Chapter 331 | Chapter 332 | Chapter 333
Chapter 331: Big Fish
Zhou Qian didn’t object to Huai Yu’s plan.
After all, just as she said, they really had gathered a lot of supplies.
Huai Yu kept chatting cheerfully, “We only plant them at rest stops for now, but once we pass Zone Nine and head toward the central area, the roads there haven’t been explored yet. It’s really easy to get lost and go in circles. When that happens, I’ll plant them more densely…”
“Look, they can grow as tall as a three-story building. The petals are big, bright, and super eye-catching. If we can’t find our way, we can climb up a tree and look around…”
The method might be old, but it worked.
Back when Xiao Kui was growing, it had struggled hard just to outgrow Kuangbiao. The sunflowers grown from its seeds were no joke—tall, sturdy, resistant to lodging, full of seeds, and capable of gathering sunlight… though most of the time, they preferred acting like mirrors, since focusing light took more effort.
Otherwise, Huai Yu wouldn’t dare plant so many in the forest.
While stimulating the sunflowers, she casually planted a row of scallions nearby. When roasting fish, she would lay down a thick layer of scallions, let them bake together, and once done, the leaves would be dry yet infused with seasoning and fish flavor—crispy on the outside, tender inside.
One bite—
Wow! It was incredibly fragrant and delicious!
Zhou Qian also mixed a big mouthful of rice with those crispy, oil-slick, fish-scented scallion leaves before finally picking up a piece of grilled fish.
The two carp were so large that they’d been split in half and laid flat on the tray to ensure even seasoning. Now, when brought out, the sauce was still bubbling vigorously.
Huai Yu didn’t hesitate—she tossed in a handful of fresh bean sprouts and let everything simmer together. In the cool late autumn air, the two of them ate until sweat formed on their noses and their stomachs were stuffed.
Satisfied.
Zhou Qian thought back to the days he’d lived on dry rations and felt he could never go back to that kind of hardship.
He rubbed his hands eagerly. “This time of year, there’s definitely more than just carp in this pond. This afternoon, I’ll catch a few more. We can fry them into dried fish chunks—they’ll keep for days!”
Huai Yu nodded enthusiastically. “Brother Zhou Qian, you’ve improved so much!”
She glanced at the piles of chestnuts on the ground. Though they still needed attention, it wasn’t urgent.
Fish, on the other hand, were way more appealing.
“What a pity we didn’t bring a net. These fish guts would’ve been perfect bait.”
The carp in this pond were huge. Even if Zhou Qian made a makeshift fishing rod, it probably wouldn’t hold. So he decided to wade in again.
Huai Yu hesitated. “Are you sure the pond’s been fully cleared?”
“Don’t worry,” Zhou Qian said confidently. “They wouldn’t make this a rest area unless it had been thoroughly cleaned.”
With a hearty meal warming his body, he helped Huai Yu pack another sack of chestnuts, then carried a basin and stepped into the muddy water again.
This time, he was bolder, wading farther out.
When the water reached his waist, Huai Yu called from the shore, “Don’t go too deep—I won’t be able to pull you out!”
“It’s fine,” Zhou Qian replied, mentioning his vine-like leg. Even packed with mud, he could still lift it and move.
He waited patiently for the murky water to settle, then scattered chopped fish innards around him.
After some time, ripples stirred beneath the surface. He could clearly feel cool, smooth fins brushing against his legs.
Now!
As a fish followed a long strand of intestine upward, Zhou Qian scooped swiftly with the basin—fast, precise, ruthless!
A large fish landed straight into the basin. Before it could struggle back into the water, he slammed a fist onto its head with a loud thud.
The fish instantly went limp.
It all happened in an instant. Zhou Qian grinned proudly and tossed the fish onto the shore.
The late-autumn water was chilly, but for someone with his physique, it didn’t matter. Fishing in the water was far more interesting than guarding chestnuts on land.
He stayed in the water for quite a while, only coming ashore when Huai Yu called him back to carry chestnuts. He returned with a full haul, looking smug.
“Well? Two grass carp, one crucian carp, one silver carp… enough to eat for quite a while, right?”
Especially the two grass carp—each weighed twenty to thirty jin, probably fattened on rich aquatic plants. Huai Yu was delighted at first, but then she looked at the piles of chestnuts and sat down heavily on a small stool.
“Brother Zhou Qian… there’s too much work!”
Zhou Qian: …well.
He rubbed the mud off his legs and sighed.
