Late at night, Zhou Qianli hurried to the center of the garrison camp, which was still brightly lit. Yan Shengbian and several researchers were testing all the A-level mutant plant samples in the temporary isolation laboratory. Ye Changming stood in front of a sand table in the command center, moving the floating map with one hand and marking each area where the A-level mutant plants had disappeared.
“Captain Ye,” Zhou Qianli approached, eager to confirm the details about the ant in the video.
Ye Changming slightly retracted his hand, and the circular map in the air vanished instantly. He looked up. “Dean Zhou.”
Without wasting time, Zhou Qianli asked, “From the giant pit to the nest, did you see the king?”
Just in case Ye Changming hadn’t recognized the king in the termite colony, Zhou Qianli pulled up an image of a normal king on his optical computer1
The small one is the king..
“No.” Ye Changming glanced at the picture and turned around. “What did you find in the nest?”
“Dean Zhou, what’s going on?” A researcher in the lab noticed Zhou Qianli outside and turned to say something to Yan Shengbian, who was busy making notes. Yan Shengbian looked up, then put down his pen and walked out.
Zhou Qianli nodded to Yan Shengbian, waiting for him to get closer before speaking. “I watched all the videos and noticed there was no king in the termite nest. Additionally, there were very few eggs. I wanted to come over and confirm what happened.”
Ye Changming was the only one who had been there the entire time.
“There were larvae in the nest,” Ye Changming replied, lowering his head to pull up the records on the flat optical computer on the sand table. As he raised his hand, a video of the termite appeared in the air. “I only saw winged reproductive ants around the queen; there was no sign of the king.”
Zhou Qianli shook his head and pointed at the larvae in the video. “These are all second-stage nymphs. According to termite colony behavior, the queen should constantly be laying eggs. In the video, her abdomen is swollen, but there are no eggs.”
Hearing this, Ye Changming fast-forwarded the video to the part where he cut open the queen’s abdomen.
“Look, there are no eggs inside,” Zhou Qianli immediately paused the video. “Only some dead branches. I don’t know how the mutation is affecting them, but… these mutant animals warrant further study.”
So far, only one nest of these mutated termites has been found, too small a sample for proper comparison.
Yan Shengbian frowned and suddenly said, “I should have gone in with them.”
After all these years, not only had the Central Agricultural Research Institute personnel stayed safe in the base, but even he had grown hesitant to take risks.
“Team Leader Yan, your safety is paramount,” Zhou Qianli said, understanding that Yan Shengbian’s role at the central base was too important.
Yan Shengbian glanced at Ye Changming. “With the Alien Killer Zero Team, my safety wouldn’t have been an issue.”
Zhou Qianli caught the look and suddenly remembered that Yan Shengbian had once been the captain of Alien Team 1. Unfortunately…
“A mutated hedgehog2
has appeared in Yuncheng,” Ye Changming said, receiving the news as he stood by the sand table. He looked up.
“Another mutant animal?” Zhou Qianli’s heart sank as he braced himself against the edge of the table. “Can you pull up the live surveillance?”
Ye Changming raised his hand and connected the live feed to the central screen in the garrison camp. “Looks like a Class B.”
He had led teams for many years and could gauge the strength of a mutant plant or animal at a glance.
“Where’s the location of the mutant hedgehog? Is it near the area where the A-level mutant water stone banyan disappeared?” Yan Shengbian asked, more concerned with that.
Ye Changming tapped quickly on the screen, picking up an earpiece from the table and listening to a report from the guards. After a long pause, he said, “No, the distance between the two is 154 kilometers. The mutant hedgehog is at the edge of Yuncheng.”
“Yuncheng… Who’s there?” Yan Shengbian asked.
“Shan Yun,” Ye Changming replied.
Both Yan Shengbian and Zhou Qianli looked up at the screen, and sure enough, they saw a woman wrapped in a red shawl standing in a corner.
—
At the ninth agricultural base, everything was running as usual, and no one knew about the events unfolding elsewhere.
September marked the official start of the autumn planting season, and the newly sprouted seedlings were being transplanted into the ground. Students at all levels were busy with their new semester tasks.
Zhao Linong’s seeds had already sprouted, and now that the true leaves had grown in, she began transplanting them into the soil.
When Yan Jingshui arrived, Zhao Linong was squatting down, digging a hole in the ground. She carefully placed the bitter melon seedlings, roots still wrapped in soil, into the hole, filled it up, and then picked up a spray bottle to water the soil around each seedling.
After planting two seedlings, Zhao Linong noticed someone behind her. She turned around to see Yan Jingshui standing quietly.
Yan Jingshui didn’t say anything, as though she were just passing by. But she didn’t leave, her eyes fixed on Zhao Linong.
Zhao Linong nodded politely to her and then continued transplanting her bitter melon seedlings, planting some green onion seedlings at the same time.
Once finished, she stood up and went to the edge of the field to grab some bamboo sticks.
Last semester, she had built a frame for the bitter melons. However, after planting other crops over the summer, she had dismantled the frame. Today, she had taken the wooden structure out of the tool room, ready to set it up again.
The bitter melon’s true leaves had sprouted, and soon, the plants would begin climbing up the frame.
Zhao Linong worked quickly, having done this many times before. Soon, the bamboo poles and dead branches were neatly arranged in the field.
Yan Jingshui wasn’t sure why she had come to the agricultural class. She had already planted her tung seedlings and had originally planned to inspect the fields today. Yet, somehow, she had ended up here.
She watched Zhao Linong, the one who had shared the tung seedlings, busily tending to her crops. Even though they had the same seedlings, it seemed as if some people were simply better at farming than others.
