Chapter 99: Time to Pick Out Kittens

In mid-February, when Xia Qing left the Safe Zone from her territory, she picked up six jin of mung beans from the Mission Hall. Because of the low germination rate and losses from Calamity Rain and other causes, she now has 4,250 edible mung bean plants left, and the vast majority are Yellow-Lamp quality, with only twenty-seven Green-Lamp plants.

The first batch of mung bean pods has finally ripened — it's time to enjoy the fruits of labor. Not only does Zhang San want to eat mung bean paste, Xia Qing does too.

Xia Qing grabbed a big handful of Yellow-Lamp mung beans and boiled them. Once the soup changed color, she ladled out half and set it aside for Sheep Bro to cool, then added rock sugar to the pot, turned the heat down to a simmer, and kept stirring with a spoon until the mung beans broke down into a sandy paste.

After gaining her territory, Xia Qing's quality of life went up a notch compared to when she was in the Safe Zone; after gaining over ten thousand mu of private training grounds, her life went up another notch.

Although every time she went to the training grounds she would end up with some injuries or other, and bruises on her body never faded, every time she came out carrying hunting supplies.

Edible prey was kept; inedible prey was traded with Zhong Tao or the Azure Dragon Squad for supplies to improve life.

Rock sugar, clay pots, and the new smokeless stove were all things Xia Qing had recently traded hunting supplies for.

Next month, her quality of life would go up another notch. Because next month, she would be able to eat flour ground from her own wheat!

"Bro, come taste the fruits of labor." After the mung bean paste and mung bean soup had cooled, Xia Qing called Sheep Bro over to drink the soup.

"Baa～～"

When it came to food, Sheep Bro was always eager, replying in a bleating voice as he trotted over.

The mung bean soup tasted good, and Sheep Bro liked it very much; the mung bean paste was sweet to the bone, and Xia Qing liked it very much.

While tasting the fruits of labor, Xia Qing thanked Sheep Bro. "These are the fruits from the mung bean seedlings Bro tread the waterwheel to irrigate every day. Thanks to Bro, I get to eat such delicious mung bean paste."

Sheep Bro, drinking the soup, was thoroughly pleased, his eyes narrowing into slits.

Such delicious food should, of course, be eaten often.

Li Si's Guide introduced that after evolving, mung beans gained improved cold resistance, growing normally between 10 and 35 degrees, with a growth cycle of about 95 days. The temperature at Hui Three Base only dropped below 10 degrees at the end of October, so she could easily plant another crop.

She had over two thousand mu of cultivated land, and planting mung beans wasn't troublesome — she could plant as many as she wanted.

Xia Qing had carefully counted: each mung bean seedling in the field now had 3 to 9 pod-bearing stalks, each stalk had 1 to 5 pods, and each pod had 6 to 14 mung beans. This was the result she had achieved following the guidance of the Complete Planting Guide, the broadcasts, and Qi Fu.

Li Si's Guide said that, following her cultivation techniques, each evolved mung bean plant could bear at least 30 pods, with at least 10 beans per pod.

Even if she couldn't fully meet the cultivation and management techniques required by the Guide, she could achieve most of them, so a yield increase for the second crop of mung beans was a certainty.

For Xia Qing, this temptation was too great.

If she planted all the beans from the twenty-seven Green-Lamp mung bean seedlings into the terraced fields on the hillside planting zone, in three months she would not only achieve mung bean paste freedom, but could also supply her idol with mung bean paste.

One standard shed of Yellow-Lamp mung beans would be enough for replanting. The fields really shouldn't be left empty, but she shouldn't tie herself down to the fields just to keep them from being empty. Training to improve her abilities was more important than growing more food, because she didn't have enough ability to protect her territory — no matter how much food she grew, she'd just be growing it for others or animals.

After Xia Qing finished the mung bean paste, she went to select the field for planting mung beans.

The Guide said you shouldn't plant mung beans in the same field right after pulling up the previous crop. This practice was called continuous cropping, also called replanting in the same field; continuous cropping increased the risk of fungal disease in plants and reduced yield, so a new plot had to be chosen.

