Chapter 364: A Year of Abundant Harvest (4)
"If you think about it carefully, you'll understand. What is the main force of the Jingsha city-state's war?"
Ji Huaisu immediately thought of those strange plants: "War plants, right?"
"Plant cultivation is the job of gardeners and farmers. A skilled gardener can cultivate fruit trees and flowers, as well as siege vehicles and fortresses. Production and scientific research are effectively integrated within the city-state," Velvet explained. "Thus, their war plants are generally edible, and most civilian plants can also be converted to military use. This phenomenon reflects the essence of the Divine Tree City-State: they are an armed agricultural civilization that integrates the military and agriculture."
"I'm so fucking impressed. It turns out the person with the most martial virtue in this damn place is actually a vegetable farmer..."
Inside the base camp, Gulibo echoed the sentiment: "I just felt weird leaving my hometown. I just wanted to grow delicious fruit."
Grandpa was furious: "Gulibo...you useless little thing! I was so busy with work that I forgot to teach you a lesson...Our Gubo clan has been excellent gardeners of Jingsha for generations, how come this generation has produced a useless little thing like you! You've been away from home for several years, and now you've passed several exams and obtained several certificates!"
Gulibo felt deeply ashamed: "I am now a first-level gardener and a first-level plant caregiver... I plan to take the special-level exam next year or the year after..."
Grandpa was horrified: "What?! Come to the greenhouse!"
Grandpa Grandpa walked briskly, grabbing the crying Gulibo and running away. Ji Huaisu skillfully blocked out the animals' magical communication. If she continued to listen, she felt she would be misled and could not help but mention Bo.
She quietly formed a vaguely shaped animal head. The translucent skull opened its mouth and blew air into the wind. She rode the breeze, flew between the searchlights, and landed inside the farm as if weightless.
Chu Hengkong clapped his hands in the base camp: "Excellent skills, Miss Thief. When will you be able to use the wind?"
"It's almost done, okay? If time wasn't so tight, I'd have almost finished making my mount." Ji Huaisu tugged at the collar of her tights, which felt constricting. "Wait a moment while I place a few probes... Is your communication system working properly? There shouldn't be any obscene cameras pointed at me, right?"
Chu Hengkong concentrated on appreciating the smooth curves swaying on the screen: "Absolutely not, don't worry and keep going."
Velvet poked him hard with her cane.
"Hey, does it bother you if I see a beautiful woman?"
“Don’t be distracted during work.” Velvet said expressionlessly, “Miss Ji, please go down the well from the north.”
Ji Huaisu released several autonomous machines the size of hand mirrors, the VV-001 "Y2K," small devices never sold to the public, intended only for personal use. Unknown technology had been used to fold them into a paper-thin size for easy carrying, and with the right blueprints, they could be combined to create other devices.
At this moment, several millennium bugs combined to form a crow, which flew low around the farm and passed the scanned three-dimensional map to Ji Huaisu's eyes.
"This is just a fortress..."
There were five layers of structures beneath the surface, each so heavily guarded that not even a fly could get in. To those unfamiliar, one might mistake it for some secret military research facility. The wellhead Velvet pointed out led to the third underground layer. They watched as Ji Huaisu's signal rapidly descended before suddenly stopping in the middle of the second layer.
"Miss Ji?"
"Wait a minute... Oh my god... Wait a minute!" Ji Huaisu responded with a gasp, "This place is too narrow and I'm stuck!"
Chu Hengkong stepped forward worriedly: "Where's the camera? Turn off the camera quickly."
Fander squinted his eyes and said, "Dude, you've completely stopped pretending after your transformation..."
"Get out of the way!" Ji Huaisu yelled.
Velvet held her forehead. “You can make an oily liquid to use as a lubricant… Just don’t make too much noise…”
There was silence for a few seconds on the other side of the dark screen. "It worked, but it looks very immoral."
