Chapter 27: Evolved Rat

Chapter 27: Evolved Rats

"Sister Xia Qing, the people from Territory No. 2 asked us to bring this to you." Approaching her, Su Ming pulled off his protective mask, revealing a gap-toothed grin, and handed the bag of protective clothing to Xia Qing.

With Boss Sheep around, Su Ming tactfully refrained from stepping into Xia Qing's territory, fearing he might be knocked down by a sheep and lose face.

It was strange; that brute-force sheep with the punchable face actually knew how to recognize Xia Qing's territory.

After soothing Boss Sheep, Xia Qing stepped forward to take the protective clothing and handed over the basket. "Thank you for the trouble."

"It's no trouble; protecting the Lord's safety is our duty." Su Ming noticed four sets of plants in the basket, each placed on tree bark carved with numbers, making it obvious who they were for. "Sister Xia Qing is indeed clever. I'll bring the basket to you under the road sign in a moment."

The inspection team was patrolling around the various Lords' territories, passing through the north now and returning from the south later.

Xia Qing led Boss Sheep back to her territory, picked some newly grown toona sprouts, and headed back with a bucket full of water after passing the spring eye.

As they passed the farmland, Boss Sheep avoided the smell of camphor from the trees, keeping a wide distance. Xia Qing walked past cheerfully, but her smile instantly turned into murderous intent.

She set down her basket, grabbed her machete, and stepped forward, confirming that a two-square-meter patch of the cotton field had been dug up.

Judging by the traces, it was likely the work of rats. Damn it!

Xia Qing closed her eyes and listened intently. After confirming a rustling sound about two meters underground, she rushed home to fetch her sharpest large shovel.

Raid the house, exterminate the clan!

Digging a small pit about two meters deep diagonally along the rat hole was a mere two or three minutes' work for a strength evolver like Xia Qing. When she turned the last shovel of soil and saw the entire family of rats along with a pile of chewed-up cotton seeds in their burrow, she was so angry her lungs felt like they would explode.

Two large rats, twice the size of normal ones, were also enraged; they bared teeth over two centimeters long and lunged at Xia Qing.

With one stroke of her blade, the two leaping rats turned into four pieces that fell to the ground. Then, with a backhand swing of her shovel, Xia Qing wiped out the entire nest of small rats, shoveling them out and throwing them on the ground.

The magpies circling in the sky immediately swooped down and carried away the rat carcasses.

Xia Qing shoveled out the cotton seeds and found that three seeds remained unchewed. After filling the rat hole and replanting them, she finally made her way to the road sign at the southernmost part of her territory.

She had just finished clearing a large patch of weeds when the inspection team arrived. After Su Ming cheerfully handed the basket to Xia Qing, one of the team members suddenly spoke up, "There's the scent of evolved rats."

No need to ask; this man was a sense-of-smell evolver. Xia Qing took the initiative to explain, "I found a nest of rats in the farmland—two large ones and six small ones, eight in total. They've been eliminated."

Evolved rats were highly dangerous. Tan Junjie asked, "What type of evolution was it?"

Xia Qing shook her head. "I can't be sure. They were twice the size of normal rats with very long teeth, but their strength and speed were quite average. They were digging up cotton seeds to feed the young."

If the teeth were very large, it was likely an evolution in bite force, but they were wiped out before they could even make use of it. Tan Junjie asked, "Do you need help?"

Eliminating evolved creatures that a Lord cannot handle was the duty of the inspection team. Xia Qing didn't want to trouble them with things she could do herself. "Thank you, Captain Tan. I'll contact you if I can't handle it."

"Sixteen sweet potato seedlings will be delivered in three days. Prepare the fields for planting in advance. You must ensure all rats are completely exterminated."

Xia Qing immediately stood at attention. "Yes, thank you, Captain Tan."

Xia Qing checked the items exchanged in the basket. The packaging of the Level 1 antidote was the same as in the Safe Zone; Zhang San hadn't cheated.

Zhao Ze from Territory No. 4 and Qi Fu from Territory No. 5 were both very honest; the chive seedlings and ginger were delivered with their original soil intact, ensuring the roots weren't damaged. Of course, the perilla seedlings Xia Qing had sent were the same.

