Chapter 851: Planting Sweet Potato Vines

"Wolf Lao Er!"

Xia Qing sprinted through her seven-thousand-mu territory and finally found Wolf Lao Er hiding at the edge of the bamboo field in the northwest corner of the buffer forest.

The wolf-dog Wolf Lao Er lay flat on the ground, both ears pinned back, eyes darting away, as if it had done something it shouldn't have. Xia Qing had only ever seen that look on the leg-broken wolf when it had misbehaved.

She quickly checked Wolf Lao Er over, confirmed it hadn't been hurt by the lynx, and let out a long, relieved breath before soothing her companion's unease. "Wolf Lao Er, you and Wolf Da really are the top-of-the-pyramid companions on Blue Star. You did amazing last night! If it weren't for you two, Does Daigua would've been carried off and eaten by the red lynx for sure."

Seeing that Xia Qing was happy, Wolf Lao Er's flattened ears pricked up.

Xia Qing rubbed its head in a light, cheerful tone. "You're worried I'll scold you because Does Daigua had diarrhea in the house? No way—Wolf Lao Er did great. The runs are Does Daigua's problem, not yours. I'll go back and clean it up. We may not have a lot of other potions at home, but deodorizer we've got plenty of…"

After Xia Qing and the three wolves' great battle with the Blaze Hunting Squad last year, they had relied on the plucked weasel releasing toxic fumes to blast open a passage through the beast tide, and only then managed to return to the territory to detox.

That plucking had been a great feat, but it had also filled Xia Qing's house with stench. The various deodorizers she had traded with her idol and Yan Long for had still not been used up.

Under Xia Qing's praise, Wolf Lao Er's eyes turned clear again. It stood up and gave its tail a wag.

Person and wolf chatted as they circled up to the high slope of the north buffer forest, admired for a while the little apples on the apple trees and the little Sichuan peppercorns on the pepper trees, watched for a while the tiny buds poking out of the jujube trees, then broke off some Chinese toon leaves from the big Chinese toon tree, picked a few cucumbers and several tomatoes from the terraced fields, took a big pumpkin from the planting greenhouse, and fed the twelve trays of mealworms along the way.

Xia Qing also shoveled up over thirty mealworms to bring home and feed the chicks. In May, the hardworking hens had hatched another three clutches—twenty-eight chicks—and Xia Qing now had over ninety chickens again.

More chickens meant more feed needed. Luckily she had stored plenty of yellow-light corn, which she could grind up and mix into the feed.

Back home and seeing the intact coop and lively flock, Xia Qing once more earnestly and fervently praised Wolf Lao Er and Wolf Da, who had eaten its fill and come home together.

Wolf Da looked utterly indifferent; Wolf Lao Er was happily grinning.

Xia Qing tossed the mealworms into the coop for the chicks to scramble over, then went inside to clean up the messy Does Daigua.

After rinsing Does Daigua clean with warm water, Xia Qing made a net sling, hung it from the clothes-drying rack under the eaves to air-dry naturally, and then got to work tidying the house—disinfecting, sterilizing, and deodorizing.

Once the whole cleanup was done, Xia Qing finally started making breakfast.

For herself in the morning: tea soup, jerky, cold-tossed tomatoes, and boiled eggs. For Wolf Da: Chinese toon leaves tossed with cucumber and pumpkin. For Wolf Lao Er: yellow-light rabbit cubes stewed with pumpkin and egg. Of course, everyone's breakfast also got a few slices of Gao Yi Element green-light spinach leaves for nutrition.

Logically, Wolf Da and Wolf Lao Er could both find their own food, so Xia Qing didn't have to prepare theirs. But the two had gotten used to it—if Xia Qing didn't set out their portions, they would stand by the table staring at her with pitiful eyes while she ate, making it impossible for her to finish her meal in peace.

Once the rabbit meat was on the stove, Xia Qing took a basket and went to collect eggs, tidying the chicken shed along the way.

When she pushed open the chicken shed door and saw the basket on the floor surrounded by flies and ants, leaking egg liquid, with over a dozen broken eggs inside, she finally understood why Wolf Lao Er had been feeling guilty.

Heartache?

Of course—these were green-light breeding eggs worth 750 points each.

Still, Wolf Lao Er had meant well. Broken is broken, and it hadn't done it on purpose either; it had even shown impressive self-control by not eating the broken eggs. Besides, apart from Bai Mao's side, she had no other channel to sell these eggs. And keeping nearly a hundred chickens was plenty—Xia Qing had no plans to hatch more chicks.

