Chapter 922: I'm Not Your Auntie

When it was thrown out, Does Daigua the monkey had been wearing clean, sweet-smelling green underpants; when it came back, it was stark naked and filthy, with eye crust and snot clinging to its face, and several large welts from insect bites or skin broken by thorns. It clung tightly to Wolf Lao Er's neck with its arms, staring at Xia Qing with a lost, terrified look.

Xia Qing, shovel in hand, stared silently at Wolf Lao Er.

The Boss, already sick of potato leaves, narrowed its eyes and glared unhappily at the Does Daigua monkey that had upset its little brother.

Wolf Lao Er walked over to Xia Qing and nuzzled her shoulder with its big head. The Does Daigua monkey carefully raised one little black paw, wanting to climb onto Xia Qing.

Xia Qing rubbed Wolf Lao Er's head before lifting the Does Daigua monkey off its back. She stared fiercely at its dumb face and said slowly, "Since Lao Er is pleading for you, I'll give you one last chance."

"Auntie—"

The Does Daigua monkey, held up by Xia Qing, opened its mouth and made a new sound, apparently begging her not to throw it out again—unfortunately, this only made Xia Qing furious.

"Straighten your tongue before you speak! I'm not your auntie! Watch!"

Xia Qing squatted the Does Daigua monkey beside the basket and taught it how to pick potatoes from the root and drop them in. "This job is yours!"

Trainee worker #002, Does Daigua, learned after watching Xia Qing dig up a few potatoes. It pinned the potato vine down with its muddy feet, hugged the big potato with both filthy little black paws, yanked it off, placed it in the basket beside it, then gazed at Xia Qing with eager, hopeful eyes.

"Right, just like that." Xia Qing gave it one final warning. "No sneaking bites, or I'll have the Boss throw you out immediately!"

"Baa!" The Boss, leaves still dangling from its mouth, answered at once—this was a job it liked.

Xia Qing dug potatoes, Does Daigua picked them, Wolf Lao Er carried the potato vines out, and Boss the sheep kept an eye on the trainee. The potato harvest in Territory #3 sped up.

Employee #001, Little Feimao, hopped around the field, digging out bugs from the loosened soil. Potatoes weren't its food—bugs were.

The Does Daigua monkey worked much faster than it had when it was thrown out. Once all four baskets were full, Xia Qing and Boss the sheep hauled the potatoes home, weighed them, and spread them out to dry under the shade rack already set up in the yard. Then, baskets in hand, they went back to keep harvesting. That's when they found the Does Daigua monkey standing there holding a potato vine, spacing out.

Xia Qing went over for a look and understood.

The potato vine it was holding had grown a string of fruits that looked just like little tomatoes.

Potatoes aren't fruits—they're tuberous stems that grow from the roots. The potato fruit grows after the potato plant flowers.

Potato fruit contains large amounts of the toxic substance solanine, tastes both numbing and astringent, and can neither be eaten nor used as seed. It can only be thrown away or composted.

Before coming to the territory to farm, Xia Qing hadn't known potatoes could grow fruit. So last year in April or May, when the potatoes flowered and fruited, her expression seeing those little fruits had been exactly the same as Does Daigua's.

After asking Qi Fu, she learned the fruit was useless, so she had picked them all off. This year she'd done the same, but the fruit on the vine Does Daigua was holding had grown in a hidden spot, so it had escaped Xia Qing's "evil hands."

Xia Qing pretended not to see Does Daigua's dumb look and kept digging potatoes.

The Does Daigua monkey thought about the unusual potato vine for a while, then used its little black paw to pick the green little fruits off and drop them into the basket, and went back to work.

After harvesting all the potatoes, Xia Qing tallied the yield.

The two high-Yi-element terraced fields yielded a total of 3,100 jin of potatoes. Once the small amount of clinging soil dried and fell off, there'd be at least 3,000 jin, working out to nearly 20,000 jin per mu.

Such a high yield wasn't only because the evolved potatoes were taller than pre-catastrophe plants and produced more tubers—it was also because the soil and fertilizer on the Gao Po terraces were excellent, and Xia Qing had used Yi Stones to protect the terraces during the Harmful Rain period.

If the cost of the Yi Stones was factored in, it was a loss.

