Zhengpo was looking for Zhou Zhaoping. "Tang Dong just brought over some salmon. Uncle Ping is in for a treat today."

After Xia Qing entered the small white building, Xin Yu laughed and teased, "I just counted up the positions you and Uncle Ping hold — together they're almost double digits."

Xia Qing, who was taking off her protective suit, laughed too. "Add yours in, and it makes exactly double digits."

Not counting the positions Xin Yu and Zhou Zhaoping held on the books at the Chonglian Group, only those within Hui-Three's territory: Xin Yu was Lord of Territory Eight and owner of the Hui-Three Spore Powder Production Plant; Zhou Zhaoping was Agent for Territory Eight, manager of the Hui-Three Spore Powder Plant, secretary of the Territory Alliance, and chairman of the Hui-Three Pharmaceutical Plant; Xia Qing was Lord of Territory Three, chair of the Territory Alliance, manager of Mountain Fifty, and agent for the Ninth Planting Center. Added together, exactly ten.

Xin Yu quickly washed her hands, handed the kitchen over to Xia Qing, and ran off to check on the harrier hawk in the cage outside the door.

Xia Qing reminded her, "Wear gloves. It's carrying evolved fungi — I sprayed some disinfectant on it."

"Got it." Xin Yu put on her protective suit and gloves, hurried outside to examine the harrier hawk, then gave Xia Qing a thumbs-up through the window. "Your shooting's getting better and better. The bones in this harrier's left wing aren't broken — it should be torn tendons and ligaments. I'll go treat it and bandage it up."

"It was a coincidence." More accurately, a miss. If Brother Luo found out she couldn't accurately hit a moving target within a thousand meters, she had no idea how he'd punish her.

Xia Qing tied on her apron, looked at the carrots in the washing basin, and knew this was definitely no coincidence.

Carrots are plants sensitive to the Qiang element, and their entire growth process requires isolation from the Qiang element. That's why the market supply of carrots is lower than ordinary vegetables, and the price is more than ten times higher. Most of the time, you can't buy them even if you have the points.

Last year, when Xia Qing was trading supplies with Territory Nine, she asked if they had carrot seeds with reduced sensitivity to the Qiang element. Before this spring's planting, Xia Qing also asked Xin Yu, who hadn't been able to find quality green-light carrot seeds either. For carrots to appear here today, Xin Yu must have specifically traded for them. Just like the yellow-light figs growing in Xia Qing's own yard, already bearing fruit.

Xia Qing carefully washed the carrots, peeled them, and set them on a plate. When Xin Yu came back, she asked, "Should I dice the carrots or cut them into chunks?"

"Cut them into rolling chunks and put them in the lamb bone soup." Xin Yu tied on her apron and walked in, opened the soup pot, and added the carrot chunks. "This harrier hawk might make a full recovery — it won't be like the one in the yard. Did you see it just now? That one runs really fast now."

"I saw it — it's almost as round as a ball." Once this harrier hawk is healed, are you going to train it? The one in the yard Xin Yu mentioned was the evolved hawk that had tried to snatch the weasel last year — the rabbit-stealer whose right wing Xia Qing had shot. Xia Qing had spotted it the moment she walked through the territory's main gate. That hawk hadn't been successfully treated; it had lost the ability to fly and stayed in Territory Eight as a ground hawk.

"I'll give it a try. If it doesn't work out, I'll release it." After seeing how Xia Qing got along with the wolf pack and the swallows, bird-keeper Xin Yu had changed a little too. "Is there still hope for the red squirrel it took?"

"There is…"

After hearing Xia Qing describe the whole process of rescuing the baby red squirrel, Xin Yu laughed until she could barely stand, and her curiosity was piqued. So once the lamb ribs went into the oven, the two of them huddled together to check the surveillance from Territory Three's sheep pen.

The red squirrel family was still in the comfortable nest Xia Qing had prepared for them. The two healthy little squirrels were playing around, the mother squirrel lay on her side, and the injured baby was nursing. The little one braced itself with its four limbs splayed out, but its tail drooped weakly. Several patches of fur had been shaved off its body, making it look like it had alopecia areata.

Though the little squirrel looked very small and weak, Xin Yu was sure it would survive — because its surgery had been performed by Zhang Song, and the special-effect medicine it was taking had been personally compounded by the big shot.

If the evolved hawk in the yard had been sent to Territory Seven back then, maybe…

Maybe she'd already been on Zhang San's blacklist for half a year!

Xin Yu asked, "Do you need me to have Xiaoyu or Xiaoxiao fly over your territory every day to drive off other raptors?"

Territory Eight's two trained raptors — the white-bellied sea eagle and the eagle owl — could now go out to forage, but Xin Yu wouldn't let them hunt in other lords' territories. Only the brain-domain evolved raven Moli would, every now and then, fly to the big Chinese toon tree in Territory Three to peck off a few tender Chinese toon sprouts.

Xin Yu could direct them to circle over Territory Three every day, letting other raptors know there was already an aerial lord here, reducing the risk of red squirrels, chickens, and fish in Territory Three being caught by birds.

"No need. The baby red squirrels must learn to evade all kinds of natural predators, or they won't survive in the evolved forest. I'm counting on these little squirrels to grow up and find quality dried fruit for me." Xia Qing had saved the baby red squirrel with no intention of turning it into a pet that needed human protection.

It's a wild beast of the evolved forest — it must learn to evade predators, defend its territory, and find food. She hoped the little Feimao who owed her forty-six thousand points would choose a territory close to Xia Qing when it grew up, making it easier for her to collect the debt.

Xin Yu wasn't surprised by Xia Qing's choice. "Have the little swallows under the eaves left the nest yet?"

Though Xia Qing hadn't installed dedicated surveillance for the swallows, the cameras in her yard covered the area under the eaves. Xia Qing pulled up the surveillance footage and handed her phone to Xin Yu.

Poor Xin Yu — earlier this spring she'd specially renovated the eaves of an abandoned house, hoping a few migrating swallows would stop and stay in her territory, but not a single pair of little swallows would linger.

If Xia Qing were a swallow, she wouldn't nest in a territory with ground hawks and white-bellied sea eagles on the ground.

Xin Yu enlarged the surveillance footage, observed that the number of swallows under the eaves had doubled, and chatted casually with Xia Qing. "Yu Dongming called me about the nutrient source."

The nutrient solution, made by blending the nutrient source with X-2 spinach juice, had been named X Nutrient Solution by the Hui-Three Pharmaceutical Plant. Though the nutrient source hadn't yet hit the market, the ad for X Nutrient Solution was already finished and had been rolled out nationwide.

This ready-to-drink nutrient solution — costing under 200 points to produce, yet outperforming premium nutrient solutions priced at two or three thousand by 1.5 times — not only gave the grieving people of Hui-Three hope to keep living, but also drew attention from bases across the country and the entire Blue Star.

Representatives from bases all over Hua Country had scrambled to board planes and rush to Hui-Three Base to discuss cooperation with the Hui-Three Pharmaceutical Plant; foreign bases were also calling constantly, using broken Chinese to ask the plant's sales staff about the nutrient source.

To handle the crushing workload, the Hui-Three Pharmaceutical Plant's marketing department had to hire ten more employees.

The Hui-Two Chonglian Group, only about 900 li from Hui-Three, wanted to obtain authorization for the nutrient source so that Chonglian's pharmaceutical plant could also produce this guaranteed-profit potion.

In the Chonglian chairman's view, this was a sure thing. Because his own niece Xin Yu was a shareholder in the Hui-Three Pharmaceutical Plant, and the Hui-Three Pharmaceutical Plant's current chairman had once been a Chonglian employee.