From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 56 - 53: Dare Not Be Stupid

After Wei Heng left, Gu Xi took Da Hong for another stroll deeper into the woods.

She took out a large black plastic bag and draped it over Da Hong’s neck. "Go on, Da Hong." ’Whether I get to have fresh mushroom and chicken soup for lunch is all up to you.’

The entire chicken was numb. ’This human woman is so cruel, so heartless, so cold! She’s actually enslaving a chicken to find mushrooms for her to make chicken soup!’

’Is this something a human should be doing?!’

But Da Hong was a chicken that knew when to bend and when to yield. It knew it couldn’t win against this human woman, so it very pragmatically lowered its noble Wild Chicken King head.

And it flapped its wings, as if to say—’Leave it to me.’

Gu Xi patted Da Hong’s head in satisfaction. Da Hong then flapped its wings spiritedly and set off into the woods to find mushrooms.

As for whether it might bring back some poisonous mushrooms?

Gu Xi wasn’t worried at all.

Animals have an exceptionally keen intuition in this regard. It was as if they were born knowing what in the forest was edible and what wasn’t.

Especially for a clever Wild Chicken King like Da Hong, finding a few mushrooms was a piece of cake.

Da Hong: ’I wouldn’t dare be anything but clever.’

It even suspected that if it dared bring back a single poisonous mushroom, there was no telling who would end up in the woman’s chicken soup pot next time...

After Da Hong left, Gu Xi wandered around the nearby woods for a while longer before taking out a strangely shaped seed.

It was the "Unnamed 520" fruit seed she had spent a fortune on during her last trip to the South City Base.

The seed felt a bit strange to her. Gu Xi had been busy with Wei Heng’s situation and hadn’t had a moment to spare for it.

Last night, thinking she would need to deal with Wei Heng’s issue, she knew she might have to plunder an uncertain amount of energy, so Gu Xi had deliberately brought him deep into the woods.

Just before setting out, she had suddenly thought of the seed and brought it along.

Gu Xi was very interested in this new mutated fruit variety, which was said to have only appeared 30 years into the apocalypse.

She thought for a moment, then found a spot in the forest near a cliff with relatively ample sunlight. After devouring all the X Energy within the "Unnamed 520" seed, she planted it using her superpower.

Half an hour later, a towering, crooked tree appeared on the edge of the cliff. Hanging from its branches were about a hundred fruits, each the size of a water bucket, fiery red in color, and shaped like elongated, large lanterns.

It was the first time Gu Xi had ever seen such massive fruit.

After cutting off a small piece with her superpower, she took a bite. The taste was a bit odd.

How to describe it? It was not sour, not sweet, not bitter, and not astringent. It was just bland... with no defining characteristics whatsoever.

But it was a seed she had spent a fortune on, and now she’d managed to grow it... Gu Xi decided to take all the fruit back with her.

—’Maybe Wei Heng could use this fruit to make some delicious dishes?’

Before this morning, it would have been quite troublesome for Gu Xi to take all this giant fruit with her.

But now... her personal space was back!

It was quite a coincidence.

Last night, when Gu Xi was cleansing Wei Heng’s Superpower Core, she discovered that after she devoured the special mixed energy inside him, it seemed to have the effect of strengthening and improving her physique.

Coupled with the fact that Gu Xi had been diligently training her body since she woke up... the effects over the past six months or so were quite noticeable.

So, after noticing the unusual changes in her body, Gu Xi had used the excuse of wanting fresh mushroom and chicken soup for lunch to quietly send Wei Heng back first.

After Wei Heng left, she tested it out. Sure enough, her body could now fully withstand a level 8 superpower. A level 9 was still a bit of a stretch, but it was only a matter of time.

This meant she could open her personal space again!

After frantically plundering a wave of energy, Gu Xi finally pushed open the gate to her personal space once more.

Her space was back!

All the supplies she had collected before were still there!

For Gu Xi, this was an absolutely wonderful surprise.

The only slight regret was that the Zombie Emperor’s Crystal Core was gone!

But she had her space back, so what more could she ask for?

Gu Xi stored the entire "Unnamed 520" fruit tree in her personal space. After Da Hong had found enough mushrooms, the girl and the chicken slowly walked out of the mountain forest.

Wei Heng’s cooking skills were truly excellent. The fresh mushroom and chicken soup at lunch was so delicious you’d want to swallow your own tongue.

After lunch, the others all urged Gu Xi to go back and catch up on sleep, and she didn’t refuse.

When she woke up in the afternoon, Wei Heng found her. "Those people from last time are back..."

Gu Xi didn’t immediately register who he meant. "Who?"

Wei Heng opened his personal terminal. "Those brokers from the South City Base..."

