Chapter 43: Boss Yang, Who Moved Xia Qing to Tears

Chapter 43: Boss Sheep, Who Moved Xia Qing to Tears

Early the next morning, the sorting team delivered twenty Alfalfa seedlings.

Xia Qing fell silent as she looked at the palm-sized, tender green seedlings, complete with roots and soil, in the grass basket. The color of these seedlings was indeed much more normal than the Evolved Purple Perilla, but was this definitely Alfalfa and not clover?

Or rather, was the scientific name for clover actually Alfalfa?

Xia Qing took out her phone to browse the *Complete Guide to Planting*, finding the images of Evolved Alfalfa again to compare. The small leaves of the mature Alfalfa, which grew over a meter tall, were indeed ninety percent similar to the leaves of the seedlings in the basket.

She stopped obsessing over whether Alfalfa was clover. Following the key points mentioned in the *Complete Guide to Planting*, she planted the seedlings in the terraced fields above the Evolved Purple Perilla and enclosed them with Evolved Sour Jujube branches.

If these Alfalfa seedlings could survive, she could sow them again after they produced seeds. Once she had filled this entire terrace next year, she could remove the Evolved Sour Jujube branches and let Boss Sheep feast on the Alfalfa just as freely as it ate the perilla.

Thinking of next year, Xia Qing felt a surge of excitement.

After the catastrophe, the vast majority of people at the bottom of the social ladder were merely living day by day; they had no plans, nor could they have any. Xia Qing was an outlier among the lower class. Back when she was in the Safe Zone, her plans to rebuild her home were nothing more than vague, ethereal longings, with no idea of when they might be realized.

Now, standing in her own territory and thinking about the future, she felt a profound sense of stability.

Reaching out to rub the curly wool of Boss Sheep, who was busy munching on perilla, Xia Qing felt her heart swell. She swept her arm across her entire territory and declared, "My beloved concubine, look! This is the empire I have conquered for you!"

Boss Sheep ignored the manic Xia Qing and continued eating.

By the end of March, the seedlings were ready for transplanting, which meant it was time for the Lords to exchange vegetable seedlings with one another.

To ensure fairness, every Lord had to first test the seedlings for their "Toxin Element" content and confirm their grade before exchanging.

In the channel, other Lords announced that most of their seedlings were Yellow Grade, a few were Red Grade, and Green Grade was rare. In Xia Qing's field, ninety percent were Yellow Grade and ten percent were Green Grade, with no Red Grade. However, Xia Qing concealed the existence of the Green Grade seedlings and claimed she had some Red Grade ones.

When exchanging with other Lords, Xia Qing only dug up Yellow Grade seedlings. Her first priority was exchanging the tomato, cucumber, eggplant, and pumpkin seedlings for Plot No. 1, ten of each variety.

Of course, these seedlings were not exchanged for the nominal micro-tiller, but rather for forty bags of putty and three buckets of wall paint in exchange for fifty spinach seeds.

In the post-catastrophe era, besides decoration, wall paint and putty served a fundamental additional purpose: pest prevention. These two construction materials were highly sought after; ordinary people simply couldn't buy them. When Xia Qing was with the construction team, these items were issued by the pound, so she hadn't been able to save any.

She had originally planned to trade with Qi Fu for the putty, but he said he didn't have any in stock either.

A few days ago, Xia Qing had heard Hu Zifeng mention in the Lord Channel that they were planning to build houses in Plot No. 1, so she tried proposing an exchange to him. To her surprise, it actually worked, which once again made her marvel at the formidable strength of the Azure Dragon Squad.

Once she finished planting the seedlings and harvesting the bamboo shoots, Xia Qing intended to make haste to repaint her small building before the next Toxin Rain arrived, making her home feel more like a home.

After delivering the seedlings to Plot No. 1, Xia Qing used ten tomato seedlings to trade for five bean seedlings from Plot No. 5, and five chili seedlings from Plot No. 7. It wasn't that she didn't want to trade more, but rather that she only had fifteen tomato seedlings left.

Since pumpkins, cucumbers, and eggplants were provided to every territory, Xia Qing had more of those left: twenty pumpkin seedlings, twenty-five cucumber seedlings, and thirty eggplant seedlings.

