Chapter 860: Alliance Research Institute

At half past three in the morning, the remnant ice on the ground melted, the dark clouds in the sky dispersed, and the temperature rose rapidly. The starry sky seemed like grains of harvest that hadn't been gathered in time, knocked down by gale and hail, now hung high in the sky beyond the lords' reach.

In the territories of Northern District One and District Three, some people wept, some cursed, some wailed for help, some rescued the wounded, some rushed to harvest grain, and even more stood dumb in the heavy, suffocating night, as if dead, motionless.

"Ah————"

The person standing dumb suddenly roared, waving the farm tool in his hand, wantonly venting the despair and anger accumulated over eleven years.

Liangzi, the auditory evolver harvesting wheat in Territory Three, straightened his back and looked east. "Someone in Territory Four has lost control."

Losing control means the person's body has an over-standard content of the Calamity element, the brain has been eroded by the Calamity element, and irreversible damage has occurred; even if saved, there will be sequelae. Therefore, for the vast majority of people, losing control means death.

"Dying after losing control still lets you vent a bit; better than dying all pent up." Ding Yongwei muttered a sentence, then continued using the sickle to cut the wheat ears at the top of the wheat plants lying flat on the ground.

Many wheat ears had been smashed to pieces by the hail. Ding Yongwei felt sick just looking at them, and wanted to roar a few times too.

Xia Qing's tinnitus symptoms were much milder, so she clearly heard the desperate roars coming from Territory Four, but she didn't even lift her head, because the one roaring wasn't Zhao's mother or Zhao Ze.

Under the illumination of the overhead lamp, Xia Qing quickly harvested wheat ears.

Harvest one minute earlier, and the wheat grains would be eroded by the Calamity rain one minute less, and the quality could be a bit higher.

"Captain Tan, someone in Territory Four has lost control, has been restrained, requesting support." Zhao Ze's voice was hoarse as he reported the emergency.

"Arriving within ten minutes." Tan Junjie's still calm and stern voice lifted the spirits of the lords who had been battling the natural disaster for five and a half hours.

The X-2 in the fields had already been harvested, and without X nutrient solution to replenish energy, the lords were all exhausted.

More people, more work done.

The eleven people in Territory Three took less than half an hour to finish harvesting the one mu of Yellow-Lamp wheat that had been hit by hail.

After seeing off the Beard Feng squad and Huo Zhun who had come to help, Xia Qing used a micro-tiller to pull a cartload of wheat ears home, then threw bundles of wheat ears onto the roof of the rack building and covered them with drying nets.

The yard was overgrown with Calamity grass, with no place at all to dry the wheat ears.

Then, Xia Qing went downstairs, pulled away the wooden boards covering the windows, then opened the windows for ventilation.

After this sudden natural disaster, the lords cried about their farmland losses on the channel, but no one mentioned houses, because apart from the unlucky ones hit by falling trees, the houses in each territory had basically not suffered major damage.

Living in the years of natural disasters, everyone had long been used to being prepared to deal with extreme weather at any time. Outside the windows of their dwellings, there were wooden or tin shutters; when extreme weather struck, quickly putting up the shutters could keep the gale and hail outside the window.

Xia Qing's house of course had shutters too, but the disaster struck suddenly, and she was busy rescuing the greenhouses, so she didn't put up the window shutters in time, which is why the room was blown into a mess by the gale, and two windows were deformed with shattered glass.

But these weren't major issues. No people or beasts were hurt in Territory Three, which already made Xia Qing very content.

In this natural disaster, Xia Qing deeply recognized the shortcoming of her territory—insufficient manpower.

But the actual situation of Territory Three was right here; increasing the permanent population was impossible. Therefore, there were only two options before Xia Qing:

One was to build standardized greenhouses; the other was to improve the current method of laying rain-proof cloth on the existing greenhouses, to achieve automation as much as possible.

A standardized greenhouse with an internal volume of 1.5 mu costs over 350,000 in construction and materials, and after completion, it still needs three to five thousand credits per month to maintain normal operation. The high construction and operating costs meant that even the base planting center only dared to build a few standardized greenhouses for crop seedling cultivation, let alone individual territories.

Besides the high cost, building standardized greenhouses within a territory was too eye-catching, which didn't fit Xia Qing's pursuit of keeping a low profile and living happy days.

