After petting it to her heart’s content, Xia Qing sprayed disinfectant over the gaps in the doors and windows, as well as the drains in the bathroom and kitchen, sealing them tightly. Then, she laid out her sleeping bag on the other side of the fire, preparing to sleep.
The soothing capsules lasted for ten hours in ordinary humans, but in a weakened evolved sheep, they would probably last six hours at most. Xia Qing was worried that once the medicine wore off, the sheep might smash a few big holes in her house, so she didn’t feel safe leaving it unsupervised.
As Xia Qing drifted off to sleep, the fire gradually dimmed from bright to dark. Across from her, Boss Sheep opened its eyes. Its limbs twitched slightly, and it stood up, shaking its fluffy, curly wool before taking two steps back to distance itself from the fire.
Xia Qing opened her eyes instantly. She scrambled out of her sleeping bag, stood up, and stared at Boss Sheep.
“Baa.”
Although Boss Sheep’s bleat was weak and feeble, it sounded like a normal sheep now. Xia Qing let out a sigh of relief. “Want to go out?”
Boss Sheep squinted and tilted its head up, sniffing the air. Then, its hooves clattered against the floor tiles as it trotted off to the kitchen to eat.
Great, the vegetables she had prepared for herself were now a cheap treat for Boss Sheep. Xia Qing followed it, leaning against the doorframe as she let out a lazy yawn. “Go back to your shed once you’re full.”
Boss Sheep finished off the vegetables in the basket, then trotted back to choose a spot slightly further from the fire. It lay down and squinted, motionless.
Seeing that it had no intention of starting a fight, Xia Qing agreed. “You can sleep here tonight, but if you dare to poop or pee in the house, I’ll slaughter you for meat.”
Boss Sheep kept its eyes squinted and remained still.
“Having gone berserk once, your meat probably isn’t even edible anymore. And you even had this lady give you a bath and deworm you. Talk about a blessing in disguise.” Xia Qing yawned and slowly closed her eyes.
After lying on its side for a while, Boss Sheep changed its posture.
Hearing the movement, Xia Qing immediately opened her eyes. She saw it stretching its two front legs forward, slowly lowering its head and neck to rest on them. Not counting the weight of its head, those two large horns alone must weigh at least ten jin. Wasn’t it worried about its long, thin legs going numb? Xia Qing smiled silently and closed her eyes to sleep.
Boss Sheep stared at Xia Qing for a while, then at the fire, before finally closing its eyes after a long time.
The person and the sheep slept until dawn, with Boss Sheep waking first. As soon as it stood up, Xia Qing, alerted by the sound, woke up immediately. She got up and opened the door to let it out.
After relieving itself in the courtyard, Boss Sheep turned and went to eat the evolved perilla Xia Qing had placed on the rack in the sheep pen.
The weeds in the courtyard had grown wildly overnight, now reaching higher than Xia Qing’s calves. However, judging by Boss Sheep’s reaction, there didn’t seem to be any danger in the yard.
Xia Qing made herself two fragrant Chinese toon cornmeal pancakes for breakfast, and they tasted incredibly delicious.
After finishing the pancakes, she thought about Boss Sheep, who looked plump but was actually just a bony frame with barely any meat. She pulled out her treasured book on sheep farming. Comparing the illustrations and descriptions in the book, Xia Qing confirmed that Boss Sheep was a Small-tail Han sheep. As she carefully read through the habits of the breed, she couldn’t help but laugh.
Most of the book was dedicated to how delicious the meat of the Small-tail Han sheep was, how fast they reproduced, and how high the quality of their fleece was, only briefly mentioning at the very end that this breed of sheep had extremely strong environmental adaptability.
It was indeed very strong; otherwise, Boss Sheep wouldn’t have survived ten years of the apocalypse, with its height and weight exceeding those of an adult ram in the book by 1.5 times.
After evolution, many creatures grew larger in size, and humans were no exception.
During the great biological evolution of Blue Star, the age of twenty-five served as the dividing line for human evolutionary characteristics. Those over twenty-five showed no obvious changes in body size after evolving, but those under twenty-five would grow significantly larger. When Xia Qing evolved at sixteen, she was only 1.61 meters tall. Now, at twenty-five, she had already grown to 1.77 meters, and she had a strange feeling she might still grow taller.
