When Xia Qing came here with the battle team to clear the territory two months ago, she had already mapped out this entire area. Territory No. 3 covered a total of 5,580 mu, making it the third largest among the two hundred territories that had already been cleared.
To thoroughly eradicate evolved pests and harmful organisms, the arable land within the territory had been cleared and burned once, and the three desolate villages within the territory had also been sprayed twice with high-strength insecticides and insect repellents.
Xia Qing had participated in the entire disinfection and pest control process of the villages. So, even though dusk had fallen and she was completely alone within these thousands of mu, she felt no fear of being attacked by evolved creatures as she walked into the desolate village, where the weeds grew taller than a person.
This was because there were no longer any large, aggressive creatures left here.
Pushing her way through the shoulder-high wild grass, she entered the most well-preserved, self-built two-story house in the desolate village. Xia Qing placed her bag in the first-floor living room, went outside to gather a few dry logs, closed the door, and lit a campfire before finally beginning to inspect the supplies she had collected from the hall.
First was a Primary Purification Filter Cartridge, which could purify 200 liters of low-degree polluted freshwater. The water in the reservoir was low-degree polluted, which was one of the reasons Xia Qing favored this location.
Next, thirty jin of compressed rations. Although her appetite had grown after her evolution, if she rationed them carefully, they would last her for four months.
There were also six jin each of evolved wheat, mung beans, cotton, and small potatoes, along with a packet of seeds each for evolved pumpkin, cucumber, tomato, and eggplant. If she could successfully grow these seeds, Xia Qing would have grain to cook in four months, and the vegetables would harvest even sooner.
To Xia Qing’s regret, she had not received any evolved sweet potatoes. When she had gone on a mission with the Azure Dragon Team last year, she had been given a small piece of evolved sweet potato, and its wonderful taste was something she could still remember vividly.
Since the rations and seeds were distributed in pre-packaged bags, Xia Qing could not be sure if all territory owners received the same varieties of seeds. She would have to find a way to make inquiries. If they were different, they could trade with each other to grow a wider variety of crops.
After putting the seeds away, Xia Qing took out the old mobile phone she had just received. Upon turning it on, she noticed two green vertical lines on the screen, which was also flickering. This was perfectly normal. For a phone that could still power on and be used in the tenth year of the apocalypse, it was a good phone regardless of its flaws.
On the phone’s home screen was a Word document titled “Planting Encyclopedia,” which used both text and illustrations to introduce over thirty types of safe and optional crops, with sweet potatoes being one of them.
Xia Qing did not have the time to look through it carefully right now. She set the phone aside and pulled out the small radio—which was likewise in “fairly good” condition—provided by the base to territory owners.
After the natural disasters collapsed the vast and highly efficient modern communication systems built by humanity, using simple radio stations and receivers to send and receive information had become the primary method of long-distance communication.
Currently, signal coverage had been restored within the Safety Zone of Hui San Base, but the communication quality was far below pre-disaster levels. Within the Safety Zone, mobile phones could only be used for calls, text messages, and the Hui San Base Mission Platform App. Outside the Safety Zone, the signal towers had not yet been repaired, so there was no mobile signal in Xia Qing’s territory; the phone could only be used as an e-reader and a clock.
After placing the base-issued phone and radio together with her own active phone, Xia Qing pulled out her land use right certificate. As she carefully read the text on the back of the certificate, her eyes gradually lit up.
The broadcast had repeatedly claimed that the rights and interests of territory owners would be protected, but it had never mentioned any specific protective measures.
During the natural disasters, the attacks on humanity by evolved flora and fauna in nature were indeed terrifying, but what brought even greater despair was the slaughter, plunder, and bullying by one’s own kind.
Of the population that died after surviving the first three years of the natural disasters, at least thirty percent had been killed by other humans.
Xia Qing’s father had been “accidentally killed” by a high-level evolved human when fierce beasts attacked the Safety Zone.
Xia Qing had witnessed that scene with her own eyes, but because she lacked the strength, she still had not been able to avenge her father.
In these times of severe food and supply shortages, territory owners who left the control of the Safety Zone, holding grain while being weak and isolated, would naturally become prime targets in the eyes of many.