"It's a pity that this part was not filmed." Chu Hengkong said regretfully.
"Akong, you don't have to worry about performance this month."
"It's my business again?!"
Ji Huaisu smiled slyly: "If you want to see it so much, let's talk about it after I get back~"
“Please focus on your work!” Velvet emphasized.
The female thief landed successfully, using the wind to blow away the lubricant on her body. The screen returned to life, revealing a fluorescent corridor lined with retro-style statues. Each statue had a sealed door next to it, reminiscent of the airtight chambers used by ancient scholars during their examinations.
Gulibo sneaked back in quietly: "Statue! Enlarge that statue!"
But Miss Ji's hands moved faster than her brain, prying open the door and slipping out. The space behind the door wasn't large; five hamster cages were crammed into a space the size of a four-person room. The Grubos scurried around in their cages, panting. A stream of green energy flowed from the cages' ceilings to a small wooden statue in the center of the room, where another free Grubo was intently tending to the statue.
The Gubo tribe member, wearing a small wizard hat, was none other than the previously captured Magic Bo. Ji Huaisu didn't reveal himself, but squatted down and gently poked it: "Hey, how's it going?"
"Bo!" Magic Bo was startled. "Is it our ally Bo who came to support us?"
"I'll take you out later for a quick intel exchange. What happened to you after you were captured?"
"After being brought here, we learned a lot of things, and then we started working..."
Molibo's words were unclear, lacking the same decisiveness and vigor he had shown earlier. Ji Huaisu frowned as he listened. "Be clear! Why are you being so vague?"
It suddenly looked up and said firmly, "Please go back! I work here voluntarily, and so do the others!"
Ji Huaisu was surprised when he heard this: "Huh?!"
Upon hearing this, the Gubos in the cages all looked up and shouted into the air: "We are doing this voluntarily, Bo!" "We are working overtime voluntarily, Bo!" "Master Shenshu needs us, Bo." "Please leave quickly, we don't want to betray you, Bo!"
Gulibo's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "How could this be? My cousin has only been down there for half a day and he's already become a tree thief!"
Grandpa Grandpa beat his chest and stamped his feet: "They must have been brainwashed by Fifeide!"
"No obvious signs of ghost interference have been detected yet." Velvet thought for a moment, "Miss Ji, please come out first. Don't alert the enemy."
Ji Huaisu rolled her eyes. After leaving the small room, she paused and took a picture of the statue in the corridor.
"Don't you think this thing is very similar to what Magic Bo and the others cultivated..."
Velvet pointed her finger, and the image zoomed in, providing more detailed information: the statues were about four meters in size, with a texture like dead wood. They seemed to have not yet started, and there was no light in their dark eye sockets.
"It looks like a level 6 War Plant Rotten Wood Warrior." Gulibo's attention was diverted. "But why is it so small?"
"Fifid and the others might have managed to make the Rotten Wood Warriors lighter," Grandpa Grandpa judged. "That would put them at... at least level 4 combat power! Imprisoning so many citizens to create war plants, are they planning a rebellion?!"
"That's hard to say..."
Ji Huaisu gave up trying to force the door open, tiptoed through the corridor, and slipped into a hall that Millennium Bug had opened for her. The situation here was even more terrifying. Pipelines continuously transported semi-finished rotten wood warriors out of their "cells," where they were nourished by large amounts of nutrient solution and dew for a second development.
Many of the light-production Rotten Wood Warriors have been activated and transported to different locations, where, under the guidance of farmers, they are undergoing combat testing of equipment such as seed machine guns and tomato grenades. Ji Huaisu witnessed a tough-skinned hippopotamus being reduced to a honeycomb by a seed bomb, prompting the Rotten Wood Warriors to perform a standard celebration.
"Have your war plants developed to the point where they can fight automatically?" Ji Huaisu asked.