If they could bring along a reliable convoy, they wouldn’t have to do everything themselves. That would be so much easier.
But Huai Yu stayed optimistic. Chestnuts just took time—there would always be gaps to handle other things. She checked the fish. Though half-dead, once cut into chunks, they’d last a long time.
“If only we had a water-type ability…”
She looked at the treasure-filled pond. “We could catch all the fish, freeze them, or dry them out…”
That would mean even more gains.
Too bad.
Zhou Qian thought of all Huai Yu’s secrets—this wish was destined to fail.
Still, that meant she definitely couldn’t return empty-handed this time.
The dried fish could even be roasted in the oven. They’d worked hard to build it—if they could stay an extra day for chestnuts, staying another day for fish wasn’t a big deal.
They’d struggled so much to catch fish in the mountains before and got nothing. Now they had a huge pond, full of fish, and no danger.
She absolutely wouldn’t miss this chance.
Huai Yu looked at the chestnuts simmering in the pot, then at the tray just placed into the oven. Rolling up her sleeves, she marched straight to the pond.
Zhou Qian was sorting fish innards into neat piles for future use when he saw her dip her fingers into the weeds at the water’s edge and wiggle them slightly.
Before he could ask what she was doing, she said, “Brother Zhou Qian, get ready!”
Ready? Ready for what?
He had no idea, but he instinctively prepared himself.
The next moment, ripples spread across the water. And right before his eyes, fish—one after another—charged toward them aggressively, despite there being no bait at all.
Zhou Qian was stunned.
He turned to stare at Huai Yu. “You—”
If you could do this, why did you let me stand in the water for so long?!
Chapter 332: The Big Crab
Zhou Qian hadn’t even finished venting his anger when Huai Yu started urging him again. “Quick, quick, quick! Catch them!”
What else was there to say? He grabbed the basin and scooped up one or two fish at a time, hurling them far onto the shore with loud thumps. Such a simple motion, yet it left him drenched in sweat.
There were just too many fish!
And every single one of them clearly had high mutation values!
Strong, sharp-toothed, with tails that slapped painfully hard!
Only after Huai Yu withdrew her hand completely and stood far away, and all the fish had been hauled up, did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Then he fixed his gaze on her, eyes blazing.
Huai Yu’s fair little face looked utterly innocent. “Brother Zhou Qian, I forgot I have powers just now!”
Zhou Qian nearly choked on his own breath.
That little rascal! She definitely hadn’t forgotten—she still remembered getting hit by chestnuts!
But—
“Why are you taking revenge in installments? Wasn’t getting smashed by chestnuts enough for me already?”
Huai Yu widened her eyes. “What are you talking about? I’m not like that!”
Zhou Qian: …yeah, right.
In the end, Huai Yu walked away clean as a whistle, wiping her hands and going back to deal with the chestnuts. Zhou Qian, meanwhile, had to knock each fish unconscious, gut it, scrape off the scales, and clean out the innards…
Before long, the riverbank was piled high with scraps.
Even then, Huai Yu wouldn’t let anything go to waste. “Brother Zhou Qian, bury the fish guts under Xiao Kui! That’s great fertilizer. I’ll add some plant ash later—it’ll grow even taller and stronger!”
The ashes couldn’t be wasted either. She packed them into sacks and stored them in the back of the vehicle, planning to trade them later for plum blossoms if they came across that fragrant wintersweet tree again.
What could Zhou Qian even say?
Da Pang zoomed around pushing its little walker, trailing a bundle of ashes with its tendrils.
The chicks scratched happily at the ground—the insects in the wasteland were far more plentiful than near the Rose Corridor. Crunchy and delicious! Once full, they’d lay another egg.
As for Ke Taro… there was no need to mention it separately. It was either rolling flower balls or on its way to roll more.
Da Zai and Er Zai patrolled the area. After feasting on mutated wasps, they had filled out noticeably in just a couple of days, their sea-urchin-like spikes gleaming with metallic sharpness!
Even more terrifying—when Huai Yu reached out to pet them, those spikes actually shrank. Not flattened—shrunk, like a wasp’s stinger retracting!
What could Zhou Qian say? Everyone seemed useful. So he just resigned himself to hard labor.
Three sacks of chestnuts took a full two days to process, from sunrise to sunset, with overtime at night.
In the end, they were all thoroughly dried and could be stored for a very long time. Since boiling and roasting had shrunk the shells, everything fit into two sacks instead of three, freeing up space—just enough for the dried fish Huai Yu fried on the third day.
