Tan Junjie stared at Xia Qing, as if looking at a disobedient soldier under his command. “Any evolved creature that appears outside the territory is not protected by the *Territory Law*.”
Even if they are wearing a collar.
“Yes, sir!” Xia Qing answered loudly, then asked in a lower voice, “Captain Tan, if I clear out that hillside, can it be counted as part of my territory?”
After the cataclysm, Hua Guo was vast but sparsely populated. No one wanted land crawling with evolved creatures.
Tan Junjie stared at Xia Qing in silence for a few seconds. “What is on that hillside?”
Xia Qing answered honestly, “There’s an edible Chinese toon tree. My sheep really likes to eat from it.”
Tan Junjie understood. Massaging his temples, he asked back, “How many wild boars did you catch in total?”
This…
Xia Qing hesitated. Knowing she couldn’t keep it a secret for long, she simply answered honestly, “Three. There’s still one in my territory.”
“Alive and edible?”
“…Yes.”
Tan Junjie fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Male or female?”
This time, Xia Qing felt embarrassed. “I didn’t notice. Once I confirm, I’ll send you a text message.”
Tan Junjie laid out his terms. “Exchange that little wild boar for the hillside and ‘your’ sheep.”
Xia Qing, who had planned to raise the little striped piglet to exchange for a massive amount of points, hesitated. She proposed her own condition, “Can I clear the hillside myself?”
Did she really treat that toon tree like a treasure? Looking at Xia Qing’s dark, flushed, and gaunt face, Tan Junjie promised, “It’s too dangerous for you alone. We will only clear out the harmful organisms and won’t touch anything else on that hillside.”
Xia Qing immediately beamed. “Deal! Thank you, Captain Tan!”
After Xia Qing left carrying her food, Tan Junjie pulled out his phone to report the situation to his superiors, then requested, “I apply to immediately lead a team into the evolution forest to catch wild boars… Yes, sir. I will ensure the mission is completed.”
***
Inside Territory No. 3, Xia Qing stood guard over a large pile of rice and flour sealed in one-jin bags, her mouth watering. Back in the safe zone, she couldn’t even bear to eat staple foods once a week, but now she suddenly had sixty jin!
She was going to treat herself to rice for dinner tonight, but before it got dark, she still had one major task to complete.
Xia Qing cut a piece of red cloth from some old clothing and sewed a collar. After crookedly stitching the words “Territory No. 3, Xia Qing” onto it, she entered the evolution forest once more.
Even if she couldn’t lead the evolved goat back to her territory today, she had to put the collar on it. Only then could she feel somewhat at ease.
This evolved sheep and that area of land were exchanged using a wild boar worth tens of thousands of points.
Xia Qing didn’t know if this sheep was edible. She didn’t want to eat it anyway; she wanted to keep it as labor. She also wanted to preserve that tree, which could continuously provide toon sprouts.
Arriving at the hillside, Xia Qing indeed saw the evolved sheep lying under the tree, half-squinting its eyes at her.
The human and the sheep stared at each other for a moment. Xia Qing proactively poured half a canteen of water into the broken clay pot, which had been licked clean by the sheep.
The evolved sheep squinted at her, motionless.
Xia Qing took three steps back, removed her protective mask, took a sip of water, shook the canteen, and began to lure the sheep. “Come back with me, and you can drink as much of this water as you want. You can even bathe in spring water. Look at you, you’re almost as dirty as a lump of coal. It must be really itchy, right?”
The evolved sheep ignored her, getting up to drink the water.
Xia Qing stealthily took a step closer. The evolved sheep didn’t react. She took another step. Just as she pulled out the collar, the evolved sheep suddenly leaped up to butt her. Xia Qing quickly dodged.
One human and one sheep—one chasing, one running—circled the great Chinese toon tree over a dozen times.
Feeling dizzy from the circles, Xia Qing climbed up the toon tree. The evolved sheep’s anger still hadn’t subsided, and it began to slam into the tree with loud thuds.
Xia Qing didn’t know if its large spiral horns hurt, but she herself was about to throw up from the shaking.
