Bartering is the primary method of material circulation after currency became obsolete. Tan Junjie didn't refuse this time, "What do you want to exchange?"
Xia Qing tentatively asked, "Do you have red sweet potato seeds?"
Tan Junjie nodded, "Huzi, calculate it."
"Yes."
The young team member named Huzi immediately took out a detector and a scale, tested and weighed the captured animals, and then quickly gave the points: "Five red light snakes weigh five catties, 100 points; one Evolved red light snake weighs four catties, 120 points; one yellow light snake weighs one and a half catties, 75 points; two medicinal Evolved poisonous centipedes weigh six catties, 300 points, for a total of 595 points."
The Reconnaissance Team used an advanced detector, which was much better than Xia Qing's ordinary detector. The advanced detector was also only palm-sized; it could not only distinguish between edible and non-edible organisms but also display the content of harmful substances, showing safe food with a green light and optional food with a yellow light.
Tan Junjie asked Xia Qing, who was staring at the detector, "The red sweet potatoes from the army are safe food. These points can be exchanged for two red sweet potatoes or six red sweet potato seedlings. Which do you choose?"
One hundred points for one safe red sweet potato seedling, it was expensive, but it was worth the price. Xia Qing had never propagated red sweet potatoes before, so she chose the safer method, "I choose the red sweet potato seedlings. Tan Team, if I hunt more animals, can I still exchange them for red sweet potato seedlings with you?"
Tan Junjie nodded and warned, "Do not enter the area beyond the isolation belt."
"Yes!" Xia Qing responded loudly, clearly not taking it to heart.
"Captain, the lord of No. 4 Territory has been notified, we can enter." The team member who went to notify the lord of No. 4 Territory ran back and reported to Tan Junjie.
After Tan Junjie led the team east into the No. 4 Buffer Forest, Xia Qing walked south along the narrow valley that separated the two Buffer Forests, which was also the boundary between the two territories.
Not long after, she heard Su Ming quietly ask, "Captain, it's so hard for Xia Qing to farm alone, let's give her a few more red sweet potato sprouts."
Tan Junjie retorted, "Exchange with your points?"
Then, no sound could be heard.
Xia Qing smiled, walked out of the Buffer Forest along the valley, took off her protective mask, and headed straight for the four mu of land she had just tilled.
With six more red sweet potato seedlings, she had to till another half a mu of land!
Six red sweet potato seedlings wouldn't take up much space, but after catching that sheep, she would get many more red sweet potato seedlings in exchange. Even if she couldn't catch the sheep, once the six red sweet potato seedlings took root and grew vines, she could use red sweet potato cuttings to create a red sweet potato field.
The more Xia Qing thought about it, the more energized she became. She tilled one mu of land in one go before stopping to go home for dinner. She didn't hear any loud movements from No. 4 Territory while in the field, which meant the Reconnaissance Team hadn't found any sheep in the No. 4 Buffer Forest, so she still had hope.
After a simple lunch at home, Xia Qing, like a tireless top, went to tidy up the two abandoned courtyards to the West.
The bones were collected, dug into a pit, and buried. The weeds were burned for potash fertilizer, and anything still usable was put into the East neighbor's warehouse, with construction waste piled up.
This way, she had two vegetable gardens very close to home.
After tidying up, Xia Qing went home and luxuriously took a water bath, then washed her clothes with filtered water and hung them to dry, before changing into her protective suit and going to the back mountain to fetch water.
Because the Reconnaissance Team had Hearing Evolution people, Xia Qing was afraid he would hear the sound of water, so she deliberately avoided that part of the forest near the mountain spring.
She didn't want anyone to know about the drinking spring within her territory, so she was very careful every time she fetched water, hiding the water bucket in her backpack.
Upon reaching the mountain, Xia Qing regretfully found that the stone slab was still blocking the cave entrance, and the sheep and Weasel had not come to drink water again. After filling her water and returning home, Xia Qing cooked dinner while listening to the 7 PM broadcast.
The 7 PM broadcast, as usual, first relayed inspiring news from various parts of China, followed by news and announcements from Hui Three Base, which Xia Qing listened to carefully.
The announcement mentioned that the temperature would rise by eight degrees in the next three days, followed by the first heavy rainfall of the year. After the rain, it would be suitable for planting spring wheat, so everyone should seize the time and not miss the planting season.
