Xiaqing scratched her short hair in exasperation. "Sheep Leader, isn’t eating grass supposed to be your specialty?"
CLOP CLOP CLOP.
Hearing the Sheep Leader’s movements, Xiaqing turned and saw it heading straight for the chair she had just finished. She scrambled over and held it up. "Whoa, no! This really can’t take a hit from your hooves. It took me forever to make."
Seeing the Sheep Leader tilt its head up to stare at the bamboo chair without moving, Xiaqing suddenly got what it wanted. "You want one too? Sure, there’s plenty of bamboo. I’ll make one for you right now."
Xiaqing carried the bamboo chair to the tool room north of the kitchen and rummaged through her materials and tools.
From the outside, the small building appeared to have three rooms on each floor, but it actually had five. The rooms on the east and west ends were divided into northern and southern sections. Both northern rooms had rear windows, letting in a decent amount of light.
The southwest room on the first floor was the kitchen, and the northeast rooms on both the first and second floors were bathrooms. Xiaqing had turned the northwest room—the one north of the kitchen—into a tool room. It was filled with various tools she had brought from the Safe Zone and useful materials she had collected around her territory over the past few days.
Because she was planning to make new furniture, she had cut down a lot of bamboo.
Xiaqing brought out a few bamboo stalks. After a flurry of activity with a saw and drill, she made a legless, tatami-style bamboo plank bed for the Sheep Leader. She placed it where the sheep usually rested and sat on it to test it out. "This is for you. Lying on this won’t be cold or damp. Come on, Leader, give it a try."
The Sheep Leader seemed to understand it was for it. After squinting at the platform for a moment, it stepped on and lay down on the side farthest from Xiaqing.
Xiaqing wanted to get closer and pet the sheep, but she was afraid of provoking it and having it wreck the house. So, she went back to the tool room, brought out a large bundle of long, thin, semi-dried grass, and began weaving a seat cushion. After the Natural Disaster, daily necessities were scarce, forcing most people to learn how to make household items like this that didn’t require spending points.
Xiaqing quickly wove a round cushion and placed it on the bamboo platform. But when she went to get her book on sheep-rearing, she returned to find the Sheep Leader had already claimed the cushion.
It squinted, pressing its hoof onto the cushion as if daring her to object, ready to fight it out and see who was dominant.
Xiaqing...
"It’s such a small cushion. Don’t you find it uncomfortable?"
"Fine, I’ll make you one too."
Xiaqing put the book back, brought out two more bundles of grass, and quickly wove a crude straw mat. She spread it over the bamboo platform. As expected, the Sheep Leader occupied the straw mat and stopped trying to take her cushion.
Xiaqing sat on her cushion, listening to the rain and reading for a while until her stomach started to grumble. It was time for lunch. She hadn’t harvested anything today, so she couldn’t bring herself to eat her rice or flour. Instead, she took out two compressed rations and ate them with hot water.
After just two days of eating real food, the compressed rations already felt scratchy in her throat. Still, she didn’t waste a single bit, stuffing even the crumbs into her mouth. After forcing it all down with a few big gulps of warm spring water, she noticed the Sheep Leader had walked up to her and was sniffing the air.
It stood there, its head higher than Xiaqing’s as she sat on her small bamboo chair. Not wanting to be looked down upon by a sheep, Xiaqing pulled her chair back a little. "Are you full too?"
The Sheep Leader sniffed the air again, its head moving closer to Xiaqing’s hand.
Xiaqing chuckled. "You like the smell of compressed rations?"
It made sense when she thought about it. The Natural Disaster had caused Blue Star’s entire agricultural system to collapse. Now, humans processed any edible organism—be it leaves or roots—into food. Compressed rations were mostly made of plant roots, stems, and leaves, with the addition of some salt essential for humans. Of course a sheep would like that.
Xiaqing went to the kitchen and chopped up a handful of Evolved Perilla. Then she opened a sealed compressed ration, crumbled it, and mixed it into the grass before offering it to the Sheep Leader. "Here, eat up. It’s your special feed."
The Sheep Leader lowered its head, sniffed, and then, sure enough, began to eat with big mouthfuls.
Watching it eat so heartily, a brilliant idea suddenly popped into Xiaqing’s head. "If you’re going to eat my rations, you’re going to have to work for me. When the weather clears up, you can pull the plow."