According to the broadcasts, human evolution not only increased height but also extended lifespan. Of course, that was just research data. Under the harsh conditions of natural disasters, how many people could actually live until they died of old age?
“Concentrated feed?” Xia Qing flipped to the page on feeding Small-tail Han sheep and found that several concentrated feed formulas included corn and salt. “Do sheep need to eat salt, too?”
Xia Qing’s gaze turned to her grain chest. She had cornmeal, but…
…she couldn’t bear to part with it…
She would worry about that later, once her living conditions improved.
Xia Qing then flipped to the section on several types of pasture grass with high nutritional value for sheep, memorizing their names and appearances.
After finishing her meal, Xia Qing put on her protective suit and weeded the entire courtyard. Weeds that grew wildly during the Qiang Rain had to be pulled out by the roots and burned; otherwise, their root systems would keep growing and ruin the environment.
After destroying another highly destructive nest of evolved ants, it began to rain again. Xia Qing used half a basin of purified water kept under the eaves to rinse the mud off her one-piece protective suit. Just as she was about to open the door and head inside, Boss Sheep trotted over.
Xia Qing stood still, staring at its dirty hooves.
Only when Boss Sheep began to impatiently scrape the ground with its front hooves did Xia Qing sigh and open the door to let it in. What else could she do? If she didn’t, they’d end up in another fight and get covered in mud all over again.
She didn’t want to waste the energy. Besides, Boss Sheep didn’t relieve itself everywhere and didn’t have any strange odor, so letting it inside wasn’t a big deal.
Seeing Boss Sheep go inside and lie down by the extinguished fire to ruminate with squinted eyes, Xia Qing sprayed some insect repellent, closed the door tightly, and took off her protective suit and protective mask, hanging them on the homemade coat rack by the door.
Turning around, she found Boss Sheep staring at her protective suit while chewing the grass it had regurgitated from its stomach, looking as if it wanted to take a bite and taste it. Xia Qing immediately glared at it threateningly. “What are you looking at? You absolutely cannot bite this, or this lady will stew you.”
Boss Sheep squinted, continuing to stare and ruminate.
Xia Qing took a broom to sweep away the wood ash on the stone slab, then piled up some dry firewood and lit it. The main purpose of lighting a fire indoors wasn’t for warmth, but to use the smoke to drive out the dampness and repel evolved insects.
Once the fire was lit, Xia Qing noticed that Boss Sheep was still staring at the protective suit while working the grass in its mouth. As she poked at the fire, she grumbled, “Don’t look down on this protective suit just because it has several patches. It’s worth 1,500 points and is the best protective suit I could buy in the safe zone. Without this skin, I’d have died countless times already. Boss, can you even understand what I’m saying?”
“Of course you can’t. Even though your ancestors were domesticated, you’re pure wild. You’ve barely seen any humans, so how could you understand human language? How old are you anyway?” Xia Qing warmed her hands by the rising flames, continuing to ramble. “It’s a pity we don’t have sweet potatoes, chestnuts, or peanuts, otherwise we could roast them and eat.”
Since her dad died, Xia Qing rarely talked nonsense. But listening to the rain outside today and keeping watch over a fire with Boss Sheep, she suddenly felt a strong desire to pour her heart out. “Have you ever seen sweet potatoes in the evolution forest? They’re delicious.”
Boss Sheep squinted at the dancing flames. Although it didn’t dare to get too close, it didn’t seem particularly afraid of the fire.
Once she was warmed up, Xia Qing fetched the half-finished chair from the tool room and got back to work. Although this rain didn’t contain much Qiang element and hadn’t made her as irritable as yesterday, she might as well keep busy.
Once the chair was finished, Xia Qing sat on it to test it out. It was very sturdy and excellent. She finally had her first decent piece of furniture.
Seeing Boss Sheep staring at her chair again, Xia Qing said cheerfully, “How is it? Not bad, right? I learned how to make this from a carpenter in the construction team when I was in the safe zone. Not a single nail was used.”
Xia Qing stood up and went to the window to check the courtyard, unable to help but curse, “I just pulled them, and they’ve already grown back!”
Banxia Novel, lots of joy.