Gu Xi thought about her zero-balance account and fell silent for a moment. 'I probably don't need to hire anyone just yet.'
But the three people beside her all turned to look at her in unison...
Gu Xi thought for a moment and asked, "If you all come to work for me, what will you do about your own land?"
The Qin sisters exchanged a glance, and one of them quickly answered, "Oh, we'll just plant whatever." Most of what they grew was inedible anyway, and the small portion that could be eaten tasted... well, it was hard to put into words.
It was nothing like what Gu Xi grew. After eating her food just once, they never wanted to go back to eating that awful stuff again!
Even without the mission assigned by their superiors, the Qin sisters wanted to stick by Gu Xi's side to freeload off her food and drink.
'From now on, she's our meal ticket!'
Wei Heng, on the other hand, said nothing. He just kept darting glances at Gu Xi, a silent reminder. 'Gu Xiaoxi, don't you forget! We already agreed to be farming partners!'
Gu Xi considered it. She neither refused nor agreed, simply saying, "Then how about we all farm together from now on?"
Gu Xi's ability was very special. Even without deliberately converting it into spiritual power, she could sense the emotions of others.
The Qin sisters' appearance was a bit too coincidental, but so far, she hadn't sensed any malice from them.
'If that's the case, having two pretty girls as neighbors doesn't seem so bad, does it?'
The Qin sisters, naturally, had no objections.
The sweet-natured Qin Yi even sighed with relief, "It's a good thing we chose the land over here..."
Her interest piqued, Gu Xi asked with feigned casualness, "Wei Heng mentioned you're from another camp. How did you end up choosing land way out here? This must be very far from your camp..."
As far as she knew, the two camps were dozens of miles apart. It was quite a coincidence to run into them here.
Cradling her sweet potato, Qin Yi heaved a long sigh. "We didn't have a choice. Our camp is full of ordinary people. My sister and I are the only ones with abilities..."
Although the nearby wilderness and mountain forests had been thoroughly screened by the military, it was still the untamed wilds, untouched by humans for many years. Who knew what dangers still lurked out there?
So, when the higher-ups allocated land, they took various factors into account. They usually assigned women, children, and the elderly to plots near the camp, while adult men were sent to more distant areas...
It didn't seem strange, then, that young and strong ability users like the Qin sisters would be assigned land this far out.
Gu Xi nodded, asking no more questions. Her gaze fell upon the newly cleared plot of land in the distance...
After they finished their sweet potatoes, the Qin sisters offered to stay and help them plant more.
Wei Heng instinctively glanced at Gu Xi.
Gu Xi didn't refuse. After a moment's thought, she said, "Alright. I'll be in charge of sprouting the seedlings, Qin Yi can help accelerate their growth, Qin Shi will be responsible for getting the sweet potatoes out of the ground, and Wei Heng..."
"I'll gather the sweet potatoes." Wei Heng, who had a crystal-clear understanding of his role, answered immediately.
He had no choice. In his current situation, if he wasn't more proactive, his spot as the number-one employee would be snatched away by the Qin sisters!
Wei Heng couldn't help but worry. 'Is this another form of... letting the wolves into the den?'
When they planted more sweet potatoes in the afternoon, Gu Xi didn't use the seed potatoes from the camp. Instead, she used the ones she had grown just the day before.
In truth, the seed potatoes distributed by the base were also a superior variety, cultivated with great effort, with mutation coefficients around 1.5. This showed just how much importance the nation placed on agriculture and cultivation.
But the ones Gu Xi grew were clearly better.
She selected about a hundred with the highest vitality, arranged them neatly on the ground, and began to channel her ability.
This time, however, Gu Xi didn't first strip away the strange energy within the sweet potatoes; she just directly induced them to sprout.
Soon, batch after batch of sweet potato seedlings sprouted in neat rows.
Immediately after, Gu Xi summoned a great blade and brandished a long whip... This simple, brutal routine left the two Qin sisters dumbfounded. 'So *that's* how those delicious sweet potatoes are grown?'
