Chapter 988: Corn Blown Down by the Gale

Broken-Waist Wolf yawned and closed its eyes. Xia Qing kept repeating the motions of testing the bean seedlings and snipping the pods. Twenty minutes later the rain stopped, the big black bird on the tree spread its wings and flew back to Bird Valley, and Broken-Waist Wolf in the cave twitched its ears and went on sleeping.

Forty minutes later, Xia Qing finished testing the soybeans harvested from the valley: 26 green-light, 22 yellow-light, 3 red-light.

This harvest is really, really delightful!

The green-light soybeans all need to be saved as seed, so that next summer she can harvest over half a mu of green-light soybeans; half of the yellow-light soybeans will be traded to her idol, and half she'll keep for herself to eat—her idol is now taking anti-allergy medicine, so maybe he can eat some yellow-light food too; red-light food can't be eaten by people, but she can bring it back to feed the chickens.

Green-light soybean seedlings are Boss's favorite food, so she needs to bring those back too; if she runs into a rabbit or something later, she should catch one to bring along as a gift for Old Four, who worked so hard catching bugs. Old Four has a pretty bad temper—if she doesn't bring it a gift, Xia Qing's afraid it'll catch one from the territory to reward itself.

Xia Qing packed today's harvest into separate bags, and as she started loading her pack, she kept feeling something was off. She stared at the backpack for a few seconds before she realized what was missing, immediately opened the side pocket, and pulled out the beast-hide bag holding the scorpions—only to find that the scorpions she'd caught this morning had all been squashed into scorpion pancakes!

No wonder not a single scorpion has been making clicking sounds this whole time!

Xia Qing set the beast-hide bag aside and opened her backpack to check the valuable supplies she was carrying.

The small medicine case and sample case were both shockproof, and the medicines and test tubes inside were intact; the freeze-dried items packed in bags had all turned to crumbs, and the four green-light eggs she'd stuffed into EPS foam, meant for trading with the Plucker family, were all smashed. Luckily she was in the habit of packing each kind of supply in its own bag, otherwise the egg liquid would have leaked everywhere. Thank goodness she always carried her weapons on her person—otherwise, with an impact like that, even grenades would have gone off.

Xia Qing asked Broken-Waist Wolf indignantly, "Hey Broken-Waist, did Handsome Giant Wolf carry my backpack off to fight?"

Broken-Waist Wolf bared its teeth, showing little fang tips.

……

She hadn't expected it really had been a fight—no wonder the strap was broken. Xia Qing opened the bag holding the eggs, took out the foam, and held it out to Broken-Waist Wolf. "You eat the eggs—they're all green-light, don't let them go to waste."

Broken-Waist Wolf sniffed, then started eating.

Xia Qing took out needle and thread, beast hide, and glue, and while mending the strap she asked, "Who did Handsome Giant Wolf fight? Surely not you?"

"It really was you, huh? Broken-Waist, did you win? …Lose?"

"…Neither won nor lost, just a tie?"

By all rights that shouldn't be the case—Handsome Giant Wolf is big, strong, and fierce, its combat power should be above Broken-Waist Wolf's. Xia Qing thought for a moment, then asked, "You jumped up into a tree, and Handsome Giant Wolf couldn't reach you, so Handsome Giant Wolf got angry?"

Broken-Waist Wolf grinned, showing four little fang tips, smiling very happily.

Xia Qing……

"Broken-Waist, you're really clever. Handsome Giant Wolf got angry because you provoked it, and bit through my strap worth 500 points; smashed my four eggs—since we're old friends, I'll charge you less, 100 points each; the 36 scorpions in this bag are all dead and worthless now, worth 1440 points. So my total losses come to 2340 points. My losses should be compensated by you and Handsome Giant Wolf."

Broken-Waist Wolf closed its mouth, looking dead serious.

"Don't want to pay?" Xia Qing finished mending the strap, her smile radiant. "If you don't want to pay me in yi-stone, pecans, or herbs, then you'll have to escort me home. It's rained, the Evolution Forest is very dangerous, I can't make it back alone."