She had tilled her land too early.
Xia Qing, already lying in bed, smiled indifferently, deciding to till another piece of land for wheat after the rain. The land she had already tilled would not be wasted; it would be planted sooner or later.
Xia Qing planned to explore the Evolution Forest north of Third Land during these three days before the rain.
Last winter, Hui Three Base pushed the isolation belt outside the Safe Zone out by seventy kilometers. No one had entered the Evolution Forest beyond this range since the natural disaster.
The Evolution Forest, untouched by humans, was full of danger but also temptation. Xia Qing was currently short on food and most susceptible to temptation.
The Buffer Forest and village within her territory had already been thoroughly investigated by humans; all animals had been exterminated, and plants had been screened and inspected, so there would likely be no more surprising discoveries.
No sooner said than done.
Early the next morning, Xia Qing gathered her equipment, passed through the Buffer Forest and the isolation belt, and entered the dense Evolution Forest.
After the natural disaster, the seasonal temperature difference on Blue Star had increased by at least fifteen degrees, but the cold resistance of Evolved plants had also improved, and by mid-February, everything was already green. However, most animals still maintained their original habits, hibernating and recuperating in winter. They would come out to activity and reproduce when the temperature rose and water was abundant.
These three days were much safer than later.
But Xia Qing still had her vision and Hearing Evolution fully engaged, holding her machete and cautiously exploring inward.
She discovered that this Evolution Forest was also within human activity range before the natural disaster. Because there were terraced fields on the hillside, and collapsed houses on the flat, open mountaintop.
In such areas, the possibility of finding edible plants was higher than in wild forests that humans had never cultivated. Eighty percent of the safe food found by the exploration team was probably discovered in such areas.
An hour and a half later, Xia Qing had a harvest.
She found a few small green sprouts, finger-high, that showed a green light on the detector. Xia Qing carefully pulled away the soil around the sprouts, and her eyes lit up.
Ginger!
A sprouted piece of ginger!
Take it!
Because Evolved plants might undergo mutations when leaving their original growing environment, Xia Qing dug out the soil where the ginger grew along with it, wrapped it up, and put it in her basket, trying to ensure its growing environment remained unchanged as much as possible.
After climbing three more terraced fields, catching two snakes, scaring away a group of rats and squirrels, and crushing several insects that tried to bite her, Xia Qing finally had her second harvest.
A clump of garlic sprouts that showed a green light.
Scallions, ginger, and garlic are essential for cooking; now only one was missing. But for the next hour, Xia Qing searched from the terraced fields to the collapsed courtyard, and still didn't find a single scallion seedling.
Could it be that the scallions hadn't sprouted yet?
Xia Qing continued to explore and found a tall chun cai tree outside the collapsed courtyard wall, and she initially determined it to be an edible plant.
Because the buds on the chun cai sprouts growing around the chun cai tree had been gnawed off by some animal.
Xia Qing carefully checked the tree for hidden snakes and insects, then climbed up and picked a cluster of dark red chun cai buds, squeezed the juice into the detector's port, and after more than ten seconds, it indeed lit up green.
Such a large edible chun cai tree!
What a continuous surprise. Xia Qing smiled brightly. It had only been five days since she entered her territory, and she had smiled more times than in the past six months.
She had just picked a few clusters of chun cai buds when she heard the sound of large animal activity about thirty meters away.
It was too late to escape. Xia Qing leaned against the tree trunk, holding her breath and observing.
The sound came closer and closer. A dirty white-haired fat sheep walked out from the green grass.
This sheep was very large; it should be an Evolved Sheep. Xia Qing looked at its hooves and was eighty percent sure that this was the same one that had come to her territory, pushed aside the stone, and drank water.
So, the sheep she had waited for at the cave but didn't come, had run to the tree to find her?
Xia Qing gripped her machete, preparing to attack (ambush).
The sheep that walked out raised its head and accurately looked at Xia Qing, who was hiding in the tree. Its sheep eyes narrowed slightly.
Xia Qing actually saw blatant contempt in a sheep's eyes.
Damn it!
Could it be that this sheep was the rarest Brain Domain Evolver among Evolved creatures?