A territory owner without sufficient strength would, at best, have their hard-earned crops plundered, and at worst, lose their life. This was the main reason why many people still did not dare to leave the Safety Zone to farm, even though they knew that high-level evolved beasts had been driven hundreds of miles away.
To give territory owners peace of mind while farming, the base had made each territory very large to create distance between owners. In addition to promising 24-hour continuous military patrols, they had also granted territory owners a crucial right:
All resources within the boundaries marked on the land use right certificate belonged to the territory owner. Anyone trespassing on the territory without the owner’s permission would be guilty of unlawful intrusion and severely punished according to the law. Furthermore, any action taken to stop an ongoing unlawful infringement in order to protect the owner’s person, property, or other rights—even if it resulted in injury or death to the infringer—would be deemed justifiable self-defense.
Simply put: killing trespassers was not a crime!
Wasn’t this the perfect opportunity to avenge her father?
Xia Qing picked up a branch as thick as her thigh, snapped it effortlessly, and threw it into the fire. She stretched lazily and dragged over her colossally large canvas bag.
This canvas bag, weighing two hundred jin, held all of Xia Qing’s worldly possessions: a set of bedding, a sleeping bag, a packet of simple kitchen utensils and seasonings, a large bag of woodworking and electrical tools, two large bags of building materials, six knives, a small radio she had used for years, a powerful slingshot, and one hundred and fifty books.
These books covered subjects like gardening, planting, breeding, woodworking, electrical work, and house renovation—all skills necessary for surviving in the territory.
After her mother passed away, planning and preparing for a new life after the natural disasters had been the favorite pastime of Xia Qing and her father during their rare moments of rest. After her father’s death, this preparation had become her primary motivation to keep living.
In the tenth year of the natural disasters, she had finally stepped out of the Safety Zone to begin her new life.
Xia Qing placed the books one by one into waterproof, moisture-resistant storage bags, then opened her clothing bag to retrieve a mobile phone hidden inside.
The phone issued to territory owners by the base could not connect to the outside world from within the territory, but her phone could.
In a strict sense, this device was called a “satellite communication terminal,” a graduation gift given to her by her parents the year the natural disasters began.
After the only global satellite communication system, belonging to Hua Guo, resumed operation in the third year of the natural disasters, satellite communication terminals became highly sought-after resources. In the Hui San Safety Zone, some had used satellite phones to trade for life-saving food and medicine, while many others had lost their lives because of them.
After her father was killed, Xia Qing had no choice but to move into the evolver dormitory and share a room with strangers. She had hidden this phone away ever since, only powering it on under absolutely safe conditions to look at old videos and photos, or to receive public satellite text messages broadcast by the nation and the Hui Yi Base Headquarters to stay updated on news beyond the radio broadcasts.
Now that she was in her own territory, Xia Qing could use her phone without worry. The last time she had powered it on was on New Year’s Eve, exactly sixteen days ago.
Upon turning it on and connecting to the communication satellite, the phone quickly received over a hundred disaster warnings, news updates, and announcements.
Xia Qing read through them one by one. Just like before, most of the information mentioned in the texts and short messages had already been acquired via the radio, with only one exception.
A strange number had sent her a text message fifteen days ago, on the morning of New Year’s Day. Both this unfamiliar number and the contents of the message were already deeply engraved in her mind.
Because on that very day, exactly three minutes before this message was received, the mobile phone she used within the Safety Zone had also received a text message with the exact same content from the very same phone number.
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Dear readers, the author would like to explain the naming conventions for organisms in this book: (Since it hasn’t been officially launched on the VIP platform yet, I’m putting this directly in the main text)
Biological evolution on Blue Star is divided into two categories: normal-level evolution and above-normal-level evolution. For the sake of reading convenience, when organism names are mentioned hereafter, those with normal-level evolution will simply use their original names. For organisms with above-normal-level evolution, the word “evolved” will be added before their names—such as evolved potatoes, evolved snakes, etc.
By extension, high-level evolved organisms that exceed the normal evolution of their species by more than five times will have “high-level evolved” added to their names—such as high-level evolved potatoes, high-level evolved snakes, etc.
Banxia Novel, where happiness is aplenty.