Aside from the extra pumpkin seedlings, all these seedlings—both the ones she grew and the ones she traded for—were planted by Xia Qing in the remaining empty hillside planting areas.

To ensure the seedlings grew well, Xia Qing applied every planting technique she knew. To increase the nutrients in the soil, she applied decomposed sheep and bird manure collected from her territory. After transplanting, she also watered them with her accumulated mountain spring water.

Next, it would depend on their vitality.

For the next few days after planting, Xia Qing practically lived in the vegetable patch.

Lords Four, Five, and Six were even more dedicated than she was, keeping their pagers on twenty-four hours a day to exchange planting tips at any time.

Zhang San from Plot No. 7 had no interest in anything except eating and was offline during the day. Hu Zifeng from Plot No. 1 was always online, though he was doing so to stay informed about Xia Qing's movements and needs. Tang Huai from Plot No. 2 also kept his device on to monitor Hu Zifeng's status. Naturally, these two rarely spoke.

At noon, the sun would scorch the transplanted seedlings until their leaves wilted, and half of them would even have bent stalks. Xia Qing watched with a heavy heart. Following the method taught by Qi Fu, she carefully used small twigs to prop up the seedlings that were drooping with their heads down. If she didn't know that the seedlings needed sunlight, she would have truly wanted to build a sunshade for them immediately.

By evening, when the sunlight was no longer intense, most of the drooping leaves would perk up again, making Xia Qing grin from ear to ear.

The next morning, even the seedlings that had been drooping with bent stalks stood upright again, and Xia Qing spun around in joy.

At noon, the seedlings would wilt again under the sun, leaving Xia Qing squatting by the field, sighing with a long face.

On the third morning, the cycle repeated. Xia Qing fluctuated between excitement and anxiety, to the point where Boss Sheep thought she was sick. It brought a mouthful of grass over to the planting area and nudged the Sour Jujube branches, trying to get Xia Qing to come out and eat the grass.

Xia Qing, with nowhere to vent her frustration, didn't understand Boss Sheep's intention. Thinking it wanted to munch on the seedlings, she rushed out and had a fierce fight with it.

Although she had defeated Boss Sheep with overwhelming superiority for the first time in history, it didn't make Xia Qing feel excited; she continued to guard the seedlings, sighing incessantly.

The defeated Boss Sheep brought the grass back home and spat it into Xia Qing's bowl. Only then did Xia Qing realize it wanted her to eat the grass.

*Is this grass even edible?*

After testing it, Xia Qing discovered that the grass Boss Sheep had brought back was actually a Green Grade plant. She boiled it and ate it, but spat it out after one bite because it was simply too disgusting.

Boss Sheep became unhappy and brought more back, spitting it into Xia Qing's bowl again.

Seeing Boss Sheep's persistence, Xia Qing asked Tan Junjie to look into it. She finally learned that this featureless vine grass was actually the Evolved White-Haired Chicken-Shit Vine, which could treat indigestion, abdominal pain, and skin itching!

Only then did Xia Qing realize that Boss Sheep thought she was sick and had gone out specifically to gather medicine for her. Deeply moved, Xia Qing plucked a few Alfalfa leaves—which she wouldn't even dare taste herself—and prepared a special meal of high-quality feed for Boss Sheep.

Thanks to Boss Sheep, a new and highly valuable Green Grade medicinal herb—the Evolved White-Haired Chicken-Shit Vine—had been added to the specialties of Xia Qing's territory.

Although the name was unpleasant, it was very valuable: once the entire plant (including roots, stems, and leaves) was dried, it could actually sell for forty points per jin.

When she had time, Xia Qing would definitely harvest some to dry and exchange for points to buy compressed rations for Boss Sheep.

Six days after transplanting, ten seedlings in the terrace had died, with cucumbers suffering the most. Xia Qing believed cucumber vines were the most delicate; their thin skins seemed to be mostly water, causing them to wilt under the sun and collapse in the wind.

She absolutely refused to admit that two of them had been accidentally snapped while she was propping them up.

Nearly half of the seedlings in Plots No. 1 and No. 2 had died. Plot No. 7 was offline, so the situation was likely similar. The situation in Plots No. 4 and No. 6 was similar to Xia Qing's, while Plot No. 5 was in the best condition, having lost only two seedlings. This was because Qi Fu's family had been farmers before the catastrophe and possessed the most experience.