Chapter 986: Plants in Bird Valley

The terrain of Bird Valley on Mountain Forty-Five is similar to Valley One in Zone Three of Mountain Forty-Nine, where pigs are raised — steep cliffs on both sides, a winding creek below, and dense herbaceous plants along the creek bank. However, the cliffs here are even steeper than those of Mountain Forty-Nine, so vegetation on the cliff walls is sparse. On the cliff beneath Xia Qing's area, only six trees over thirty meters tall grow, with countless birds nesting in them; beneath the trees are sparse grass, a few vines, and shrubs.

Based on Xia Qing's experience, the dense vegetation and shrubs at the foot of the mountain were fraught with danger, and descending from her current hiding spot was the shortest and safest route to pick the soybeans.

How does one get down a nearly vertical stone wall? Naturally… by tumbling down.

Xia Qing first stealthily found a loose boulder, pried it loose with a crowbar, then gathered sturdy tree vines, braided them together with Dengshan rope into a vine rope over forty meters long, and firmly secured it in a crack in the mountain, making it look as though the vine had grown out of the crack.

Having communicated the battle plan with Handsome Giant Wolf, Xia Qing hid inside the green turtle shell, lowered her voice, and called Handsome Giant Wolf through the walkie-talkie: "Brother Giant Wolf, after last night's bath, do you feel like you've got boundless energy all over? Come over and try — can you kick this boulder down?"

After being pestered by Xia Qing several times, Handsome Giant Wolf, carrying a backpack, charged out of the Evolution Forest, stomped hard on the loose boulder at the top of the cliff, and leaped more than ten meters away.

The giant boulder, already teetering from Xia Qing's prying, plummeted with thunderous booming, dust flying in all directions, birds scattering, and feathers tumbling down.

A clump of "shrubs" growing beside the boulder also fell along with the cascading rocks. Once the vines wrapped around the shrubs pulled taut, the shrub clump broke free from the vines, ran forward more than ten meters, and squatted beside the soybean seedlings.

Amid the chaos, this pile of shrubs that defied gravity and inertia indeed drew no attention from the flock of birds.

Xia Qing inside the shrub clump pressed the walkie-talkie button, lowered her voice, and reported to her companion: "Brother Giant Wolf, excellent work — you must be the strongest wolf in the whole pack! I've successfully reached the target position. Find a spot to sun yourself first; I'll come find you once I've finished picking the beans."

Handsome Giant Wolf gave a hard shake but couldn't fling off the backpack with the walkie-talkie attached. Irritated, it raised its head: "Aoo—woo—woo—aoo—woo—"

Though she couldn't understand Handsome Giant Wolf's meaning, Xia Qing understood its irritation — the wolf was very displeased that she was wasting its time.

The lead wolf knew it was coming out with her to gather plant seeds, so logically it shouldn't have been assigned any task. It had eaten its fill — what else could it possibly have to do?

Xia Qing said nothing more, her full attention on the soybeans.

Perched high on the cliff wall on the other side of Bird Valley, Broken-Waist Wolf figured out what Xia Qing was up to. Halfway through a yawn, it suddenly bristled and sprang aside, looking at Handsome Giant Wolf running over with a pack on its back.

Chirping and chattering inside the valley, Xia Qing crouched inside the protective shrub shell. She watched a dung beetle — head down, pushing a ball of dung with two thick hind legs covered in fine bristles — walk away, then carefully edged forward one step, finally reaching the soybean seedlings.

But that small step forward made Xia Qing sense danger. Enduring the familiar prickling headache, she carefully observed the plants ahead.

Wild green-light plants all have some temper to them, and Xia Qing was well prepared. But this prickling magnetic field belonged exclusively to aggressive Qiang-evolved plants. Taking one step forward produced such a clear magnetic fluctuation, meaning there was a highly aggressive Qiang-evolved plant ahead.

Xia Qing still couldn't tell whether the Qiang-evolved one was the soybean, a weed, or a vine. After confirming there was no toxin in the air, she began carefully examining the soybean seedling in front of her, whose leaves had been nibbled by insects. Confirming it wasn't the source of the magnetic field, she carefully extended her scissors, snipped off a leaf, squeezed out the juice, and dripped it into the Qiang-element detector.

When the green light and the reading of 3.1‰ lit up, the eyes behind Xia Qing's protective mask lit up at the same time.

Regardless of the other seedlings, at least this one in front of her was a premium green-light soybean — and non-aggressive!

Too bad about the two pods that had already burst open at the top of the seedling; she should have come a few days earlier.

Xia Qing took out a thickened small-sized packaging bag, ready to collect the soybeans.

Why a thickened bag? Because the yellowing soybean pods were covered in a dense layer of sharp thorns, and a thin bag might get pierced through.

Just as Xia Qing was about to reach for the pods, she heard a large bird flapping its wings as it flew over and landed on her shrub shell.

Xia Qing didn't dare move a muscle, holding her breath and silently hoping this wasn't a brain-domain-evolved bird.

The long-legged bird that had landed on the shrub shell didn't notice anything off about the clump of shrubs. After preening its feathers a few times, it actually began flapping its wings and calling to court a mate. Xia Qing, crouching inside the shrubs, waited motionless for over twenty minutes. Finally, the hungry bird began pecking at the soybeans right in front of her!

Its beak, over twenty centimeters long, pecked open the thorny pod and swallowed three golden beans. Watching it extend its beak toward the second pod, Xia Qing raised her scissors and gently pricked one of its golden toes.

These were premium green-light soybean seeds — every one it swallowed was one less!

"Gah—"

The startled bird flapped its wings and flew off. Xia Qing, who had just breathed a sigh of relief and was about to pick the soybeans, suddenly saw a large bird with entirely black feathers land on a tree branch ten meters away, tilting its head and fixing a pair of wise bird-eyes on — her shrub shell.

Damn! A brain-domain-evolved bird!

Having sprayed odor-isolating spray, Xia Qing hiding inside the dense shrub clump immediately emptied her mind, pretending to be a blade of grass, looking down at the moist soil mixed with gravel.

One minute, two minutes… five minutes… ten minutes…

"Boom—rumble—"

Just as the bird was about to spread its wings and fly over, thunder sounded from the west.

Rain was coming — Xia Qing breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how powerful a bird, its combat effectiveness drops sharply in the rain, and it will hurry to find shelter.

Sure enough, seconds before bean-sized raindrops came crashing down, the bird on the branch ahead spread its wings and flew back to its nest. After confirming safety, Xia Qing used the cover of rain and mist to quickly harvest the pods from this green-light soybean plant in front of her.

Then she moved to the second soybean seedling. Without testing the Qiang-element content, she began quickly harvesting the pods from the second seedling.

By the time Xia Qing reached the fifth plant, the rain had intensified, the creek's water level had risen, and the water reached her feet.

An unnamed red root tendril wrapped around her foot. Her magnetic sense told her very clearly: this was the root system of the aggressive Qiang-evolved plant among the soybeans.