After seeing Zhong Tao off, Xia Qing and Yang Laoda carried the earthworm castings directly to the reserved terraced fields in the planting area.
Xia Qing loved sweet potatoes, so the plots reserved for sweet potato cuttings were terraced fields with a thicker soil layer, one on a high slope and one on a low slope.
Following the method Tan Junjie had sent her, Xia Qing first fertilized the terraced fields, then tilled the soil and created long, narrow ridges. After preparing the land, Xia Qing cut the long vines of the green-light sweet potatoes into 20-centimeter sections and planted 200 cuttings.
After planting, Xia Qing was both happy and worried.
Happy, of course, because she had two hundred more sweet potato plants, but worried that not only would they not survive, but the nutrient balance of the sixteen sweet potato plants that had been pruned and now only had two or three vines left would be disrupted, causing them to turn from green to yellow.
That would be a huge loss.
Xia Qing had subtly confirmed the propagation method with Qi Fu. Since the method was correct and she had spring water, even if only half of the two hundred cuttings survived, and each surviving cutting only produced three sweet potatoes, she could still harvest three hundred sweet potatoes! Three hundred!
Xia Qing happily watered the sweet potato cuttings with filtered spring water—because there were too many seedlings, she didn't have enough spring water for irrigation.
Then, Xia Qing used the remaining earthworm castings to fertilize the other plots.
The vegetables that were flowering and fruiting needed fertilization; the wheat, mung beans, and cotton were almost flowering and needed fertilization; the jujube trees were flowering and needed fertilization.
The original green-light sweet potato and yellow-light potato fields had already used a lot of fermented sheep manure and didn't need fertilization; the pumpkins that were only growing vines and not flowering didn't need fertilization either.
She initially thought four hundred pounds of earthworm castings would be a lot, but when she started fertilizing, she realized it wasn't enough for even one application. So, Xia Qing messaged Sun Zhe to place an additional order for 800 jin (400 kg) of earthworm castings, with delivery in twenty days.
This time, Xia Qing used nearly mature spinach seeds. By the time Zhong Tao delivered the earthworm castings, the spinach seeds should be ripe.
That meant Sun Zhe could produce at least 800 jin of earthworm castings in twenty days, which could be exchanged for 400 points. Raising earthworms and processing castings was more suitable than working on a construction team, although the risks were greater. Since he had ventured out of his territory, he was prepared for the risks.
Xia Qing took the remaining few jin of earthworm castings home and mixed them into four large earthenware pots. These pots were for her strawberry plants. The "Planting Guide" said that strawberry plants would grow runners, from which new strawberry seedlings would sprout.
Looking at the pictures in the planting guide, Xia Qing thought it looked fake.
But! Her two strawberry plants really did grow two runners, although the runners were too short to produce new strawberry seedlings yet. But with stems already in place, strawberry seedlings couldn't be far behind, could they?
Xia Qing had already prepared pots and soil, ready to welcome the new seedlings.
Just like the newly transplanted vegetable seedlings, the sweet potato cuttings wilted completely the next day after being exposed to the sun. However, only the leaves wilted; the vines remained upright. Xia Qing had learned from experience and didn't show the panic she had shown when transplanting vegetable seedlings last time.
Let it wilt; it will straighten up when it's wilted enough. She would continue with her work.
She had gone to learn from Luo Pei twice more these past few days, diligently practicing disassembling and assembling firearms every night. Now, even with her eyes closed, Xia Qing could quickly disassemble and assemble a gun.
Today, she was going to practice the basic shooting movements.
Wearing protective clothing, Xia Qing crouched in the grass, pressing the butt of the rifle firmly against her shoulder as Luo Pei had taught her. Her eyes slowly moved behind the scope, finding the optimal exit pupil distance, controlling her breathing, and her finger lightly pulled the trigger.
A marksman's aim must be accurate, and the gun must be steady. For the gun to be steady, the person must be steady. For the person to be steady, their mindset, strength, and breathing must all be steady. Xia Qing's mindset and strength were fine; now she needed to practice breathing control and the follow-up motion after each trigger pull. She couldn't afford to spend time re-finding the exit distance after every shot; that time was enough for an opponent to kill her ten times over.
