The orchard in front of them was surrounded by tall electrified fencing. At the gate, there was a coded lock. Shen Cheng stepped forward, entered the password, and opened it. Everyone filed in one by one.
After entering, Xiang Ge first carefully observed the place.
It wasn’t large—about two to three hundred square meters. Each fruit tree was over five meters tall, arranged in neat rows. At a glance, it was clearly a place regularly maintained by someone.
Xiang Ge spread out her mental power to sense the life fluctuations within the orchard.
This was her latest adaptation of mental power for this wasteland world—a form of “mental detection” designed to maximize efficiency in locating mutated beasts.
Although her mental power still couldn’t precisely distinguish between human and mutant life signatures, in this empty orchard with no other people, the technique was extremely useful.
The signals she received were overwhelming.
Above ground, below ground, and even in the trees—countless dense signals flooded into her mind.
Xiang Ge staggered slightly and took a few steps back.
“Are you okay?” Shen Cheng asked worriedly.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, waving it off and suppressing her unease.
Forget it. Since she was already here, there was no point turning back.
“It’s not even that big. With five of us splitting it up, we can finish scanning it in less than three days,” Sang Wan said excitedly, looking around.
Without wasting time, Shen Cheng quickly distributed harvesting tools and divided the orchard into five sections, letting Xiang Ge choose first.
She didn’t hesitate. Since the four of them would likely pair up, she simply chose the middle section.
She put on her hooded veil carefully, took out her dagger, and slung the basket Shen Cheng gave her over her back before getting to work.
The orchard was filled with plum trees. Each one was loaded with fruit the size of fists.
Wild, artificially cultivated crops in this world often had genetically adjusted seeds. Not only were they adapted to survive in the wasteland, but their appearance was also modified.
To make them less appealing to mutated beasts, their fragrance was reduced, and their colors were often changed to gray or blue.
The plums here were blue—unappetizing at a glance.
Xiang Ge casually picked a tree and climbed up in a few quick movements, beginning to harvest.
The mission required that no fruit remain on the trees after collection.
So she decided to throw all the fruit down to the ground—clear one tree, then scan one tree.
For fruits that had already been exposed to varying levels of radiation, that short drop wouldn’t even crack their skins.
The others each had their own methods.
Ye Zheng and Shan Ya harvested directly from the trees, throwing fruit down.
Shen Cheng and Sang Wan stood below, scanning each fruit one by one. Their coordination was efficient and fast.
Working in the trees was more dangerous, as mutated insects were common. It was harder to dodge attacks there, and a single bite could be troublesome.
Xiang Ge kept her mental power around her at all times. Any lifeform approaching would immediately be detected, allowing her to react instantly.
Ordinary mutated insects weren’t very strong in attack or defense. Xiang Ge could kill them with a single strike, and she did so quite happily.
Ye Zheng and Shan Ya were also progressing smoothly. Their combat ability and reaction speed were strong enough that, as long as they didn’t encounter anything too dense or powerful, they could handle it alone.
Xiang Ge felt this team choice was a good one—efficient, informative, and independent enough not to interfere with her own work.
After finishing the first plum tree, she began scanning each fruit one by one.
Standing in place, she aimed the scanning light from her wrist device at each plum to get results.
Each tree had over a hundred fruits. The process was tedious but not exhausting.
She didn’t yet have a clear sense of edible yield rates in this world, but it seemed better than the potatoes from before. Roughly one in twenty plums was moderately irradiated, and each tree produced about one low-radiation fruit.
Her section had dozens of trees.
This one tree alone had also given her dozens of insect kills.
Each insect here gave slightly more purification points than aphids. On this tree alone, she gained 9 purification points.
She was very satisfied.
The future looked promising.
At noon, no one stopped. They only drank nutritional fluids and kept working.
They worked until nightfall.
Shan Ya came over to call Xiang Ge for dinner.
“Dinner? What are we eating?” Xiang Ge asked as she jumped down from the tree.
They were just going to gather and drink nutritional fluids? That seemed unnecessary.
“Those insect corpses under the trees. Take as many as you want. Also collect some branches. We’re having grilled insects tonight.”
Ah.
Xiang Ge looked at the insect corpses on the ground and felt like she had almost missed an entire world.
These were all high-quality protein.
The aphids before were toxic, so no one collected them. But the insects here were different.
She immediately sharpened a few long branches with her dagger and began selecting “non-toxic, less ugly” insects to skewer.
A self-serve buffet, in a sense.
By the time she finished preparing, a fire had already been lit near the orchard gate.
She joined them and began grilling skewers.
“Xiang Ge, how was your harvest today?” Sang Wan asked while turning her insect skewer over the flame.
“Pretty good. Each tree had almost a low-radiation fruit,” Xiang Ge replied honestly.
It wasn’t a secret—everyone in the same orchard would likely see similar results.
She had originally considered quietly storing some low-radiation fruit in her space to sell later, but as Wu Mei had said, the fruit here was too distinctive. Not only were they blue, but each one even had a crescent-shaped mark.
To avoid trouble, she decided to keep only two low-radiation fruits in storage and hand the rest over for collection.
“Yes, this orchard is a real treasure. I’ve never seen a place produce so many low-radiation fruits. If we can harvest everything successfully, we’ll make a fortune!” Sang Wan said excitedly.
Because of her radiation illness, her sister had spent all their points on purification agents.
But now purification agents were useless, and she wanted to earn more points so her sister could live better in the future.