Sitting on the ground, Xia Qing softly asked the irritable eldest sheep, who was pawing at the pumpkin vine between her and the vine, "Boss, we can't touch this pumpkin vine, right?"
"Baa," the eldest sheep bleated, trying to push Xia Qing back, clearly wary of this seemingly harmless, evolution-damaging pumpkin vine.
Xia Qing stood up and took two steps back, following the eldest sheep's strong movements. She stroked the sheep's spiral horns and praised, "Boss, you're amazing! You spotted the problem with the pumpkin vine right away. If it weren't for you, I would have been caught in the trap today. Our family would be ruined without you."
The eldest sheep, pleased with the praise, visibly improved, its eyes narrowing. It stood tall and puffed out its chest, gesturing for Xia Qing to continue praising it.
While praising the sheep, Xia Qing followed the pumpkin vine, its leaves gradually spreading outwards, and located the root of the vine. She picked up a shovel and gestured as if to dig, but only began after the eldest sheep didn't object.
Reaching the root, Xia Qing discovered the pumpkin vine's evolved ability: it had developed a sticky substance, its roots clinging to the shovel and impossible to shake off.
No wonder Boss Yang wouldn't let her touch it; if this stuff stuck to her protective suit, aside from the potential for corrosion, she'd definitely turn green.
Luckily, she had coiled the pumpkin vines one by one; otherwise, the normal vines would have been stuck and ruined.
Xia Qing used the shovel to roll the pumpkin vines, roots and all, into a ball and forked it out from under the rain shelter, planting it root-up to prevent it from touching the soil and continuing to grow.
She did the same to the other evolved pumpkin.
Then, Xia Qing pressed the button on the walkie-talkie to share the message with the other lords: "Three potato plants have evolved in Territory Three, releasing C-level poison gas upon flowering; two pumpkin plants have evolved and become highly sticky, able to adhere to shovels and sticks. Please be careful."
Qi Fu immediately replied, "Received. An evolved eggplant has appeared in Territory Six; its sharp thorns can pierce protective suits. Please be careful."
Zhao Ze's voice was trembling with tears, "Two of my workers are injured, and we're short-handed. We can only guard the field with the rain shelter. Can you send someone to help me?"
No one responded. Everyone was preoccupied with their own survival in the rain; no one had the mind to help others.
Zhang San's voice rang out in the lord's channel, "Keep all the sticky pumpkin vines for me, I'll trade them for resources."
Xia Qing pressed the button, "Received, they've all rolled up and stuck in the farmland with sticks, still alive."
Kuang Qingwei asked the price, "Third Brother, how much for the evolved pumpkin vines?"
Zhang San replied, "Fifty points per vine."
Two vines would be a hundred points, enough to buy five new shovels, finally salvaging some of the losses.
Xia Qing felt a little better. After leaving the sweet potato rain shelter, she opened her umbrella to shield herself and Sheep Boss, carefully observing the buffer zone.
After confirming that no large trees had undergone evolved evolution, Xia Qing led Sheep Boss, trudging through the overgrown weeds, towards the hillside.
More than an hour had passed since the last patrol; the vegetable seedlings in the garden were more important than clearing the overgrown weeds.
Between the hillside and the farmland of Territory Three was a river flowing east to west. The wider sections of the river had been modified and widened into a long, narrow reservoir. The narrowest part of the river was only a little over three meters wide. Xia Qing built a stone bridge over this section, one meter above the water.
Crossing the river in the pouring rain was extremely dangerous. The stone bridge had to be higher than the water so that Xia Qing could maintain control should any aquatic creatures leap out to attack.
After more than four hours of rain, the river level had risen slightly, but the water level was still eighty centimeters below the stone bridge surface, making it safe to cross.
Cautiously, Xia Qing picked up a fist-sized stone and threw it to the opposite bank. After confirming that no aquatic creatures would jump up to attack, he led the sheep onto the stone bridge.
However, as the two reached the middle of the bridge, two red shadows suddenly leaped out of the water and attacked the sheep!
No matter how fast the aquatic creatures attacked, they couldn't escape the sight of Xia Qing, a human with nine times the visual enhancement. "Boss, run across!"
As he gave the command, Xia Qing used his umbrella to shield the two red shadows.
With two loud thuds, the attacking aquatic creatures crashed into the metal umbrella and were slapped ashore by Xia Qing with her machete. "Boss, harvest!"
The sheep leader rushed forward and kicked the two creatures, which were trying to jump back into the water, even further away from the surface. Xia Qing then rushed forward and smashed their heads flat with two more blows, quickly stuffing them into a bag and sealing it.
They were actually two 30-centimeter-long fish! Damn it, no matter why there were such big fish in the river, she was rich!
After stuffing the bag of fish into her backpack, Xia Qing patted the sheep leader's spiral horn forcefully and praised her softly, "Boss, you're the sheep standing at the top of the Blue Star pyramid, the sheep that ushered in a new era in the history of evolved sheep! We've got fish to eat!"
The sheep leader, who didn't eat fish, remained expressionless.
The forest in the rainstorm was several times more dangerous than usual; entering the buffer forest during a red-level rainstorm was tantamount to suicide.
Xia Qing had already cleared the trees within a 20-meter radius of the planting areas, so although these two planting areas were on a hillside, they were no longer considered part of the forest, and there were few dangerous, aggressive, or evolutionary animals hiding there.
The rain shelters on the higher slopes, from the large ailanthus trees to the evolved perilla, were approximately five meters wide and 120 meters long, comprising twelve terraces with a steeper slope. The rain shelters on the lower slopes, from the spring down to the spinach fields, were also approximately five meters wide and 130 meters long, comprising thirteen terraces with a gentler slope.
To save materials and improve the drainage capacity of the drainage ditches, Xia Qing didn't build a separate rain shelter for each terrace. Instead, she built a complete rain shelter for each planting area, covering all dozen or so terraces from top to bottom.
Because the planting areas weren't perfectly straight, the quality of the construction required even higher standards. Fortunately, Xia Qing was an expert at building rain shelters, and this was no problem for her.
Standing at the foot of the hill and looking up, the two rain shelters looked like two long white worms crawling on the slope. To outsiders, it might seem eerie, but to Xia Qing, it brought a great sense of accomplishment and security.
These white rain shelters protected her vegetables from the rain.
Xia Qing, with Yang Laoda in tow, first entered the lower slope's rain shelters, starting her inspection with the spinach in the lowest terraced field.
Spinach, peppers, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers—not a single one showed signs of damage. Xia Qing focused particularly on the eggplants, which also didn't exhibit the thorny growth that Qi Fu had mentioned.
Continuing upwards, into the field of one hundred sweet potato vine cuttings, Xia Qing discovered that ten vines near the sides of the rain shelters had grown over a meter long, sprouting more than a dozen leaves.
The sweet potato cuttings had undergone damage in the red rain.
Xia Qing dug out the sweet potato vines and found that the section of vine, planted only two days prior, had grown a dense root system over thirty centimeters long, leaning towards the side outside the shed where it had been buried.
The soil here had been dampened by the rain outside the shed; her terraced drainage system wasn't good enough and needed improvement.
After removing the damaged sweet potato vines, Xia Qing continued upwards, past two grapevines and a spring, before leading Yang Laoda out of the first vegetable rain shelter and through the isolation zone into the second.
Upon entering the second rain shelter, Yang Laoda stopped. Because the evolved perilla had also been brought into the high-slope vegetable rain shelter by Xia Qing, Yang Laoda wanted to eat it.