Kuang Qingwei asked, "Old Qi, I have a cotton plant in my field that branched into two main branches on its fourth leaf. What should I do?"
Xia Qing immediately perked up her ears, because she also had several cotton plants in her field that grew so wildly and independently.
Qi Fu continued to share his experience, "Then keep both branches. Break off the 'wild branches' below and above them, leaving only the fruiting branches."
Xia Qing thought the name "wild branch" was very fitting: a branch that grows wildly without flower buds—isn't that what a wild branch is?
Kuang Qingwei was even more worried. "No matter how I look at it, it seems like both branches are full of rotten twigs."
Qi Fu chuckled. "Then break off the lower ones first. Let the small twigs on top grow a bit bigger. Don't worry, as long as the cotton plant is healthy, it will eventually produce fruiting branches. Don't worry about breaking them off incorrectly; just leave six or seven fruiting branches on the whole plant. Any more than that, you'll have to pinch off the tips, otherwise the cotton bolls won't set."
Hearing Qi Fu say this, Xia Qing immediately felt relieved and quickly trimmed the cotton plant she had been watching for over ten minutes.
Breaking off the rotten twigs from the main branch downwards, turning a cotton plant into a bare stalk, felt strangely satisfying.
Xia Qing smiled broadly and squeezed the juice from the broken-off rotten twigs to test their toxicity.
Red light.
Still smiling. It's okay, a red light means the cottonseed is inedible; as long as it grows cotton, it's fine. Leave it.
Yellow light.
Still all smiles, the yellow light is good; it means the cotton seeds can be pressed for oil, which can be sold for more points. She'll mark it with a straw rope.
Green light?
She only found one after testing over a hundred plants! Of course, it needs a prominent red rope for protection; she'll use it for seed.
Hearing the clucking sound of the evolved locust flapping its wings, Xia Qing straightened up. Just as her hand reached for the bag of steel balls, two evolved crows swooped down and swallowed the locust whole, without her having to lift a finger.
Xia Qing gave a thumbs up. "Great!"
"Baa."
The eldest sheep, lying under the shade of a tree a dozen meters away, chewing its food, thought Xia Qing was praising it and gave a perfunctory babbling.
Xia Qing chuckled and continued bending down to prune the side shoots.
Pruning and trimming over 8,200 cotton plants on two acres of land is a repetitive and tedious farm work, but Xia Qing, who had endured ten years of natural disasters and hardship, found joy in it. She absolutely loved the feeling of being immersed in repairing the cotton; even the distant, clanging chirping of two evolved crickets seemed melodious.
It took Xia Qing two days to break the cotton plants. On the first morning, she stood and bent over to break them, but for the next few half-days, she switched to sitting. Xia Qing made a small stool of suitable height, tied it to her body, sat between two rows of cotton, bent a few plants beside her to move forward a couple of steps, and continued breaking them while still seated.
Wearing a large straw hat woven from mosquito-repellent grass, Xia Qing was thoroughly enjoying herself. The only downside was the somewhat jarring noise from Tang Lu in Territory Two, carried by the wind.
Yang Jin stayed in Territory One to oversee the development of the training base at Mountain Forty-Nine. Tang Zheng spent two days at Mountain Forty-Nine without much success and flew away, so Tang Lu naturally stayed in her own territory.
Wherever Yang Jin was, that's where she was.
Not only Xia Qing found Tang Lu noisy, but the entire inspection team did too.
Tang Lu couldn't rush into Territory One, and the Azure Dragon Team members on guard wouldn't relay her message to Yang Jin, so she resorted to all sorts of tricks to harass the investigation team that could directly contact Territory One.
One minute she was saying her pet white rabbit had run away and wanted the investigation team to negotiate with Territory One so she could go find it. The next minute she was complaining that the investigation team wasn't doing their job properly, that Territory Two was full of large, dangerous evolved insects, and that she was going to file a complaint.
Su Ming wanted nothing more than to shut this woman who was giving him a headache. "It's only because her father is Tang Zhengsu!"
If it weren't for Tang Zhengsu, this incompetent woman who dared to act so unreasonably would have been dead countless times over.
Tiger complained, "The more she makes a scene, the less likely Jin-ge is to like her. What's she trying to achieve? She should just find someone else. Xu Pin has always liked her."
Su Ming chuckled, "Haven't you heard the saying? 'The unattainable is always the most alluring.'"
Yuan Rui, a member of the olfactory evolution team who rarely participates in discussions, suddenly spoke up, "Tang Lu is actually quite smart."
Huh?
Tiger and Su Ming both widened their eyes. "Rui-ge has a unique perspective."
Yuan Rui, a few years older than them, had seen more and thought more deeply. "Tang Lu is just an ordinary person without the ability to evolve. If she wants to continue living a comfortable and respectable life, she either needs to help the Tang family subdue their number one rival, the Azure Dragon Team, or she needs to give birth to an outstanding next generation of evolved humans. Whichever she chooses, Yang Jin is her primary target."
After walking quite a distance, Su Ming broke the silence, "Even if her goal is correct, it's useless if she can't win him over."
Yuan Rui countered, "How do you know you can't win her over if you don't try? Anyway, she's not that old, and Yang Jin doesn't have a girlfriend. If she succeeds, she won't have to worry for the next hundred years."
How do you know you can't win her over if you don't try? Tiger seemed thoughtful.
Su Ming glanced at Captain Tan at the front and lowered his voice to the others, "I heard... just heard, don't tell anyone... I heard Brother Jin doesn't like women."
The crowd...
Tan Junjie, without turning his head, called out, "Su Ming."
"...Here."
"Go back and do fifty laps with weights."
"Sizzle—"
Before Su Ming could answer, a desperate, lifeless scream of wild boars suddenly rang out from the wild boar breeding center. The patrol team that had just passed the breeding center immediately turned around, guns drawn, and rushed towards it.
The wild boar's scream also startled Xia Qing, who was listening to gossip on a high slope within Territory Three. The scream was too unusual. Xia Qing immediately rushed north, climbing a large tree near the breeding center within the territory to look out over the valley where the wild boars were raised.
Shortly after the breeding center was built, a dozen or so researchers in full-body, airtight white protective suits went in. After that, there was no further activity; the silence was so profound that Xia Qing had almost forgotten about the people and the pigs. That howl just now was definitely unusual.
With her excellent eyesight, Xia Qing saw two people in camouflage carrying an adult wild boar, charging towards a row of white houses. Two technicians in full-body, airtight white protective suits rushed out to meet them.
Xia Qing couldn't hear the technicians' words, but she could hear the shouts from the people in camouflage: "Neck bitten… It's an evolved wolf, incredibly fast! Researchers, return to the safe house immediately!"
Wolves!!!
Xia Qing tensed up as well. The terror of the evolved wolf pack was still vivid in her memory. Hadn't they said they had already cleared out all the large, high-risk evolved animals around the territory? Where did the wolf that attacked the wild boar come from?
"Baa—"
Hearing the alpha sheep's call, Xia Qing immediately climbed down the tree and rushed to meet it. "Alpha, you heard the pig squealing too?"
The alpha sheep nuzzled Xia Qing with its head, nudging her down the hillside, clearly agitated. Xia Qing nearly fell off the slope from its nibbling, and immediately pulled the alpha sheep downhill.
Evolved wolves can even hunt thick-skinned wild boars, let alone a plump alpha sheep!