Chapter 22: Edge of the Wilderness
Across the wild vegetable area is a forest, which is the mother cat’s territory.
As soon as they entered the woods, the little orange cat jumped off Xu Xinxin.
There were several cats of different colors in front of us. One of them was a larger yellow cat, running over with a small gray and white cat and a small yellow cat.
"Meow."
"Meow~"
"Meow~"
The little guys rolled into a ball in an instant.
Xu Xinxin looked at the happy little orange cat and wondered whether she should take the mother cat home to raise together.
"Meow."
As soon as she finished her proposal, the mother cat shook her head, turned around and left with her two newborn kittens.
The little orange cat looked at them reluctantly, then called out to Xu Xinxin.
“Meow, meow, meow, meow…”
"Xinxin, thank you, but my mother will not leave here. There are many younger brothers following her here, and she will not abandon them."
"All right".
Xu Xinxin was not bothered when she learned the mother cat’s reply.
Anyway, they live close to here, so at worst she can bring the little orange cat to visit its mother often in the future.
After saying goodbye to the cats, the trees inside grew even more messy. Even though Xu Xinxin brought a small machete and cut off the branches that blocked the way, it was still difficult to move forward.
"Xiao Jiu, didn't you say this road is the easiest? Why does it still feel so difficult to me?"
The system replied: "You have to believe me, this is the easiest way. If you keep going, walk forward for another ten minutes and you will see a gravel road."
As System Xiaojiu said this, he immediately pulled up a nearby map and noted the locations of evolved plants above level 30.
"All right".
Following the system's instructions, Xu Xinxin kept moving forward. After more than ten minutes, the view in front of him suddenly became open.
Before our eyes, there are patches of severely damaged concrete roads. Although there are many large trees growing out of the ground, there are still many concrete surfaces where one can step on.
This should have been a parking lot in the past. There was a piece of land next to Xu Xinxin that was not badly damaged, and you could still see the parking lines drawn on the concrete ground.
Finally, there were no more dense bushes and branches around him. Xu Xinxin took a deep breath and slowly looked at the nearby plants.
Although the vegetation in this area is not densely grown, after three years of changes caused by the disaster, an ecosystem has already formed here, and there are many species of animals and plants nearby.
She looked around and soon discovered that not far ahead there was a peach tree with two peach flowers in bloom.
When the peaches are ripe in June or July, she might be able to come and pick some.
After walking two more steps forward, the ground suddenly collapsed. The collapsed area was filled with water and turned into a small pond. You could see small fish swimming around in it.
Xu Xinxin walked around the pond and forward for a distance, and actually saw a large cherry tree, which was full of big wine-red cherries!
Are the cherries ripe now? The fruits are so big.
Unfortunately, this is a cherry tree over level 30, and it won't necessarily let you pick cherries.
Xu Xinxin thought about it, then ran to the cherry tree, looked up and asked, "Cherry tree, I want to pick some cherries, can I?"
The tall cherry tree did not respond, as if it was just an ordinary cherry tree.
"How about you give me some cherries and I'll bring you some fertilizer next time?"
“Rustle…”
This time, the cherry tree moved.
On the big tree, three branches full of cherries suddenly stretched out in front of Xu Xinxin, and then there was no movement.
"What does this mean?"
Xu Xinxin immediately went to ask the little orange cat.
"Meow~"
"It said, if you really want cherries, you can pick them from these branches... but you can only pick half at most."
There are quite a lot of cherries on this branch, at least hundreds of them, but I don't know what quality they are.
"Just ordinary quality," the system Xiaojiu scanned and replied, "All are ordinary quality, there are no evolved cherries."
In addition to "evolved fruits", the fruits produced by evolved plants also include "ordinary fruits".
The offspring of evolved animals or plants are not 100% evolved creatures; they may also be ordinary creatures.
The offspring of mutant creatures may be ordinary creatures in addition to mutant creatures.
However, the offspring of ordinary organisms may not only be "ordinary organisms", but also evolved organisms or mutated organisms.
The same goes for people.
Therefore, in order to avoid giving birth to "mutant babies", people have developed pregnancy vaccines that can allow the fetus to produce "antibodies" in the womb to prevent it from becoming a "mutant creature."
This vaccine has also been promoted and used on livestock, with very good results.
But the same cannot be said for plants and wildlife.
Especially for plants, even if you are an evolved plant, the "ordinary fruit" you produce may become a mutant plant after taking root, sprouting and growing.
Evolved plants and mutated plants are in a hostile relationship...
No wonder the cherry tree was so generous and allowed her to pick so many fruits.
There are probably hundreds of cherries on these three branches. Even if we only pick half of them, they will weigh eight or nine kilograms.
Now, one pound of ordinary cherries is worth about 80 or 90 points, so eight or nine pounds is 700 points.
Xu Xinxin was very happy to have picked up nearly 700 points for free, and she promised the cherry tree: "Thank you, I will definitely bring you some flower fertilizer next time."
“Rustle, rustle…”
The cherry tree branches shook, as if in agreement.
Next time, Xu Xinxin will definitely bring more flower fertilizer and see if she can negotiate with the tree to get it to give her a branch to use when she goes back to plant the pole.
Further to the side, there are some ordinary cherry trees, which also have fruits, but they are sour and astringent and not ripe at all.
Walking a little further inside, Xu Xinxin saw a large field of "grass". She didn't recognize it and was about to leave.
System Xiaojiu quickly reminded: "Wait a minute, host, this is shepherd's purse, it's edible."
“Is this shepherd’s purse?”
When Xu Xinxin heard the prompt from System Xiaojiu, she turned her head again, squatted down and carefully identified the "grass" in front of her.
Before the disaster, she didn't know much about these wild vegetables.
Even the Amaranthus I picked earlier was something I only got to know about when I picked it with others two years ago.
She had also picked shepherd's purse with others, but at that time the shepherd's purse had already bloomed. A white "flower" grew in the middle of the green leaves, which was very easy to recognize.
Now this piece of "grass" has not bloomed, so Xu Xinxin couldn't recognize it at first.
Xu Xinxin stared at the leaves for a long time but didn't quite understand them, but she still reached out and started picking them.
"You said it was shepherd's purse, so it is, right? I believe you... But have you scanned the quality of these shepherd's purses?"
"Scanned," the system replied proudly, "These are all ordinary quality shepherd's purse, no mutations."
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