Chapter 55: The Sheep Standing at the Top of the Pyramid

Chapter 55: The Sheep at the Top of the Pyramid

After Xia Qing took a small bite of her compressed rations, Boss Sheep was already eager to get started.

So, Xia Qing stepped off to the side, held the rations up to the bicycle, and coaxed Boss Sheep onto it. "Boss, you're stronger than me and smarter than me. You must know how to pedal the waterwheel, right? There are rations for pedaling the waterwheel."

Following the movement of the rations with its eyes, Boss Sheep climbed onto the bicycle and sat down. The bike had already been modified according to Boss Sheep's anatomy; once it sat down, its two front hooves mimicked the movement of Xia Qing's hands to grip the handlebars, and its hind hooves fit perfectly into the pedal sleeves.

Xia Qing immediately began her enthusiastic encouragement. "Boss is the best, you even know how to pedal the waterwheel! Here, have some rations."

After stuffing a bit of food into its mouth to steady Boss Sheep, Xia Qing crouched down, holding its two hind legs to teach it how to apply force to the pedals. "Push down with this hoof, and this one comes up. Push down again, and this one comes up. It looks simple, but only the smartest sheep can learn it."

Boss Sheep quickly mastered the mechanics and began pedaling the bicycle furiously. The pedals drove the rear wheel and the small wheel in the water at high speeds; the paddles attached to the rope scooped water into the pipes, which then gushed out from the three-way outlet.

Xia Qing hadn't expected a sheep to learn to ride a bicycle so quickly and felt genuine admiration. "Boss is truly the smartest sheep on Blue Star, the sheep at the top of the pyramid, the sheep that is pioneering the history of sheep evolution..."

Flattered by the praise, Boss Sheep squinted at Xia Qing while pedaling, signaling for her to keep talking—it loved listening to this.

Xia Qing spoke incessantly, praising Boss Sheep to the heavens.

Boss Sheep had abundant stamina; even after watering more than three acres of land, it continued to pedal furiously. Once Xia Qing blocked the irrigation channel, she stuffed the last few crumbs of rations into its mouth. "Boss, you're amazing, the land is watered so fast. Shall we go home?"

Boss Sheep refused to listen and kept pedaling.

Xia Qing tried to persuade it again, but it kept pedaling.

Only then did Xia Qing realize that this fellow wasn't doing it for the rations; it genuinely enjoyed pedaling this thing.

The pumped water looked like it was about to overflow the channel. Not wanting to dampen Boss Sheep's enthusiasm, Xia Qing simply grabbed a shovel and quickly dug a new diversion channel from beneath the three-way outlet toward the reservoir, allowing the water pumped by Boss Sheep to flow through the new channel and back into the reservoir.

Boss Sheep squinted, happily performing useless labor.

It wasn't until Xia Qing sat by the channel to rest, no longer needing to spout empty praise, that she discovered something: there were tiny, one-centimeter-long fish fry swimming rapidly in the pumped water! This was the first time she had discovered fish in the reservoir since she had killed the catfish.

No wonder the egret had been circling the river every day; it turns out there were fish.

Could she eat these fish?

Xia Qing began testing the Toxin element content of the fry, catching one to test, then throwing it away.

Every time she threw one away, the egret waiting nearby would pick it up; their coordination was incredibly seamless.

After testing a hundred fish, Xia Qing found five fry with "yellow lights" (low toxin levels). This ratio was quite high, and Xia Qing immediately had a brilliant idea.

She would dig a pond to raise fish. Once she brought the kitten back, the kitten could eat the "red light" (high toxin) fish, she would eat the "yellow light" fish, and Boss Sheep would pedal the waterwheel to replenish the pond. It was a perfect arrangement!

When Xia Qing started driving the micro-tiller, Boss Sheep immediately stopped pedaling the waterwheel and jumped onto the micro-tiller, lying on its exclusive seat and watching Xia Qing dig and dig.

It took Xia Qing a day and a half to dig a small fish pond two meters deep and over two acres in size, located a hundred meters away from the reservoir.

Once the pond was dug and filled with water, Xia Qing retrieved the double-layered fine-mesh fishing nets she had placed at the narrowest part of the river channel. Over the past two days, the nets had caught many small fish fry, all of which Xia Qing had stuffed into the pond.