"War plants are developed to assist soldiers. No matter how high their mass is, they need to be controlled. War plants that act on their own are strictly prohibited!" Gulibo was shocked.
"Isn't it a good thing for weapons to fight each other?"
"If they had wisdom, they would no longer be weapons, but citizens of the city-state! How can you force citizens to die on the battlefield? This is immoral!"
"It's easy to fall into the old path of assimilation by the Empire." Finder muttered, "Many dead people have proven that giving weapons wisdom is not a good idea..."
"Then it seems the farmers need to brush up on their history."
Ji Huaisu quietly made her way through the different test sites, the scenes she saw becoming increasingly shocking. She saw a popcorn bird, modeled after a popcorn bomb, sprinting towards its target before annihilating it simultaneously; and an unmanned vehicle constructed from watermelon mines, which exploded and sprayed seed shotgun shells for secondary damage.
Everything indicates that these farmers are preparing for an unprecedented war, which seems to have no moral bottom line.
"At this point, I wouldn't be surprised even if they stormed Mansa Star Castle tomorrow," said Chu Hengkong.
"If it were me, I would choose another target..."
Ji Huaisu suddenly stopped communicating and hid behind a shipping container. A large shadow passed under the fluorescent light. She grabbed a Y2K computer and silently mouthed: (It's Fifid!)
She leaned forward slightly so everyone could see the farmer's actions. The unprecedentedly fat Gumbo was inspecting the test results of the Rotten Wood Warriors. It whispered to the farmers from time to time, then clapped its paws, signaling everyone to listen.
"Thank you all for your hard work!" Fifid said with great energy. "The city-state will officially become independent in 29 days, but we need to make all the preparations in advance. We've all worked together to get here, and we can't let it fall apart at the last minute! From today on, every employee's salary will be tripled, paid daily!"
The farmers cried out, "You absolutely cannot do that! You'll go bankrupt if you keep throwing money around like that!"
"It doesn't matter! Everyone is working hard, how can I be stingy with my money? Please stick with me to the end, this is all for Master Shenshu!"
"For the sake of the sacred tree!"
The farmers echoed enthusiastically, and each one returned to his post as if energized. Fifield nodded with satisfaction, and as he was about to leave, the guard standing guard at the door whispered to him, "Mr. Fifield... I'd like to give you some advice..."
"Oh! Come on, we always accept reasonable suggestions."
Fifeide and the guard left the hall, and Ji Huaisu followed them on tiptoe. She heard the guard say, "Although the law won't officially take effect until 29 days from now, things are bound to change. Shouldn't we make preparations early and ship the finished products we have to the second process?"
Fifeide took out a small notebook and wrote, "Support the second pulse sequence as soon as possible... Please continue."
The guard spoke more fluently, his thoughts clear. "Besides, our Fourth Order is the most prominent banner of independence. Those who oppose the bill will definitely come and cause trouble. We haven't apprehended the group from this morning yet. Relying solely on Xiao Qiuyinghua may not be enough. We should start the Big Lily campaign as soon as possible."
"Launch the Big Lily within this week..." Fifeide wrote again, "Do you have any other suggestions?"
"I, I don't have any more!" The guard immediately returned to his timid state. "Thank you for listening to me."
Feifeide said seriously, "I have heard your suggestions clearly. I will implement them immediately. Please rest assured!"
Ji Huaisu, listening to this conversation from behind, was completely baffled. This was, after all, the city-state of Jingsha; it was no surprise that the boss was willing to listen to the gatekeeper. But how could a single guard have the confidence to be so bossy, and how could he possibly make such comprehensive arrangements?
The strangest thing was Fifede's own attitude. He didn't seem to be listening to the advice at all. Instead, he looked more like a subordinate who was following instructions.
At this moment, she heard the guard say, "There's one more thing I want to remind you..."
"I'm afraid those anti-Bill elements this morning are still intent on their crimes. The spies they sent are hiding behind you and me!"
(End of this chapter)
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