Not only did the sheep have a temper, but Xia Qing did too! She drew her machete, chopped off a branch with two swift strokes, and threw it down. The evolved sheep immediately stopped ramming the tree and turned to eat the toon sprouts on the tips of the branches.
Xia Qing jumped down from the tree, kicked over the clay pot the evolved sheep drank from, shouldered the branch, and ran. If she couldn’t put the collar on it, she would lure the sheep back.
Sure enough, the evolved sheep fell for it, chasing after Xia Qing to nibble on the toon sprouts.
One running, one chasing to nibble—once they ran out of the evolution forest, the sheep stopped.
To prevent evolved creatures from entering the buffer forest, the fifty-meter-wide isolation belt had been sprayed with a large amount of powder that evolved creatures hated. Naturally, the evolved sheep didn’t like the smell either.
However, this sheep was likely the same one that came to her territory to drink spring water. Under the double temptation of spring water and toon sprouts, she didn’t believe the sheep could resist.
After Xia Qing shouldered the branch and crossed the isolation belt into the buffer forest, the evolved sheep indeed leaped and bounded across the isolation belt, chasing after her.
Su Ming, a visual evolver who had just entered the northern isolation belt of Territory No. 4, rubbed his eyes in disbelief. “Captain Tan, Jin Ge, I just saw Sister Xia Qing shouldering a tree branch and leading a sheep out of the evolution forest into the Territory No. 3 buffer forest.”
Tan Junjie turned his head and looked meaningfully at Yang Jin beside him, who was dressed in a camouflage protective suit.
Yang Jin smiled at Tan Junjie, put on his protective mask, and ordered, “Move out.”
“Yes, sir!” More than twenty members of the Azure Dragon Team put on their masks at the same time and followed Yang Jin into the evolution forest.
Su Ming was a bit bewildered. He pulled his teammate, Cao Xianyun. “Did you see the way Brother Yang just looked at me? Why do I feel like he was weighing how many points my flesh is worth?”
“For once, your intuition is actually correct,” Cao Xianyun, a Level 4 hearing evolver, said as he put on his protective mask. “Since when did you get a sister?”
“Uh. Huh?”
Su Ming was even more confused. “No! It’s Xia Qing, from Territory No. 3. Didn’t we just meet her yesterday…”
Tan Junjie turned around and glared at him. “Check your gear, maintain formation, and move out.”
“Yes, sir!” Su Ming immediately stood at attention, shouted, and put on his protective mask.
Su Ming’s shout echoed all the way into the Territory No. 3 buffer forest. Xia Qing, who was snapping off toon sprouts to feed the sheep, turned her head and looked north.
“Thud!”
Seeing that Xia Qing had stopped moving, the evolved sheep turned and walked to the cave. It scraped away the stone blocking the cave entrance with its hoof, drank a few mouthfuls of water, and then walked back to lie down beside the branch, squinting its eyes as it ruminated.
This posture made it seem as if this entire forest was its territory.
Maybe it was. Perhaps before this hillside was cleared, it really was this sheep’s territory. Xia Qing took off her mask and smiled. “Right now, a large group of people much stronger than me are entering the evolution forest to catch wild boars. If you don’t want to die, stay here and don’t run around.”
The evolved sheep squinted its eyes, ignoring Xia Qing, and continued to ruminate.
Xia Qing gave up on the idea of putting a collar on it. She casually pinched a cluster of toon sprouts and tested them with the advanced detector she had just acquired, and she was shocked.
It showed a deep green indicating a Qiang element content of less than one-thousandth—a top-grade safe plant!
No wonder this sheep kept watch over that Chinese toon tree. Now, even Xia Qing wished she could move and live right under the tree. Exchanging a Green Light small wild boar for over a thousand mu of hillside, a top-grade safe plant, and an evolved sheep—although land wasn’t worth much now, a top-grade tree that could continuously grow leaves was incredibly valuable!
Even without counting the evolved sheep as a bonus, she had made a massive profit!
The evolved sheep, bringing its semi-digested food back into its mouth to chew again, saw Xia Qing smiling like a fool, its eyes squinting into mere slits.
Banxia Novel, so much happiness.