Planting mung beans required choosing sandy soil with relatively high terrain and a soil layer no less than thirty centimeters thick.

Xia Qing was no longer a farming novice; she knew that most of the soil in her territory was sandy loam, followed by sandy soil. Sandy loam had good fertility, which was why her crops all grew well.

Xia Qing chose an empty plot south of the reservoir, not far from the sweet potato and potato fields. Keeping crops planted close together made it easier to tend, irrigate, and drive away insects.

After selecting the field, Xia Qing immediately began weeding and leveling the plot.

Only after farming did Xia Qing deeply appreciate how tenacious wild grass was. Wild grass seeds had high yield and survival rates, and they didn't rely on humans to sow them — with the help of wind, water, or animals, they could spread their seeds anywhere. Given just a little soil and a little moisture, they would take root and sprout.

After the second Calamity Rain, she had already cleared, tilled, and burned this plot once to destroy grass roots and seeds. In just half a month's work, a new layer of grass had grown in the field again.

Xia Qing had no time to test the Calamity element content of the grass, so she pulled it all out, tossed it aside to dry in the sun, then burned it into plant ash for fertilizer.

After reading Li Si's Guide, Xia Qing learned that among the elements crops need for growth, plant ash contained the most potassium, followed by phosphorus, calcium, and others. The composition of plant ash varied depending on what type of plant was burned.

Planting evolved mung beans required decomposed animal manure, plant ash, and kang-clay soil — the total fertilizer application per mu actually reached as much as two thousand jin!

The fertilizers Xia Qing currently had to choose from were only plant ash, worm castings, and crab shell fertilizer, and the combined total of all three didn't even reach two thousand jin.

Only after farming did Xia Qing realize how important fertilizer was; she tried every way she could to produce organic fertilizer.

Sheep Bro's manure, fermented, served as manure for Green-Lamp plants; grass, dried in the sun, was burned into plant ash; grass from the sheds without insect eggs was mixed with fungal starter and fermented into leaf-mold fertilizer.

Xia Qing deeply regretted not trading a few more bags of fungal powder with Li Si before shrewd Xiao Liu came online at Plot Nine. Because after shrewd Xiao Liu came online, the prices for trading supplies with Plot Nine had multiplied several times over.

It had been over ten days since the cotton was top-dressed with crab shell fertilizer. Although no obvious change could be seen, the cotton plants hadn't yellowed or burned, so Xia Qing placed another order for two thousand jin with Zhong Tao.

The evolved Bai Mao chicken-dropping ferns had nearly been plucked bald by her, so for this trade Xia Qing used the soon-to-ripen Yellow-Lamp mung beans. Besides the crab shell fertilizer, Xia Qing also completed a third worm-casting trade with Sun Zhe, to be used for sowing corn, rice, and various vegetables.

By July, her kittens and chicks could be brought home, adding to the fermented organic manure available for use.

Wait, that's not right — free-range evolved cats would bury their droppings after doing their business, making them impossible to collect for fertilizer.

Xia Qing pulled out her phone's notepad and counted carefully, finding that her kittens had already been born nineteen days and would soon be ready to bring home.

What did evolved kittens just over half a month old look like? Xia Qing's hands itched and so did her heart; she wanted to ask her idol for a photo of the kittens.

So far, Xia Qing only knew that Zhang San's evolved cat had given birth to two kittens; as for breed, color, or sex, she knew nothing at all.

Zhang San truly was a quality idol — able to think what fans think, and rush where fans rush.

After Xia Qing had deeply plowed and finely harrowed the mung bean field and set up the insect-proof net shed, Zhang San proactively contacted Xia Qing, telling her and Beard Feng to come to the North Isolation Belt of Territory Seven at ten o'clock the next morning to choose cats.

Upon hearing this news, Xia Qing was so excited she couldn't sleep well all night, dreaming of choosing cats, chasing cats, being scratched by cats, and being bitten by cats.

It was the genuine article: it runs, she chases, it can't fly away even with wings.

The next morning at nine-thirty, Xia Qing, carrying the dried small fish she'd prepared the day before, met up with the equally excited Beard Feng at the North Isolation Belt of Territory Three, and they headed to Territory Seven.