Therefore, she chose the second.

Xia Qing pressed the walkie-talkie button, breaking the alliance members' low spirits. "Uncle Huo, are you there?"

"Here." Lord Huo Lei immediately came online, and the alliance members all stopped what they were doing, standing in the dark night and listening carefully.

After the just-completed natural disaster rescue, Xia Qing's prestige in the alliance rose again. The alliance members knew Xia Qing never spoke nonsense; if she came online, she must have something important.

"Uncle Huo, is there a way to make the greenhouse rain-proof cloth work like the greenhouse thermal insulation curtain, achieving mechanized rolling up and down?"

If this problem could be solved, when dealing with sudden extreme winds, hail, and other extreme natural disasters, even if there was only one person in the territory, Xia Qing wouldn't be in a frantic rush.

Lord Huo Lei didn't only know how to forge iron; he also researched, developed, and manufactured all kinds of protective gear. Protective gear for the human body was far more complex than equipment for rolling up and down greenhouse rain-proof cloth.

Hearing Xia Qing and Lord Huo Lei discuss this matter, the lords who had just been immersed in grief immediately perked up.

"I was just considering this too." Lord Huo Lei answered in a muffled voice. "The rain-proof cloth isn't as heavy as the greenhouse thermal insulation curtain; it has to be pressed down with film-pressing lines, so achieving automatic rolling up and down is rather difficult. But if we only achieve rapid lowering, the design difficulty isn't that great; it's mainly a matter of materials and cost."

Shi Zhong, whose territory also lacked labor, also pressed his button. "Brother Huo, can we use pulleys?"

Lord Huo Lei answered, "Pulleys are one method."

Jiang Ying, who was following Tan Qi, also joined the discussion. "I think we can use local materials, using high-hardness beast bones, wood, and stone blocks to replace steel; this way the cost can drop a lot."

Tang Huai reminded, "It's best not to use beast bones; it's very easy to attract retaliation from fierce beasts."

Everyone discussed enthusiastically. Over ten minutes later, a research group composed of Lord Huo Lei, Shi Zhong, and Jiang Ying was established. The three were very confident they could ensure the equipment for automatic rapid lowering of rain-proof cloth would be built before the third Calamity rain.

Thus, the leader of the territory alliance, Xia Qing, posted a notice in the alliance group: first allocate 1500 credits of research funding to the research group; if it's not enough, more will be added. After the research succeeds, rewards of 500-1500 credits will be given to the group according to contribution.

Everyone quickly replied with a string of agreements in the group. The rapid rolling up and down of rain-proof cloth was an urgent problem every territory needed to solve. These costs would be shared equally among the territories.

The research group established in this early morning after a terrible natural disaster was the embryonic form of the later-famous-in-the-whole Hui City Hui Three Territory Alliance Research Institute.

After solving the major problem, the lords swept away their slump and worked with full energy to clean up the greenhouses damaged by hail and the destroyed crops.

Xia Qing, who had briefly tidied up her house, entered Gao Po's Greenhouse One, opened the protective film, and picked spinach seeds.

The gale just now, before Xia Qing had time to lower the greenhouse rain-proof cloth, had violently slapped the protective film of the Gao Ang-element Green-Lamp spinach in Greenhouse One a few times, triggering a big explosion of the spinach that was already at maturity.

The spinach seeds were fine, but the stems and leaves that had been beaten into a sieve needed to be packed up as soon as possible, otherwise once the temperature rose, they would quickly spoil.

Because every prickly spinach seed picked up meant at least 100 credits coming in; every jin of spinach stems and leaves collected meant 280 credits coming in. This work was really invigorating!

While Xia Qing happily harvested spinach, the freeloading red squirrel, with its two children, shuttled between the tree hollow and Greenhouse Twelve, picking up wheat seeds knocked to the ground by hail.

With no humans blocking it, no rodents competing with it, and no natural enemies discovering this place, the freeloader was so excited its eyes were about to shoot sparks.

Kids, hurry! Carry every single seed that fell from the plants back to the tree hollow!

Sheep Boss, lying beside Xia Qing and chewing cud, heard the movement and its ears twitched.

Wolf Lao Er, patrolling the territory, came to the side of Greenhouse Twelve and bared its pale fangs at the red squirrel whose cheeks were stuffed full of wheat seeds.