Now she had more eggs than she could finish eating.

Xia Qing, who had finished cleaning up Does Daigua, began tidying the chicken shed.

She shoveled the egg liquid on the ground along with the ants into the snake box to feed the snakes; the egg liquid and eggshells in the basket, she poured into the chopped-up greens to feed the chickens; the three intact eggs she washed clean and brought inside; and the dirty basket she carried to the fish pond to rinse out.

The egg liquid had a strong fishy smell. The fry, already grown to over ten centimeters long, quickly gathered to fight over the egg liquid in the water, and a few reckless little fish even nibbled the bamboo basket with their tiny teeth.

Wolf Lao Er, who was feeding the fish nearby, caught the smell on the basket, and its ears drooped again.

Xia Qing shook the water and fish off the basket, rubbed Wolf Lao Er's head, and said, "How about I teach Wolf Lao Er to collect eggs this afternoon?"

Wolf Lao Er's ears pricked up again.

The three lords of Territory Three finished breakfast and went their separate ways. Zheng Kui and his new partner drove the patrol delivery truck, entered the northern first-district territory through the south gate, and began delivering goods.

Xia Qing handed Zheng Kui twenty green-light corn seeds and received the hundred twenty-five-centimeter-long sweet potato vines with four to five red potato leaves each that she had traded with the eastern lord. She also gave Zheng Kui three packs of green-light vegetables—one pack to trade to the hospitalized Xu Juan, one to trade to Zheng Kui, and one to trade to Li Chang of the Territory Management Department.

Over the past half year, Li Chang had kept in touch with Xia Qing, often putting in trade requests. Xia Qing agreed to her requests six or seven times out of ten—after all, the vegetables grown in Territory Three's vegetable shed could be traded to anyone for all she cared.

Zheng Kui handed Xia Qing twenty green-light cucumber seeds wrapped in yellowed old book pages. "These are autumn cucumbers—supposedly taste pretty good. Give them a try."

"Great." Xia Qing loved green-light seeds most of all. She took them and happily returned to Territory Three.

After Xia Qing walked off, the new recruit driving the truck excitedly grabbed his phone. "The lord of Territory Three is this pretty—why doesn't our base's forum have any photos of her?"

In the safe zone, everyone describes the lord of Territory Three as a cold-faced, violent, gun-toting she-gorilla!

After calling Territory Two out to collect supplies, Zheng Kui warned his new partner, "The last guy who dared to sneak a photo of the lord of Territory Three—there's not even bone dust left of him now. If you don't believe it, go search the forum for why Jiang Qin of the Chonglian Construction Team was fired, and how he died."

"You don't need to search the forum—I can tell you." Tang Huai, unusually grim-faced, walked out from Territory Two. "Jiang Qin secretly photographed the lords and territory images, violating the Lord Law. Xia Qing caught him on the spot and handed him over to the Investigation Team. After his detention ended, he went back to Hui-2 Base, was fired by Chonglian, then had his legs broken by enemies and died from an Evolution Bacteria infection."

After speaking, Tang Huai handed this clearly restless young recruit a cigarette and said earnestly, "Little brother, don't be too curious about this territory or the lords here. We're all honest, plain farming folk who just want to quietly farm the land—but that doesn't mean we're afraid of trouble."

The soldier, not yet twenty, was scared stiff. By the time the patrol truck stopped at the north gate of Territory Nine, he still hadn't recovered while Zheng Kui and Zhong Tao were chatting.

Meanwhile, Xia Qing was already planting sweet potato seedlings in the breeding greenhouse.

The breeding greenhouse had housed chickens all winter. After months of sun-drying, the residual chicken manure had fully fermented, making the soil even more fertile.

Wolf Lao Er helped her dig holes. Wolf Da, well-fed and watered, lay in the shade outside the greenhouse, chewing cud and supervising. Hanging from the steel frame inside the greenhouse was a Does Daigua on an IV drip.

The lord of Territory Three, Xia Qing, planted sweet potatoes while listening over the walkie-talkie as her allies discussed how to plant and manage sweet potato vines.

The lords in the group had also traded various new varieties of sweet potato vines among themselves, and the lord channel was full of joy. Xia Qing, who was happily fantasizing about the hundred and eight ways to cook sweet potatoes, heard that Does Daigua had diarrhea again.