Chapter 88: Zhang San's Fan

Zhang San was in a good mood, so he became generous with his trades. "You don't need to buy the premium nutrient solution. I'll give you thirty grams of additive. When your spinach grows, just juice it. Fifteen milliliters of spinach juice with one gram of the additive, and the effect will surpass the premium nutrient solution sold publicly in the safe zone."

"Thanks, Third Brother." Zhang San really is a good person. Even if he's petty and holds grudges, Xia Qing is determined to fall into the pit and become his fan.

Maybe she's ugly? Wrong. In a fan's eyes, no idol is ugly—that's called having a distinctive look!

Maybe she's bald? The idol has sacrificed so much for researching medicine to save humanity. Her head is haloed with holiness. The balder she is, the holier she is. The balder she is, the more it proves Xia Qing is following the right person!

"Do you know what the best medicine I have here is?" Zhang San cheerfully spilled his own secret. "It's Yi Solution. The Yi Solution you get from me—I won't say it's the best in all of Hua, but it's absolutely the best in Hui City Base, with the fewest side effects. Anyone else buys a small bag, it costs at least fifty thousand credits, and that's only if I'm in the mood. If you want it, forty-five thousand. How about it?"

How about it? Of course it's great. But Xia Qing, the new fan who had already traded four hundred spinach seeds with Zhang San, hadn't lost her mind yet.

She poked her head out of the fan pit. "Third Brother, I really don't have that many spinach seeds. Can I make up the difference with the instrument for making premium nutrient solution and the reagent bags for storing it?"

Xia Qing didn't even want the Yi Solution, which showed her spinach seeds really were running low. Zhang San was quite regretful. "You don't need a nutrient solution maker. I'll give you a juicer, that'll be enough. Premium nutrient solution has a very high energy content. Best not to have more than one dose a day, or it'll be bad for your body. In thirty minutes, I'll send someone to the north quarantine belt of your territory to pick up the spinach seeds. Grab me two cucumbers while you're at it. I'll add a stir-fried egg with cucumber tonight."

Premium nutrient solution is for quickly replenishing stamina at critical moments; it can't be used as a meal. New fan Xia Qing still had this much common sense. "Okay, Third Brother. The tomatoes in my field are ready to eat too. I'll send you a couple as well. You can add another cold dish."

"Good." Zhang San agreed amiably, then added, "Don't trade anything originally produced in your territory with Li Si. Your Third Brother here doesn't like the look of her."

How much Zhang San disliked Li Si was clear from the trading location.

Before, when Xia Qing traded with Zhang San, Zhang San always had people pass through the passage between Territory Nine and Territory Four, and trade under the road sign at the south end of Territory Three. Now that Li Si had moved into Territory Nine, Zhang San changed the trading spot to the north quarantine belt of Territory Three. He didn't even want to walk the passage next to Li Si's territory.

Fan Xia Qing agreed without hesitation. "Okay."

After getting the Yi Element detector, Xia Qing tested the Yi Element content of all edible flora and fauna in her territory. Only spinach exceeded the normal range.

These past few days, using the excuse that the vegetables in her territory had been damaged and there wasn't enough to eat, she had traded with Territories Four, Five, and Six for cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, and green beans—all yellow-light, of course. Testing confirmed that the Yi and Harm Element content of the yellow-light vegetables they grew was basically the same as hers.

So apart from spinach, Xia Qing could safely trade edible vegetables with other lords.

However, after months of trading, every territory already had the vegetable varieties openly traded by the others. The demand for further trading wasn't high.

So only Shi Zhong and Li Si, who had just joined the group, might propose trades.

After Luo Pei said Li Si had been in the Blaze Squad and was also skilled in cultivation techniques, Xia Qing, out of caution, had already decided not to trade anything with Li Si except yellow-light pumpkins. So agreeing to Zhang San's request was no difficulty for Xia Qing at all.

After hanging up, Xia Qing went to get the spinach seeds. Counting them one by one, Xia Qing's mood was quite wonderful. She finally understood why a Phoenix occupying a single mountain could support a squad of several hundred people.

Take the spring water and the Gao Yi Element plants cultivated with it out to trade, and casually pull in over ten thousand credits!

Not short on credits—how could she fail to raise a squad?