The only problem was that they hadn’t caught any wild boar, so they didn’t have enough oil. Half of the fish had to be made into dried or preserved fish instead.
Still, on the evening of the third day, they enjoyed a bowl of fresh, delicious fish ball soup, and suddenly all that fatigue felt completely worth it.
After eating, Zhou Qian let out a long breath. “I’ll handle the rest. You get some rest. Tomorrow morning we move on… By the way, Little Yu, you still remember we’re here to find General Lin, right?”
“Of course I remember.”
Huai Yu carried Da Zai and Er Zai into the vehicle. “But it’s been so long since I last saw him. If I were capable, I’d go save him right away. But I’m not, so I can only search slowly.”
She was completely laid-back about it—do what you can, that’s enough.
Zhou Qian nodded. “As long as you understand. From here on, things will get much more dangerous. We won’t be moving this fast anymore. Once we get near the central area, the vehicle probably won’t even be able to enter.”
To be precise, once they passed this rest area, the vehicle would likely become useless.
“If only we had a path-clearing vehicle leading the way,” he muttered.
Otherwise, there was no way they could carry all that food by hand. They’d have to fall back on nutrient solutions.
Night fell. Zhou Qian and Huai Yu relaxed their guard and slept soundly.
In the quiet, safe pond, something stirred in the mud at the far end. A large rock was silently pushed aside, and from beneath it crawled out a massive crab.
The crab was about eight meters long. Its furry pincers were heavy and razor-sharp, and its round eyes swiveled in the darkness. It couldn’t see much, but it still used what senses it had.
Late autumn had arrived. As a special mutated crab, it should be finding a place to hibernate.
But before that, it needed one last full meal.
This pond was the buffet it had chosen every year. It had dug through mud and traveled a long distance to get here.
The dead of night didn’t hinder its hunting at all.
But…
What was going on?
Where were its big fish?
It had painstakingly carried over grass carp, silver carp, and crucian carp from another river. With its strength and sharp pincers, only two or three survived out of every ten it transported.
Still, quantity could be made up with quality. Given time in this pond, those fish would grow huge.
So where were they now?
Where was its luxury buffet?!
Who?! Who took its fish?!
The crab rampaged through the water, churning up mud and turning the entire pond murky.
But all it caught were medium-sized fish.
Sure, compared to ordinary fish they were large—around ten jin each—but for a crab this big, wasn’t it entitled to a few twenty-jin fish?
Impossible! Absolutely impossible!
Those mutated fish weren’t even eaten by the two-legged creatures—it had observed that itself. Had they changed their taste now?
Shameless!
The crab snapped its pincers wildly, filling itself halfway with these smaller fish, but its anger grew just as full.
Still, a crab had to be patient.
At night, its poor eyesight put it at a disadvantage, and it didn’t know how many humans were on shore. So it suppressed its rage and lay in wait.
But tomorrow morning, it definitely—
Early the next morning, after a quick breakfast in the dim dawn light, Zhou Qian started the vehicle and left the last safe rest area with Huai Yu.
The engine noise woke the big crab in the pond. But the cold had slowed it down, and before it knew it, it dozed off again.
When it woke up once more, an even louder noise came from the shore.
Through the forest, in the distance, it could see vehicles gleaming with silvery light—
The Garrison Army had arrived.
Chapter 333: No One Reported It
Vehicle after vehicle rolled in, occupying more than half of the spacious rest area. The moment they stopped, the logistics team jumped down and immediately got busy setting things up.
The survey team, already familiar with the routine, headed into the nearby woods. Before long, they discovered that towering sunflower—taller and sturdier than the previous ones they had seen.
“As expected, there’s one here!”
They circled it, taking measurements and confirming its condition. It was stable, just like the others—so long as no one recklessly used abilities on it, it remained perfectly calm.
“Alright.”
With the data collected, they quickly called over a team. By now, they had a standardized method for handling these sunflowers.
A massive black iron barrel was dropped over the top, and before the sunflower could react, an earth-type ability lifted its roots from below, while a wood-type ability transferred it into another container.
Just like that, in one smooth operation, the giant sunflower was relocated into a Defense Force collection vehicle.
Since it was so tall, it had to be laid down inside. The collection vehicle then immediately turned around and headed back out of the wasteland.
Along the way, they had already sent several vehicles back. Fortunately, because the journey itself hadn’t gone smoothly, their overall progress wasn’t very fast—so they could still catch up later.
Meanwhile, Bai Yu and her deputies were holding a small meeting.