"What are you gawking at?" Gu Xi turned her head to Qin Yi. At the same time, she pressed one hand to the ground and began channeling her Wood Element ability, causing the scattered seedlings to rapidly take root and sprout...
Qin Yi instinctively did as she was told. It was only after a long moment that she belatedly realized something—Gu Xi's gaze just now had been calm and piercing, compelling one to follow her commands without question.
That kind of gaze, that kind of aura... she had only ever seen it on one other person...
But that person was Mr. Ye, humanity's strongest expert, a man forged in blood and fire!
'Gu Xi... she...' Qin Yi instinctively looked up at her.
But she found Gu Xi's gaze fixed on the sweet potatoes in the field, bright, warm, and filled with anticipation.
Under the sun, the girl and her crops formed a beautiful tableau, brimming with vitality and hope.
Everything looked so normal.
'Did I imagine it?' Qin Yi mumbled to herself, pulling her gaze back to focus on the sweet potatoes in the field.
In the current climate, growing crops was, to put it bluntly, a race against time!
With the help of a High-level Wood Ability User like Qin Yi, the nearly one-hundred-mu field of sweet potatoes was soon fully grown.
Sweet potato vines covered the entire field, swaying in the breeze—the very picture of a bumper harvest.
To one side, Qin Yi was already hugging her sister and cheering, while Wei Heng had silently fetched several large baskets and a wheelbarrow.
The Abnormal Energy level of these sweet potatoes was visibly low, with a mutation coefficient under 1.5—even lower than that of the seed potatoes from the base.
Qin Shi quickly channeled her Earth Ability, turning up all the sweet potatoes buried in the soil.
Afterward, as she squatted down to help gather the sweet potatoes, she gave Gu Xi a long, searching look.
Of this nearly one-hundred-mu field, two-thirds had been accelerated by her sister, Qin Yi, while the rest had been handled by Gu Xi.
This wasn't surprising.
After all, her sister was already a level-seven ability user, while Gu Xi's ability seemed to be only around level three or four. Just being able to keep up with her sister's pace of acceleration was impressive enough.
It made sense that the area she'd handled was smaller.
But Qin Shi keenly observed that after they finished, her sister's face was visibly a shade paler, while Gu Xi... showed no signs of having depleted her ability whatsoever.
That was one thing, but...
Qin Shi glanced down at the sweet potato in her hand—one that Gu Xi had accelerated. Then she looked at the ones Qin Yi was gathering in the distance—the ones her sister had accelerated herself.
To the naked eye, the two types of sweet potatoes looked no different. They were about the same size; at most, there might be slight variations in their individual mutation coefficients.
But Qin Shi's intuition told her something wasn't right.
Very few people knew that she was, in fact, a dual-ability user.
Besides her Earth Ability, her other ability was rather unique. It was a branch of spiritual power; it had no combat applications, but it allowed her to perceive certain strange, inexplicable things. She called it intuition, for lack of a better term.
Qin Shi tossed the sweet potato in her hand into a nearby basket and, as if by chance, glanced at Gu Xi again.
Gu Xi was also squatting in the field gathering sweet potatoes, her brow slightly furrowed.
The moment Qin Yi had started accelerating the sweet potatoes, Gu Xi had keenly sensed a difference.
She had acted decisively, using the plants in the field to pull a switch. She secretly siphoned off some of Qin Yi's ability and converted her own to mimic it...
But even so, there were still subtle differences between the sweet potatoes they grew.
The strange energy in the sweet potatoes she had grown was more active.
Although the mutation coefficients were nearly identical and the taste was similar, there would be no difference when eaten as food. Once that strange energy left the plant and entered a human body, it would become fully active.
Therefore, the destructive potential of this energy didn't lie in its activity level, but in the total amount accumulated in the end.
So, eating these sweet potatoes was not a problem; after all, their mutation coefficient was already quite low.
But if they were used as seed stock... the resulting sweet potatoes would likely mutate much faster than normal ones, and their final mutation coefficient probably wouldn't be very low, either.
This was not a good thing.