Xia Qing planted all the vegetable seedlings in her home garden. Like the ginger, she broke a whole piece of ginger into five pieces by the buds and planted them, watered them with spring water, and then sprayed camphor juice around them to ward off sheep.

After planting the vegetables, Xia Qing abandoned her plan to clear the weeds and instead carried her shovel to conduct a carpet search to clear out the rats.

With the boost from her visual and auditory evolutions, she achieved twice the result with half the effort. In one day, she covered five hundred acres of farmland and actually dug up thirteen rat nests—some normal, some evolved.

The clearing work for the remaining 1,900-plus acres of weed-covered land had to be carried out immediately. "Weeds" was a general term for herbaceous plants with extremely high concentrations of the "Qiang" element, which grew at a visible speed during the Qiang Rain periods.

Weeds had more vigorous vitality than normal plants. If not cleared in time and allowed to grow and seed wildly, the normal plants in this area would be swallowed by the weeds after a few Qiang Rains, dying because their leaves could not perform photosynthesis and their roots could not absorb nutrients.

Despite fighting rats all day, Xia Qing's appetite in the evening was completely unaffected. If such a small matter could ruin her mood for eating, she wouldn't have survived this long.

Turning on the radio, Xia Qing ate her rations while listening to the broadcast alongside Boss Sheep.

Unexpectedly, the broadcast made no mention of asking the Lords to exterminate rats. Could it be that only her territory had experienced rats stealing seeds?

Xia Qing turned on her walkie-talkie to listen to the situation in the nearby territories.

As soon as she turned it on, Kuang Qingwei's coarse cursing from Territory No. 6 came through, "Damn it! They stole two portions of my wheat seeds in one night. It hurts my heart so much. I've done nothing all day but dig soil and catch rats."

"My cotton seeds were stolen too; it's a mess," Zhao Ze also complained bitterly. "One of my brothers' protective suits was even bitten through by a rat."

Zhang San said slowly, "Fortunately, I haven't planted yet."

Tang Huai followed up, "Me neither. I've been too busy to get to it."

These two...

The channel was quiet for a while before Kuang Qingwei asked, "Old Qi, Xia Qing, how are things on your end?"

Xia Qing replied, "Lost some cotton seeds."

Qi Fu from Territory No. 5 answered honestly, "We kept a watchful eye all night and finally managed to hold them off."

Listening closely, Xia Qing could hear the wind and footsteps in the background of Qi Fu's voice, meaning he was still patrolling the fields.

Patrolling at night meant either having a sense-of-hearing or sense-of-smell evolver in the territory, or having night-vision goggles. Xia Qing judged it was likely the latter, as hearing and smell evolvers could find decent jobs within the Safe Zone and wouldn't risk coming out to farm.

Qi Fu was the most diligent farmer among them.

Zhao Ze suggested, "Rats stealing seeds ruin the crops, and evolved rats can even hurt people and damage the solar panel wires. We have to wipe them out completely."

"Right. We need to exterminate these things together. But even if we do, it won't be easy to get rid of them all," Kuang Qingwei said irritably. "Brother Zhang, do you have any rat poison?"

Zhang San remained lazy, but his voice was full of killing intent. "No. If any of you dare use poison that causes secondary poisoning to kill rats, I won't mind using poison to wipe you all out."

The channel fell silent for a long time. Suddenly, Zhang San greeted Xia Qing in a much more reasonable tone, "Xia Qing, I have an evolved cat that specializes in hunting rats. I can have someone bring it to your territory to clear the rats. You can just pay me with the next two weeks' worth of perilla."

Everyone was speechless...

A cat was fine, but a person was not. Xia Qing refused, "I'm strong; clearing rats isn't that much trouble."

Kuang Qingwei quickly negotiated with Zhang San, "Brother Zhang, send the cat to my place. When my elm trees grow elm coins, I'll give you ten pounds."

"Deal," Zhang San's voice sounded pleased.

Tang Huai was also curious about Zhang San's evolved cat. "Brother Zhang, what kind of ability does your cat have, and what level is it?"

(End of Chapter)