Yan Jingshui had also built a shelf for her plants, but it was a semi-finished product she had purchased. All she needed to do was install the fixings at key points to assemble it. Despite this, it took her quite some time to finish, and even then, it barely held together. From a distance, it looked like a large, plastic shelf awkwardly sticking out of the ground, completely out of place.
In contrast, Zhao Linong had used a pile of rotting branches to construct her tung shelf, yet it looked neat, blending seamlessly with the field. Yan Jingshui had been watching her for a while, expecting her to eventually acknowledge her presence and ask what she was doing. But instead, Zhao Linong simply nodded, pretending she wasn’t there.
After being ignored for too long, Yan Jingshui finally spoke up, “I heard you snuck out in the middle of the night to steal the dean’s sheep and got caught?”
Zhao Linong, who had been scooping water from a bucket to wash her hands, paused and looked up, surprised. “What?”
“When did I ever steal the dean’s sheep?”
“It’s been all over the ninth agricultural base,” Yan Jingshui replied, her tone calm but condescending. “You have potential. Don’t let Wei Li lead you astray. Focus on farming. You’re different.”
Zhao Linong silently wiped her hands with a dry cloth, then said, “Thank you for your concern, but that’s my own business.”
Yan Jingshui seemed disappointed by this response. She gave Zhao Linong a sad look, shook her head, and muttered as she walked away, “Not striving for progress!”
Zhao Linong was left puzzled. Why was she being told she wasn’t striving for progress?
On her way back, Yan Jingshui bumped into He Yuesheng, Wei Li, and Tong Tong. Glancing at what they were carrying, she sighed, took a deep breath, and hurled out a string of words as she passed, “Idle! Not doing your job, and not making any progress!”
Tong Tong blinked in confusion, unsure of what just happened. He Yuesheng turned around, pointed at Yan Jingshui’s retreating figure, and asked Wei Li, “Was she scolding you?”
Wei Li chuckled, “She was scolding… all of us.”
—
“Look what we brought!” Wei Li exclaimed as the group approached Zhao Linong with chickens, pots, and firewood in hand. Zhao Linong, who had just finished collecting her tools, looked at them in surprise. “What are you up to?”
Wei Li, holding a plucked chicken in one hand, patted Tong Tong, who was carrying a pot, with the other. “He Yuesheng said his Cordyceps sinensis would make a great soup, and I thought chicken soup would be perfect!”
Ever since their picnic outing, Wei Li had been eager to try it again.
“Senior sister,” Zhao Linong sighed, “Aren’t you worried you’ll run out of chickens?”
“I have plenty in my chicken shed,” Wei Li grinned. “My research project is on producing better broilers efficiently.”
Animal husbandry had improved slightly compared to agriculture. While feed issues had been resolved, the mutation rate wasn’t too high. But things were still different from how they were before the mutations. Although the feed had improved, mortality rates had risen, and some diseases couldn’t be cured with ordinary medicine.
The four of them started a fire and began stewing the chicken in broad daylight on the ridge.
Wei Li turned to Zhao Linong. “Did Yan Jingshui come by to see you earlier?”
“Maybe…” Zhao Linong thought for a moment. “She was probably just passing by.”
“Did she say anything?” Wei Li asked, clearly not fond of Yan Jingshui after she had randomly scolded her in the car.
Zhao Linong slowly added a piece of firewood to the fire. “She said we snuck out to steal the dean’s sheep in the middle of the night.”
He Yuesheng, who had been drinking water, choked and spluttered. Tong Tong kindly handed him a tissue.
“No wonder people have been giving me strange looks today,” He Yuesheng said, wiping his face. “Who started that rumor?”
“Not sure,” Zhao Linong replied. “Yan Jingshui heard it from someone else.” She then turned to Wei Li and asked, “Any updates on the white wall in the East District?”
Wei Li shook her head. “I asked my second uncle, but he didn’t have any news. It seems like we were the only ones who encountered the mutated sheep.”
Wei Li couldn’t help but feel they were unlucky. The sheep hadn’t mutated before or after, but right when they entered.
Fortunately, they had all come out unharmed.
The group spent the entire day on the ridge, staying from morning until afternoon to eat their chicken stew. After the “banquet,” He Yuesheng approached Zhao Linong alone.
“I got a three-edged saber,” He Yuesheng said, pulling up a picture on his optical computer. “The blade’s tip is broken, and it’s a bit old, but it can be repaired. It’ll cost 9,800 points in total if you want it fixed.”
Zhao Linong looked at the picture. The three-edged saber was no more than 25 cm in total length, with the handle and blade head measuring around 8 cm. The blade was prismatic, with grooves on three sides.
“This triangular blade is easy to draw, and you can add toxins to the blade slot,” He Yuesheng pointed out. “The only downside is that it’s a bit longer than my dagger, but you can still carry it around.”
“I’ll take it,” Zhao Linong said, transferring the points to He Yuesheng. “But what happens if someone sees me with it?”
“No problem,” He Yuesheng shrugged. “It’s a discarded military dagger. They call it a controlled knife, but they won’t bother you over a few daggers. It’s not like it’s a gun.”
“Still, now that you have a triangular blade, make sure to practice a bit so you don’t hurt yourself,” he warned. “This type of blade was once known as the ‘Bleeding King.’ One stab leaves a hole that’s almost impossible to stop the bleeding from.”
Zhao Linong: “…”.
She had only wanted a sharper dagger for emergencies, but this short saber seemed far more dangerous than she had expected—certainly not something a farmer would normally carry.
