Chapter 69: Sweet Potato Cuttings
After seeing Zhong Tao off, Xia Qing and Boss Sheep carried the earthworm castings directly to the terraced fields reserved in the planting area.
Xia Qing loved eating sweet potatoes very much, so the plots she set aside for cutting the sweet potatoes were terraced fields with thick soil layers—one located in the high slope planting zone and one in the low slope planting zone.
Following the method sent to her by Tan Junjie, Xia Qing first fertilized the terraces, then tilled the soil and piled it into long, strip-like ridges. Once the preparation was complete, Xia Qing cut the long vines of the Green Light sweet potatoes into twenty-centimeter segments and planted two hundred cuttings.
After finishing the planting, Xia Qing felt both happy and worried.
The happiness, of course, came from having two hundred more sweet potatoes. The worry was that not only might they fail to survive, but the process might also disrupt the elemental balance within the sixteen original sweet potato plants—which had been pruned down to only two or three vines—causing them to turn from "Green Light" to "Yellow Light."
If that happened, it would be a massive loss.
Xia Qing had indirectly confirmed this method of propagation with Qi Fu. Since the method was sound and she had spring water on hand, even if only half of these two hundred cuttings survived, and each surviving plant only produced three sweet potatoes, she would still harvest three hundred sweet potatoes. Three hundred!
With a cheerful mood, Xia Qing watered the sweet potato cuttings with filtered water mixed with spring water—since there were too many seedlings, she didn't have enough spring water to irrigate them all.
Then, Xia Qing used the remaining earthworm castings to top-dress the other plots.
The vegetables currently flowering and fruiting needed top-dressing; the wheat, mung beans, and cotton were almost ready to bloom and needed top-dressing; the jujube trees were flowering and needed top-dressing.
The original Green Light sweet potato and Yellow Light potato fields had already used a significant amount of fermented sheep manure and did not need top-dressing; the pumpkins, which were only growing vines without flowers, were also left without top-dressing.
She had originally thought four hundred pounds of earthworm castings would be plenty, but as she began top-dressing, she realized it wasn't even enough for a single application. Consequently, Xia Qing sent a message to Sun Zhe to place another order for eight hundred pounds, with a delivery date set for twenty days later.
For this transaction, Xia Qing used nearly mature spinach seeds. By the time Zhong Tao delivered the earthworm castings, the spinach seeds should have matured.
In other words, in twenty days, Sun Zhe could produce at least eight hundred pounds of earthworm castings, which could be exchanged for four hundred points. Raising worms for manure was a better occupation than working for the construction team, though the risks were naturally higher; since he had left his territory, he was prepared for risk.
Xia Qing took the remaining few pounds of earthworm castings home and mixed them into four large earthen basins. These basins were what she had prepared for the strawberries. According to the *Complete Guide to Planting*, strawberry plants would grow runners, and new strawberry seedlings would grow from those runners.
Looking at the diagrams in the guide, Xia Qing thought it looked fake.
But! Her two strawberry plants had indeed grown two runners. Although the runners were too short to have produced new seedlings yet, now that the runners existed, how far away could the seedlings be?
Xia Qing had already prepared the pots and soil, ready to welcome the new seedlings.
Just like the newly transplanted vegetable seedlings, the sweet potato cuttings wilted completely the next day under the sun. However, it was only the leaves that wilted; the sweet potato vines remained upright. Having gained experience, Xia Qing did not show the panic she had felt during the last vegetable transplanting.
If they wilted, let them wilt; once they had wilted enough, they would perk up again. She simply went about her business.
Over the past few days, she had gone to learn from Luo Pei twice more. Every night, she practiced the disassembly and assembly of firearms with diligence. Now, even with her eyes closed, Xia Qing could quickly complete the disassembly and assembly of a gun.
Today, she intended to practice the basic movements of shooting.
Wearing protective clothing, Xia Qing lay prone in the grass. Following Luo Pei's instructions, she pressed the buttstock firmly against her shoulder, moved her eyes slowly behind the scope to find the most suitable eye relief, controlled her breathing, and lightly squeezed the trigger.
To be accurate, the gun must be steady. To keep the gun steady, the person must be steady. To be steady, one's mindset, strength, and breathing must all be steady. Xia Qing's mindset and strength were fine; what she needed to practice now was breath control and the trigger pull followed by the follow-through movement. She could not afford to spend time re-finding her eye relief after every shot; that delay would be enough for an opponent to kill her ten times over.