Xia Qing brought the spinach seeds, and passing through the hillside planting area, she picked cucumbers and tomatoes—all green-light, of course. Trading with Zhang San required green-light vegetables, and gifts could only be green-light as well.

Since entering the territory, the only time Zhang San traded yellow-light food was with Territory Two, and the traded food went bad. Territory Two was therefore blacklisted by Zhang San.

Xia Qing absolutely would not get on her idol's blacklist.

After exchanging supplies with the person Zhang San sent at the quarantine belt, Xia Qing lugged a big box home. Besides the juicer, the box contained a printed document exuding the scent of ink and a small bag of green-light spinach seeds.

The first page of the document was handwritten by Brother Dazi: "Spinach Cultivation Guide," prohibited from circulation.

The label pasted on the spinach seed bag read: Spinach seeds, Yi Element 2.5 parts per ten thousand, Harm Element four parts per thousand.

Xia Qing understood Zhang San's meaning. Giving her the cultivation guide was to let her grow spinach well; giving her a bag of ordinary green-light spinach seeds was a precaution.

As for who that precaution was for—naturally it was Li Si, whom Zhang San disliked.

Zhang San truly was a qualified idol, never making things hard for his fans. Xia Qing actively dug the fan pit deeper and lay flat.

After dinner, Xia Qing opened the guide and read it from beginning to end.

Among the many cultivation conditions in the book, the four most critical were: first, a cultivation soil with an elemental composition ratio precise to two decimal places; second, a fully automatic regulated vegetable greenhouse controlling temperature, humidity, and atmospheric molecular content; third, biogas slurry for soaking seeds and fertilizing—Xia Qing didn't even know what that thing was; fourth, an instrument that monitored soil nutrient changes in real time to ensure spinach could be supplemented with the most needed fertilizer at the most appropriate moment.

Only by strictly following the above cultivation conditions to grow spinach could the Yi Element content be slowly increased generation by generation. Moreover, any slip in the entire cultivation process would cause the Yi Element content to drop.

Let alone Xia Qing not having the cultivation conditions to increase Yi Element content—even if she had them, she wouldn't bother.

Because if she really followed this set of techniques to grow spinach, even with eighteen clones she couldn't handle it all. She'd honestly stick to using spinach seeds and trade with her idol for Yi Solution—that was more reliable.

Still, the cultivation techniques in this guide were very valuable and worth drawing lessons from.

For example, to improve the quality of green-light spinach, one must use composted green-light animal manure to supplement nitrogen fertilizer, with chicken manure being the best; second, use ash from burning green-light plant stalks free of insect eggs to supplement potassium fertilizer; third, the water for irrigation is best if it's pollution-free water, followed by distilled water.

Pollution-free spring water—she had it. Her green-light chicks were already in the hatching process. By the time the spinach seeds passed their dormancy period and began to be cultivated, she'd have green-light chicken manure. Once she harvested the crops, she'd have green-light plant ash.

Spring water was the most abundant, followed by green-light plant ash. The most lacking was green-light animal manure, because ten chicks couldn't produce much.

So Xia Qing turned her gaze to Sheep Boss, lying there chewing its cud. Although Sheep Boss had lost control violently during the first Harm Rain of the year, and its Harm Element content probably wasn't low, it still should be tested.

She hadn't tested before because testing an animal's Harm Element content required drawing blood. Sheep Boss had a bad temper. Xia Qing was afraid that if it hurt from the draw, it would wreck the place. Besides, even if the test showed Sheep Boss was edible, she couldn't bear to eat it, so there was no need.

Now, there was a need.

In the evening, Xia Qing decided to give Sheep Boss a bath and draw some blood while she was at it.

Sheep Boss had long been sweet-talked by Xia Qing into learning to turn on the shower switch itself, rinse off, and shake the water from its coat. Xia Qing only had to wait until it finished, then spray it with an odor-masking spray.

So, when Sheep Boss went to bathe today, Xia Qing said very sincerely, "Boss, let me wash you tonight, okay? Let's see if you've got parasites on you. Parasites are things like ticks, nose-fly maggots, that sort of thing."

Sheep Boss had had parasites before and had often heard Xia Qing nag about these bugs. It knew they weren't good things. It stopped, turned its head, squinted at Xia Qing, and signaled her to hurry up and wash it.