Then, Xiaming happily turned on her walkie-talkie, intending to ask Qi Fu for advice on fish farming.

To her surprise, as soon as she turned it on, she heard Qi Fu complaining, "I discovered fish fry growing in the river channel a few days ago, so I went through a lot of trouble to dig a fish pond. Who knew that once the pond was finished, the fish fry would vanish!"

Xia Qing: "..."

Zhao Ze replied, "Brother Qi is still the best. I hadn't even noticed there were fish, and you've already finished your pond. Could it be that the last batch of fry has already passed through? Wait a few more days, there will definitely be another batch."

Kuang Qingwei from Plot No. 6 added resentfully, "I was wondering why the water level in the river channel dropped today; it turns out you were filling a fish pond. You made me think the river was going to run dry, so I was rushing the workers to fetch water like crazy to irrigate the wheat."

Xia Qing, who had just finished filling her pond...

Zhao Ze was puzzled. "The water level dropped? I've been by the river all day, and I didn't notice at all."

Kuang Qingwei countered, "What work is there by the river?"

Zhao Ze chuckled. "Just picking up some stones with pretty patterns to pave my courtyard. I used to work in landscaping; since the work in my territory isn't busy right now, my hands are getting itchy."

"What's the use of paving stones? They'll all be ruined after one Toxin rain," Kuang Qingwei said with a sneer. "Do you know why I care about the water level? Because people have died in several territories fighting over water for irrigation."

This topic immediately caught everyone's attention. Zhao Ze said gratefully, "Luckily I was lucky; even by picking blindly, I managed to pick a plot that won't lack water."

"You really are lucky," Kuang Qingwei grumbled. "I had my eyes on Plot No. 3 with the reservoir from the start, but unfortunately, Sister Xia Qing picked it."

Zhao Ze brought up the matter of selecting plots. "When I was picking my territory, I was right after Xia Qing. I figured since she's an Evolver, she must have the best information, so I chose a plot next to hers. It's a good thing I chose Plot No. 4; if I had chosen Plot No. 1, I would have been poisoned during the last Toxin rain."

Xia Qing pressed her button. "Like Brother Kuang, I also had my eyes on the reservoir in Plot No. 3. Brother Qi, what do you feed your fish?"

Qi Fu loved it when people consulted him on agricultural knowledge. He immediately gave a detailed introduction. "In my old village, people raised fish. There are two types of fish feed: animal-based and plant-based. Buying ready-made synthetic feed is the easiest. But after a natural disaster, you can't expect ready-made feed; you have to make it yourself. Animal-based feed mainly consists of daphnia, rotifers, water fleas, water worms, and fly larvae. Plant-based feed is aquatic plants and algae; you can also feed them vegetables, but they have to be boiled and minced. I just don't know what the fish fry in this river will like to eat after they evolve, or if the animals that used to be fish feed will still be edible for them after they evolve."

Kuang Qingwei interjected, "Logically, if there are small fish, there should be big fish. Have any of you caught any big fish? I haven't seen a single one, only caught about a dozen evolved giant leeches. Zhao Ze, don't tell me you've caught all the fish yourself?"

"I want to, but I can't catch them. I dug up earthworms to fish, but I don't know what bit through my fishing line. I haven't dared to fish since."

Zhao Ze's territory had many people, so they were idle enough to fish and pick up stones. Xia Qing, being alone, was busy farming and cleaning her house in preparation for painting; she was busy as a spinning top.

She turned off the walkie-talkie and decided to feed the fish grass. Now that she had decided on fish farming, she needed to consider fertilizer for her crops.

It happened to be lunchtime for the Safety Zone construction team, so Xia Qing dialed Sun Zhe's number.

Sun Zhe had worked in the same small construction team as Xia Qing for five years. Their relationship wasn't particularly close, but they could chat occasionally. Sun Zhe was quite intelligent and would surely be interested in this.

"Hello?" Sun Zhe's voice carried obvious exhaustion. The construction team did heavy, dirty work, so his state was quite normal.

Xia Qing replied calmly, "Sun Zhe, it's Xia Qing."