“Let’s rest here for two days,” she said. “We’ve been on the move nonstop, and no one’s had a chance to relax. We need everyone in top condition—the next stage won’t be easy.”
The moment she said that, people started objecting.
“When have we ever been relaxed? It’s been exhausting the whole time!”
Someone muttered, “I told you this date was bad luck. Not a single smooth moment since we set out.”
“That’s not entirely fair,” another replied. “Didn’t we collect several sunflowers? That’s just ‘good things come with trouble.’”
“But those sunflowers are growing in such a pattern—they’re definitely not wild. Must be cultivated by some wood-type ability user. Just don’t know who did it. Leaving something that valuable out here—any team that comes across it would dig it up immediately.”
They wouldn’t bother with preserving seeds or research—they’d just haul it back and sell the seeds. What a waste!
Still, no matter what, everyone was genuinely exhausted. Even the logistics team hadn’t had a moment’s rest. When news of a two-day break spread, the entire group visibly relaxed.
Only Wu Yue looked displeased.
The nine zones they had passed through were all previously explored areas, with almost no new species. The one sunflower they encountered—people either feared he would take credit or act too rashly, so they stopped him from getting close.
As a result, after so many days in the wasteland, he still hadn’t made a single contribution. How was he supposed to earn any merit points at this rate?
But if he went alone, even basic logistics wouldn’t be guaranteed, and efficiency would drop even further.
Besides…
Wu Yue glanced at his palm. Exploring the central zone alone—something even Lin Xuefeng hadn’t survived—was not a risk he intended to take.
At that moment, he wandered toward the edge of the rest area near the pond and noticed traces of human activity. Just as he was about to speak, the inspection team reported:
“Report—there’s a simple stove here. The fire’s completely out, but the hearth is still warm.”
There were also neatly stacked pieces of firewood, as if someone had carefully chopped and arranged them.
The water plants by the shore showed signs of trampling, and there were scattered fish scales on a nearby mound of dirt. Bai Yu couldn’t help but smile.
“Looks like someone got here before us. Probably their first time in the wasteland—who fishes in a pond like this?”
She had a rough guess, but the sunflower made her uncertain.
Someone nearby chimed in, “Exactly. The fish here have extremely high mutation values—no one would eat them.”
In the pond, the giant crab that had just woken up trembled with rage—who are you calling no one? It was a noble crab, once a top-tier specimen back in its pond days! How dare they look down on it!
Wu Yue, however, frowned. “Didn’t we say the explorer teams were following behind us? How could someone be ahead of us? And at this location… could they have already entered the unexplored area?”
Everyone knew the first to discover a species had the greatest advantage. Those who came later could only pick up scraps. He hadn’t gone through all this trouble just to “drink soup.”
Bai Yu’s brows furrowed slightly as well.
She knew Zhou Qian had brought his younger sister Huai Yu into the wasteland—she had personally stamped their permit.
At first, because the sunflower clearly looked cultivated, she hadn’t connected it to them. But all other permitted teams were still behind.
So the question was—weren’t they just supposed to “take a look around”? How had they ended up venturing into unexplored territory?
Hopefully they hadn’t gone too far. If they could regroup after the two-day rest, their safety would be much better.
And she could also ask about those sunflowers.
But thinking about it, Bai Yu grew even more puzzled.
If the sunflowers were really connected to them, then along this route—following the sunflower trail—they had encountered plenty of dangerous mutated organisms. How had those two dealt with them?
Not to mention the grey magpies suddenly obsessed with aluminum foil balls, or the aggressively spreading, fast-growing Ice Lantern Jade Dew.
There had been no casualties—but the mental strain alone had exhausted everyone.
If they hadn’t forcibly carved out a path—and later spotted a massive sunflower in a distant rest area while climbing up to build supports—they would have already diverted into another zone.
As for that Ice Lantern Jade Dew… Bai Yu couldn’t help but laugh wryly when she thought about it.
Because the grey magpies had completely disrupted their schedule, the convoy had been moving quickly whenever rest allowed.
Soon enough, they encountered the Ice Lantern Jade Dew—the dominant plant of Zone 1.
It was a large, watery-looking plant with a gentle temperament, widely considered easy to deal with. As long as you built it a shelter and piled some fertilizer beneath it, it would yield the road—and even allow you to cut off a few plump leaves to use as natural medical supplies.
But the problem was—
During the previous routine patrols by the Garrison and Defense Forces, no one had ever reported that this Ice Lantern Jade Dew had grown so large in such a short time!