After licking its food bowl clean, the Sheep Leader ran to the sheep pen for a few sips of water. Then it came back and lay down on the straw mat, the distance between it and Xiaqing a tiny bit smaller than before it ate the rations.
Xiaqing found the platform quite comfortable, so she simply rolled over and continued reading about how to raise sheep. After flipping through the whole book, Xiaqing turned her head and saw that the Sheep Leader had already closed its eyes and fallen asleep.
Her hand was itching to pet the sheep, but the moment her outstretched hand touched its wool, the Sheep Leader leaped up, startling Xiaqing. The human and the sheep stared at each other for a moment. Xiaqing decided not to argue with a sheep and yielded first. "The rain’s stopped. Want to go take a look outside?"
After speaking, Xiaqing put on her Protective Suit and went outside. She found that the grass in the yard had only grown to her ankles; its growth rate was significantly slower than the previous night. This was because the Harmful Element content in this morning’s rain was lower than last night’s.
This was a good thing.
Xiaqing went to the west yard to check on her transplanted ginger and garlic. Afraid that some of the grass might have thorns, be poisonous, or have evolved animal-like traits that could entangle or bite her, she cleared away the annoying weeds as she walked. The short distance of just a few dozen steps ended up taking her more than ten minutes.
Although they hadn’t been directly watered by the rain, the surge of Harmful Elements in the air during last night’s red-level Harmful Rain could also trigger Qiang Evolution in organisms. Xiaqing pulled back the rainproof cloth and, sure enough, discovered that one ginger plant and two garlic plants had undergone Qiang Evolution. They had not only shot up in height, but the color and shape of their leaves had changed as well. Xiaqing pulled out the Qiang Evolved seedlings. She wasn’t disappointed; on the contrary, she was thrilled that most of her ginger and garlic had actually survived two rounds of Harmful Rain.
After covering them with the rainproof cloth again, she took the opportunity to clear out the Qiang Evolution grass in the west yard, not giving them a chance to evolve any dangerous offensive abilities. But before she could finish, the rain started up again, forcing Xiaqing to return home and hole up once more.
The rain fell intermittently for three days. There was one red-level rain, the most dangerous; two Orange Level ones; one yellow-level; and the rest were blue-level. After three days of Harmful Rain, Xiaqing’s territory was completely covered in plants. The best-looking areas were the yard and paths she had repeatedly cleared, where the grass only reached her calves. In the untouched areas, the grass had grown over two meters tall, completely submerging her.
When the sun came out, the concentration of Harmful Elements in the air decreased while the concentration of Yi Elements rose. Correspondingly, the growth of Qiang Evolution creatures slowed, while conditions became favorable for the growth and activity of Yi Evolution creatures.
Bathed in the warm sunlight, Xiaqing patted the sole spot of white amidst the endless, multicolored Qiang Evolved plants—the Sheep Leader. Her spirits lifted. "Alright, Leader, let’s get to work."
Using compressed rations as bait, Xiaqing was finally able to touch the sheep’s wool. This was the thing that made her happiest during the three days of Harmful Rain. "Let’s go! First, we’ll clear a path. We need to fetch water and get some Perilla and Asparagus Chrysanthemum."
’Mushrooms after the rain? I’m not ready to be poisoned to death just yet.’
The Sheep Leader clearly had no interest in putting its dry hooves into the damp, soft grass, and stood motionless under the eaves. Xiaqing, dressed in her Protective Suit, didn’t try to force it—not that she had the ability to. "When I have enough points, I’ll trade for a Protective Suit made for an evolved dog for you to wear. When I’m even richer, I’ll get you a custom-made sheep version."
Xiaqing shouldered her sprayer, tucked a sickle and a machete into her belt, and set off.
She had already cleared the yard six or seven times, so it was relatively safe, but things were uncertain beyond it. With her vision blocked by the tall grass, Xiaqing relied entirely on her evolved, outstanding hearing to detect the faintest movements within a two-hundred-meter radius. She was spraying Insect Repellent and pulling weeds when, before she had even left the village, she received a call from Zhong Tao.
Once the call connected, before Xiaqing could even hear Zhong Tao speak, a sharp, crying wail came through the line.
Xiaqing was all too familiar with that voice. It belonged to Feng Wen, her roommate for over four years.
For Feng Wen to be crying like that, it was highly likely that her brother, Feng Teng, was in trouble.