Chapter 53: The Secret of the Spring

Chapter 53: The Secret of the Spring

Running away was useless, and killing Luo Pei to silence him was impossible. She had to calm down and figure out his motives before taking action.

Xia Qing clenched her fists, forcing herself to remain composed. "I thought I was hiding it well."

Luo Pei reached for his teacup, took a sip, and exposed his neck—a fatal strike zone—to Xia Qing, before revealing his own trump card. "You did hide it well; an ordinary person might have been fooled. But I have Level 10 visual evolution and Level 6 auditory evolution. It is easy for me to capture details that others overlook."

Xia Qing could no longer pretend. Her eyes widened as she asked, "Brother Luo, you have Level 6 auditory evolution too?!"

"Just like you, no one reveals all their cards easily." Seeing such a vivid expression on the girl who usually acted like a wooden doll, Luo Pei couldn't help but smile. "Even within the team, very few people know that I am a dual-attribute evolver. You must keep this secret for me."

Xia Qing nodded immediately, cautiously inquiring, "Of course. Brother Luo, do many people know that I am a triple-attribute evolver?"

Luo Pei told her the truth. "As far as I know, it is only me, Yang Jin, and Xie Yu. I am not sure about others around you. Don't worry, we will keep it secret for you as well."

The people around her were all ordinary humans or average evolvers; Xia Qing was certain they hadn't noticed. She felt slightly relieved. "Was it Brother Luo who told Captain Yang and Captain Xie?"

Luo Pei shook his head. "Yang Jin discovered it himself."

Xia Qing was shocked again. "How is that possible? I've never gone on a mission with Captain Yang; we've never even interacted before."

"He didn't say." Luo Pei truly didn't know. Yang Jin placed great importance on Xia Qing, but Luo Pei wasn't sure why, so he chose to say nothing.

With a head full of questions, Xia Qing calmed down again and returned to the most pressing issue. "Brother Luo, I still don't quite understand why giving the mountain to me is more appropriate. From your perspective, I don't think you should give it to me."

Having lived at the bottom of the base hierarchy for years, Xia Qing's access to information was limited, so her confusion was normal. Luo Pei patiently guided her thinking. "You know the use of pollution-free spring water, right?"

Xia Qing nodded and held up two fingers. "For medical use and for growing crops, but I don't know the specifics of how it's used."

Luo Pei nodded. "Then do you know how many spring eyes our base has, besides the one in your territory?"

Xia Qing naturally knew this. "Four, but I don't know their locations."

This was a top-secret matter of the base, so of course she didn't know. Luo Pei corrected her, "To be precise, the Hui San Base has discovered a total of four spring eyes over the last ten years, but only two remain."

Xia Qing's eyes widened again. "What happened to the other two? Did they dry up? Or were they taken by other bases?"

Luo Pei explained patiently, "You've been in your territory for nearly two months. You should have noticed that the daily output of the spring eye varies, right?"

Xia Qing shook her head honestly. "No, it seems about the same every day."

The girl was so honest that Luo Pei smiled and smoothed over the discrepancy. "It might be because you haven't been here long enough to notice the seasonal variations in output. This variation follows the natural laws of Earth before the Cataclysm. Therefore, after discovering a spring eye, the majority of the base advocated for probing the source to understand its formation, so they could extract and produce more pollution-free water for the benefit of all mankind."

Xia Qing nodded. "That makes sense."

Luo Pei's tone turned heavy. "But the Earth now is vastly different from before the Cataclysm, and many of the old technical methods have failed. To date, every pollution-free spring eye that humans have attempted to probe and study has turned into an ordinary polluted water source."

Xia Qing felt a pang of heartache. "Can't the cause be found?"

Too many inexplicable things had happened after the Cataclysm. Many people, because of this, doubted traditional science and turned to various superstitions and fringe theories, turning the safe zones into chaotic messes.

"No, the cause is unknown. Currently, there is only one widely accepted but unproven theory: under the influence of nuclear-contaminated water, intense tectonic movements, and cosmic gamma-ray bursts, all water sources on Earth have been contaminated. Only a few mountain ranges, through a combination of various factors, have formed massive and complex natural filters or equilibrators. These filter out most of the lethal elements, radioactive elements, and other harmful substances in the contaminated water, creating pollution-free sources."

"This complex structure is entirely beyond the scope of current human knowledge and technology. Therefore, once the internal structure of a mountain is interfered with or destroyed by human activity, causing a structural change that results in the loss of its filtering ability, it cannot be artificially repaired. Consequently, the deep development and probing of spring eyes have been strictly prohibited by the highest authorities."

Luo Pei emphasized, "The degradation of a spring eye has extremely dire consequences, so the top leadership has ordered a strict information blackout. Just listen to this, but do not spread it."

Xia Qing worked hard to memorize and digest the meaning of Luo Pei's words. "I understand. You mean that currently, there is no way to create pollution-free water artificially, and even researching it is forbidden because it would destroy the water sources."

"Exactly. Although we can obtain pure water through distillation now, we cannot yet stably dissolve 'Yi' elements into it. Therefore, distilled water cannot replace pollution-free water rich in 'Yi' elements." Luo Pei continued, "Thus, pollution-free spring water is a vital category of high-value resources. It makes the owners of the water sources powerful, which in turn leads organizations that cannot benefit from the water to try every possible way to destroy the source to weaken the owner's strength. The spring eye with the largest output in our base was destroyed exactly like that."

Xia Qing was instantly enraged, her eyes wide. "Who was it?"

Luo Pei shook his head. "Knowing more will not do you any good."

"...Oh."

Xia Qing gave a hollow response and stopped asking.

Luo Pei continued, "The spring eye in your territory belongs to you. If they asked you to hand it over, you would certainly refuse. If the mountain to the north belonged to the Azure Dragon Team, there would always be voices within the team advocating for mining the mountain to find the spring. Once the successor of the Azure Dragon Team attempts to mine for the spring, the internal structure of Mountain No. 49 will inevitably be destroyed, and 99% of the spring eye in your territory will be ruined, turning into an ordinary polluted water source. The ultimate result is that you lose the pollution-free water, and the Azure Dragon Team doesn't get it either. Therefore, as the current owner of the spring eye, you are the only person who will not destroy the internal structure of No. 49."

There were things Luo Pei did not say: in fact, there was another option, which was for Xia Qing to bring the spring eye and join the Azure Dragon Team. But that option didn't even need to be mentioned, because Xia Qing had previously chosen to hide her strength to join the construction team; now that she possessed a territory and a spring eye, it was even more impossible for her to join the team.

Like most people who had struggled through the Cataclysm for ten years, Xia Qing only trusted herself and was deeply wary of others.

Yang Jin had said that if Xia Qing were pushed into a corner, she would choose a "fish dies with the net" approach—destroying the spring eye herself.

This time, Xia Qing understood completely. "So, Brother Luo, you have already searched Mountain No. 49 and found no new spring eyes?"