The last time Gu Xi and the others delivered a batch of sweet potatoes with an extremely low mutation coefficient to the South City Base, they had been targeted.

Although Xv Yiyisan had vouched for her later, the lure of profit was too great, and those people still managed to find Wei Heng through their connections.

As for why they contacted Wei Heng instead of Gu Xi?

Wei Heng was the one who had handled the sale of the sweet potatoes, and the money had been transferred to his account. Most importantly, Gu Xi was just a young girl recently rescued from the ruins, with social connections that were practically zero.

Besides Wei Heng, there was no one else for them to find.

It was just that during this time, Gu Xi had been busy with Wei Heng’s affairs and also had to find time to farm and deliver vegetables for the military. She hadn’t even had time to tend to her own plot of land, so she had completely forgotten about the matter.

But even though Gu Xi had forgotten, others hadn’t. They were still fixated on the sweet potatoes she grew.

"What do they want with you?" Gu Xi didn’t bother looking at Wei Heng’s Light Screen, just asking lazily as she lounged in her chair, "To buy sweet potatoes?"

"They said they want to treat us to a meal..." Wei Heng placed a glass of freshly squeezed watermelon juice by her hand.

Gu Xi raised an eyebrow. "A trap?"

"Not that serious." Wei Heng went back inside and brought out a radio. As he tuned the channels, he explained, "They’re probably just trying to sound us out..."

In the end, it was still about grain—grain with a lower mutation coefficient.

That was just the way things were now. There was a shortage of food everywhere... In short, everything was for survival, which Gu Xi understood.

It’s just...

Her hand hanging by her side twitched slightly. She lowered her gaze, took a sip of watermelon juice, and then looked up at Wei Heng. "Have you looked into their backgrounds?"

To dare and snatch grain right from under the nose of the official procurement station, those people’s ambition and appetite were certainly not small.

’They must have some backing,’ she thought.

Wei Heng nodded. "The first person who approached us is supposedly the brother-in-law of a high-ranking official in the South City Base. Then there’s this Li Shan..."

After outlining the basic situation of these brokers, Wei Heng pointed to the data on the Light Screen and added, "The most influential one among them is probably this Huang Er..."

At this point, he glanced up at Gu Xi and hinted cryptically, "Regarding Huang Er’s background, Shen Yue might know something..."

"Someone from the military?" Gu Xi raised an eyebrow. "From the main line of the Shen Family?"

As far as she knew, the Military Department was also stretched thin these days. It wasn’t impossible that they would have people procuring low-mutation-coefficient grain from the civilian sector to alleviate the army’s urgent needs.

Gu Xi thought about it. The plot of land she had contracted had been resting and recuperating for several months now. It wouldn’t hurt to use it. So she nodded in agreement. "Alright, I’ll think about it."

Wei Heng nodded. Thinking about what happened last night, he looked at Gu Xi several times, as if he wanted to say something but held back. In the end, he didn’t ask.

Just then, Qin Yi ran over, her forehead beaded with sweat. "Gu Xi, look what this is!"

Gu Xi stood up to look. "...?"

Qin Yi took a large orange from her bag. "Zhou from the experimental fields gave this to me. She said a friend sent it from the Central Base... Look, doesn’t it look a lot like the oranges you grow..."

Gu Xi lowered her gaze to the orange in her hand, her brow furrowing slightly.

Seeing her reaction, Qin Yi directly thrust the orange into her hand. "Gu Xi, this orange...?"

Little Green Sprout had already emerged from Gu Xi’s fingertips and was winding itself around the entire orange.

Now, Gu Xi’s frown deepened.

Qin Yi’s lips moved. As a Wood Element superpower user herself, her senses in this area were extremely sharp.

In fact, the moment she got her hands on this orange, she had felt that something was off.

The orange, at a glance, looked very similar to the fruit Gu Xi grew. Its mutation coefficient was very low, but she could sense a discordant aura from within it...

Gu Xi looked down at the orange in her hand. Her other hand, hanging at her side, twitched slightly, and then she pressed down hard on the bone of her index finger.

She couldn’t be mistaken. A faint trace of her Sprout’s aura still lingered in the orange, although it was clearly being suppressed by another energy... In other words, someone had tampered with her superpower!

No wonder. No wonder when she first woke up, she sensed that something was wrong with her superpower, that it was pitifully weak.

Thinking of the thirty years she had inexplicably lost, Gu Xi silently soothed the clearly unhappy Little Green Sprout and looked up at Qin Yi. "It’s fine. This orange is edible."

Of course, Qin Yi knew the orange was edible. What she wanted to ask was...

But seeing Gu Xi’s expression, she ultimately didn’t press the matter.