"If you escort me home, I can let you play with the microscope together, how about it?"

Broken-Waist Wolf thought seriously for a while, then finally, somewhat reluctantly, showed its little fang tips.

Xia Qing, who had set out at five-thirty in the morning to team up with Handsome Giant Wolf to pick soybeans, after the rain stopped teamed up with Broken-Waist Wolf to trek on foot through the muddy Evolution Forest, and only entered her own territory at nearly noon.

Mountain Area 49 had also gotten rain, and a gust of wind had blown over the just-irrigated corn in Territory Four. Xia Qing and Sheep Boss had also watered the cornfield the day before yesterday—fortunately she'd replaced the sturdy red-leaf bamboo greenhouse frame, and fortunately the Hu Zi Feng Squad watching her territory for her had been reliable, putting down the greenhouse's rainproof cloth in time, so the corn in her field wasn't blown over.

The corn has now jointed and is about to tassel—if it's forcibly propped up after lodging, it may cause the base to snap, doing even greater damage to the corn plants. So they can only wait until the field dries a bit, then hill up soil around the plants to prevent a second lodging.

Even if the second hilling succeeds, the corn yield will still drop, which is why Zhao Ze kept complaining in the lord channel that the damn heavens won't leave humans a way to survive.

Listening to Zhao Ze complain, Xia Qing felt the points she'd spent hiring the Hu Zi Feng Squad to guard her territory were really well spent. Once her field crops lodge, the losses would be far greater than Territory Four's. Because out of her fifteen greenhouses, aside from half a greenhouse of yellow-light corn, the rest are all green-light crops.

When Xia Qing got home, she first rinsed the bean seedlings that had been soaked by rainwater with clean water, and told Boss to sun-dry them before eating. The bean seedlings are green-light, but a very formidable aggressive plant grows in Bird Valley, so washing them clean before eating is the safer bet.

Then Xia Qing took a green-light snake out of her pack and gave it to Old Four as a reward for feeding the fish and chickens till they were full. "I originally wanted to catch a rabbit for you, but the mountains are high and the forests are dense—rabbits run too fast, I couldn't catch one."

The old wolf didn't take the snake from Xia Qing's hand, but stared at the strong studly male walking into the house with two wild rabbits in its mouth.

Xia Qing explained, "Broken-Waist Wolf is faster than me, so it can catch rabbits. Those two rabbits were caught by itself—once they're roasted, it'll bring them back for Her Majesty and Little Wolf Brother and Little Wolf Sister to eat."

"I'll roast this snake together with the rabbit, and once it picks up the rabbit flavor, I'll give it to Old Four to eat." After Xia Qing finished explaining, she went inside, showered, and while preparing the rabbit and snake, heard a "beep" from the north gate.

She glanced over and saw Old Four had left the territory—probably off to catch bugs in Mountain Area 49, Zone Three.

After cleaning the rabbit and snake and putting them in the oven, Xia Qing called out to Boss, who was eating soybean leaves, before taking Broken-Waist Wolf up to the second-floor lab to use the microscope to examine the creek water, bugs, leaves, small stones, and other samples Broken-Waist Wolf was interested in that they'd brought back along the way.

Xia Qing had cleared out the room south of the one she slept in, rewired it, brushed on insect-proof and moisture-proof putty powder, then moved the portable CT scanner, yi-element detector, microscope, and bookshelf in, and at Broken-Waist Wolf's request, moved its storage rack, laptop, and power-generating bicycle in as well, taking up an entire wall.

So this lab is shared by Xia Qing and Broken-Waist Wolf.

After the rabbit and snake were roasted, Broken-Waist Wolf stopped staring at the various bugs under the microscope, and carrying the packed-up rabbit, headed back to Mountain Area 55.

After seeing Broken-Waist Wolf off, Xia Qing was standing at the north gate of Territory Three cheering Sheep Boss on when she saw the old wolf come back carrying two fat rabbits in its mouth!

Flat-Top caught the fragrance of rabbit blood and immediately shifted targets, wobbling its head as it charged toward the old wolf carrying the rabbits.