After holding the gun steady for thirty minutes, Xia Qing fired her first bullet since obtaining the gun, timed to the sound of a loud eagle cry. Under the cover of the eagle's cry and the silencer, the gunshot did not alert anyone in the nearby territories.
Zhao Ze in Plot Four was still leading his men to fetch water to irrigate the wheat; Tang Huai in Plot Two was still sitting in the field digging for bugs; and Hu Zifeng in Plot One was still leading his men to patrol the buffer zone between Mountain Forty-Nine and the territory.
After confirming through the scope that she had accurately hit a fist-sized clod of earth placed one thousand meters away, Xia Qing walked over, placed another clod of the same size in the same position, and returned to her original spot to continue aiming.
After aiming for half an hour, Xia Qing removed the scope from the sniper rifle but maintained her aiming posture, continuing to aim at the clod of earth.
The scope was used to find the correct aiming posture and build muscle memory. Xia Qing was a Level 9 Visual Evolver, possessing the ability to aim with the naked eye at a target the size of a chicken at a distance of one thousand five hundred meters. Any target larger than a mung bean within a hundred meters could not escape her naked-eye pursuit.
This was an ability second only to Luo Pei, a Level 10 Visual Evolver.
In Luo Pei's second basement laboratory, when he used standard testing equipment to detect that Xia Qing's visual evolution level was Level 9, not only was he shocked, but Xia Qing was also shocked.
She knew her vision was a high-level evolution, but she hadn't expected it to reach Level 9.
Not just her vision—her hearing had actually reached an astonishing Level 7 evolution, one level higher than Luo Pei's!
After the testing concluded, Luo Pei, who was thirty-four and considered himself mature and composed, was so excited he was speechless. He slapped Xia Qing's shoulders vigorously and then solemnly told her, "With your physical fitness, as long as you are willing to put in the hard work, you can definitely kick Nie Hong off his throne!"
No wonder Yang Jin had such high expectations for Xia Qing. No wonder!
*Slap, slap, slap! Slap, slap, slap!* Luo Pei grew increasingly excited, unable to stop patting Xia Qing.
Floating in the air after learning her true evolution level, Xia Qing was slapped back down to earth by Luo Pei. She asked humbly, "Brother Luo, who is Nie Hong?"
Luo Pei, whose eyes were brimming with happy tears...
"...China's number one sharpshooter."
Xia Qing had absolutely no interest in unseating China's number one sharpshooter to take his place. She only wanted to be an ordinary Strength Evolver, living a quiet life farming in her territory.
Since that alpha wolf had intruded into the wild boar breeding area, it had not appeared again, and there had been no major disturbances in the breeding center. Xia Qing continued to patrol her territory diligently every day, using deodorizers to remove the smell of sheep. After a few days of persistence, Boss Sheep gave up and stopped peering and bleating outside the wire fence. Aside from eating grass, he followed Xia Qing around every day.
When Xia Qing was busy, Boss Sheep watched from a distance or acted as an assistant under Xia Qing's praise.
When Xia Qing rested, Boss Sheep would huddle up beside her to rest.
At this moment, Xia Qing was lying on the ground practicing shooting, while Boss Sheep lay beside her, chewing his cud.
When the loud eagle cry echoed through the sky once more, Xia Qing fired her second shot.
This time, the bullet deviated from the target by more than ten meters, hitting a nearby tree trunk. The large tree shuddered, and a few yellow leaves drifted down.
There was a difference between aiming with the naked eye and aiming with a scope; missing was only logical. Xia Qing put the shell casing in her pocket, stood up, shouldered her rifle, pried the bullet out of the tree trunk, stuffed it into her pocket, and returned to her original position to continue aiming.
Under the scorching sun, Xia Qing remained motionless.
Having finished chewing his cud, Boss Sheep's half-closed eyes gradually shut, and his head slowly sank, resting on Xia Qing's back. This heavy burden caused the corners of Xia Qing's mouth to curl upward, yet her shooting posture did not change in the slightest.
In three hours, Xia Qing fired a total of ten bullets, with two hitting the target. She was very satisfied with this result, packed up, and went home to eat.
(End of Chapter)