In Greenhouse #6, which had no high-Yi-element soil or Use Yishi protection, the harvest was 2,500 jin, working out to ___ jin per mu.

This yield matched the figures given in the agricultural knowledge broadcast, making it the truly valuable data point.

It was precisely because potatoes' per-mu yield was so astonishing that the Territory Management Department had issued potatoes to Lords even though they knew potatoes didn't meet the promotion planting standards.

Compared to the Lords' safety, they cared more about crop yields.

Things were different now. With Class-B Magnetic Sense Evolvers around, the probability of potato plants undergoing aggressive harmful evolution had dropped sharply, so they could be promoted for planting again.

If planting succeeded, by next summer ordinary civilians in the Safe Zone, who currently filled their bellies with grass-based rations, could exchange earned points for a few jin of cheap Yellow-Lantern potatoes to eat.

After finishing the oil sunflower planting, Xia Qing loaded the harvested potatoes into the micro-cultivator's bucket and delivered them to the Ninth Planting Center's cafeteria.

The Ninth Planting Center currently had 402 people, of whom 320 were formal employees and 82 were family members.

The reason family-member numbers were so low was that the family members of veterans who met employment conditions had also been hired into the Ninth Center. For example, Geng Min's family of four, who entered the territory yesterday—her mother-in-law stayed home to watch the kids, while her father Geng Xu joined the Warehouse Department.

Of the 82 family members, 45 were children under 15 attending school, and 37 were adult family members who didn't meet employment conditions. These children and family members, after paying the required points, could also eat in the cafeteria.

Currently, the vegetables eaten at the Ninth Center were traded from the Lords, and the staple food was still mainly rations.

Warehouse Department Head Zhong Tao, seeing the cartload of potatoes Xia Qing had brought over, was practically drooling. "Director, this cart of potatoes will feed us for two months!"

The Warehouse Department staff were all grinning—potatoes were great, filling and tasty. In the crunch, you could always count on their Director—she really delivered!

Standing in the crowd, Geng Xu hadn't seen this much food in eleven years. He barely held himself back from rushing over, grabbing a potato, and shoving it straight into his mouth.

The Ninth Center was strictly managed. If he did that, he'd be fired and kicked out, and his daughter and granddaughter would suffer too.

Xia Qing nodded. "Brother Tao, weigh the potatoes and put them in storage. Calculate the payment at market price and put it on the account for now."

The Planting Management Department hadn't transferred the Ninth Center's full operating points yet, so the Center was currently running at a deficit. Not just this batch of potatoes—even the vegetables the cafeteria traded from Territory #15 were on credit.

But this situation wouldn't last long. In another month, the vegetables the Center grew would meet employees' needs; in another four months, employees' staple food would no longer be mainly rations.

It was precisely because of this visible, bright future that the Ninth Center's employees worked with such enthusiasm under such harsh conditions.

When Xia Qing arrived at the office, the people she'd asked Yan Yue to notify for the meeting had already assembled.

Xia Qing brought up the first agenda item. "The Green Dragon Squad's Third Boss Luo Pei sent word that the fighting between sea beasts and raptors over in Guiwu is getting fiercer and may trigger a Bird Tide. Brother Yue will serve as commander for the Bird Tide response, Guo Chongjun as deputy commander—we'll defend with everything we have. If the Bird Tide invades Northern Zone One, I'll hold the northwest corner of Territory #9 and be responsible for sniping large raptors overhead."

The northwest corner of the Ninth Center is the southeast corner of Territory #3. Top sniper Xia Qing standing at this position can cover both Territory #3 and Territory #9 within her effective range.

"Yes, mission guaranteed!" Security Division Head Guo Chongjun stood up and answered loudly.

He was a dual-system evolver—Level Five Hearing and Level Four Vision. After being poisoned and discharged, he'd been surviving in the Safe Zone on ordinary antidotes. After the Ninth Center was established, Yue Haiying brought him before Xia Qing.

Xia Qing took Guo Chongjun's blood sample into Territory #7 and asked her idol to formulate a targeted, specialized medicine for him.

So Xia Qing wasn't just Guo Chongjun's leader—she was also his life-saver and creditor.

After Yue Haiying and Guo Chongjun left, Xia Qing began discussing potato planting with Yan Yue and Mao Chuntai.