After holding the gun steadily for thirty minutes, Xia Qing fired her first bullet since receiving the gun when she heard a loud eagle's cry. Under the cover of the eagle's cry and the silencer, the gunshot didn't alert anyone in the nearby territory.
Zhao Ze in Plot 4 was still leading his men to fetch water to irrigate the wheat; Tang Huai in Plot 2 was still sitting in the field digging for insects. Hu Zifeng in Plot 1 was still leading his men to patrol the buffer zone between Mountain 49 and their territory.
After confirming through the scope that she had accurately hit a fist-sized clod of earth placed a kilometer away, Xia Qing went over, placed another clod of earth of the same size in the same spot, and returned to her original position to continue aiming. After aiming for half an hour, Xia Qing removed the scope from her sniper rifle, maintaining her previous aiming posture, and continued aiming at the clod of earth.
Using the scope was to find the precise aiming motion, allowing her body to develop muscle memory. Xia Qing was a nine-fold visual evolutionist, possessing the ability to aim at a target the size of a chicken at a distance of 1,500 meters with her naked eye. Any target larger than a mung bean within 100 meters could not escape her naked eye's pursuit.
This was the ability second only to Luo Pei, a ten-fold visual evolutionist.
In Luo Pei's underground testing room, when Luo Pei used standard testing equipment to determine that Xia Qing's visual evolution level was ninefold, not only was he astonished, but Xia Qing was also greatly surprised.
She knew her vision was at an advanced level, but she hadn't expected it to reach ninefold.
Not only her vision, but her hearing had also reached an astonishing level six evolution, one level higher than Luo Pei's!
After the test, Luo Pei, a 34-year-old man who considered himself mature and composed, was so excited he couldn't speak. He patted Xia Qing's shoulders repeatedly and solemnly told her, "With your physical abilities, as long as you put in the hard work, you can definitely kick Nie Hong off!"
No wonder Yang Jin had such high hopes for Xia Qing! No wonder!
*Pat pa pa, pa pa pa!* Luo Pei grew increasingly excited, unable to resist patting Xia Qing again and again.
Having learned her true evolution level, Xia Qing, who was floating in the air, was slapped back to the ground by Luo Pei and humbly asked, "Brother Luo, who is Nie Hong?"
Luo Pei, tears welling in his eyes...
"...Our nation's number one marksman."
Xia Qing had no interest in kicking the nation's number one marksman off his throne and taking his place. She just wanted to be an ordinary evolved human, living a quiet life farming in her territory.
After the alpha wolf broke into the wild boar breeding area, it never reappeared, and the breeding center remained relatively quiet. Xia Qing diligently patrolled the territory daily, using deodorizer to remove the sheep smell. After a few days, the alpha sheep gave up and stopped peering out from behind the fence and bleating. Every day, besides grazing, it stayed close to Xia Qing.
When Xia Qing was busy, the alpha sheep watched from a distance, or helped out while being flattered by Xia Qing.
When Xia Qing rested, the alpha sheep would gather around her to rest.
At this moment, Xia Qing was practicing shooting on the ground, and the alpha sheep lay beside her, chewing its food.
When the loud cry of an eagle echoed in the sky again, Xia Qing fired her second shot.
This time, the bullet missed the target by more than ten meters, hitting a nearby tree trunk. The tree shook, and a few yellow leaves fell.
There's a difference between aiming with the naked eye and aiming with a scope; missing was to be expected. Xia Qing stuffed the spent cartridge cases into her pocket, got up, hoisted her gun over, pried the bullet embedded in the tree trunk out, stuffed it into her pocket, and returned to her spot to continue aiming.
Under the blazing sun, Xia Qing remained motionless.
The sheep, having finished chewing its fill, slowly closed its half-closed eyes, its head gently sinking onto Xia Qing's back. This heavy burden made Xia Qing's lips curl into a high smile, but her grip on the gun remained unchanged.
In three hours, Xia Qing fired ten bullets, two hitting the target. Satisfied with her result, she called it a day, went home, and cooked dinner.