Sky-cracking Rider

Seeing Chen Fei's inexplicably meaningful look, the Shadow Wolf couldn't help but clench its tail tighter.

Though not physically castrated, psychologically, it already was.

Hearing Chen Fei's words, Teacher Shen Fei's face flushed with two red clouds, and she retorted, "Nonsense, 'Ah Mao' is a she-wolf!"

"Ah? A female! Let me take a look!"

Chen Fei walked over doubtfully, wanting to check the terrified black wolf.

When the Shadow Wolf came into his hands, it always kept its tail tightly clamped, so he hadn't paid attention to whether it had any little brothers.

"Go on, stop groping around!"

Seeing Chen Fei's reckless actions, Teacher Shen couldn't stand to watch anymore and stuck out her foot, pretending to kick this clumsy fool away.

Only then did Chen Fei reluctantly leave the Shadow Wolf alone.

The black wolf trembled with residual fear, and despite having no contract with Chen Fei, this terror was deeply etched into its bones.

Chen Fei suddenly asked, "Teacher Shen, do you know where there's a more enclosed valley nearby?"

Teacher Shen Fei stopped what she was doing and said puzzledly, "Enclosed? What do you need that for?"

Chen Fei stretched out his finger and waggled it, saying, "For breeding rabbits!"

"Oh! For meat, or for their fur?"

Teacher Shen Fei immediately understood Chen Fei's intention; finding a somewhat enclosed valley to breed rabbits was indeed a good idea.

She knew a bit about the situation of the Aircrew Base.

Since it had been officially taken over by Jiu Defense, supplies from the outside world had nearly ceased, and to date, they had not found a new logistics supply partner. Even with money, they could not buy anything. With such a large Aircrew Base, the daily consumption of food for personnel and animals, as well as the flying of fighter jets, was not a small figure.

Although the Aircrew Base could hold on for a short time, as time goes by, the problem would inevitably become more and more difficult to manage and eventually unsustainable. If Jiu Defense couldn't receive ongoing supplies from the outside, they would reluctantly have to give up this Aircrew Base located deep in the Xingdu Kush Mountain Area.

Similar to the Aircrew Base, Patan School lacked external supplies but managed to persevere partly due to being self-sufficient. The vegetable garden in the backyard ensured a supply of fresh vegetables and fruits, meat came from the surrounding villages, and their staple food was thanks to the nearby Aircrew Base, which didn't mind sparing the few tons of flour.

Self-sufficiency in rabbit breeding could provide a high-quality source of meat.

With rabbits' reproductive capabilities, they are far more efficient than chickens, ducks, geese, sheep, dogs, or pigs. They mature sexually in half a year, with a breeding cycle every month and a half, each litter yielding seven to thirteen offspring. The population could expand eight to ten times a year; a pair of rabbits could breed nearly two hundred in a year.

Fortunately, there are many natural predators; otherwise, the rabbit population would be more terrifying than the mutants.

"For meat, for fur, for raising wolves!"

Chen Fei looked at the Shadow Wolf, thinking it might be able to play a role, commanding the pack to drive away the creatures — and even unkind humans — that posed a threat to the Aircrew Base and Patan School.

He felt a bit derelict as the Wolf King and thought it better to find the previous Wolf King to do the hard labor.

To make the wolves obey and not to harass the Aircrew Base and School, they had to be well-fed; otherwise, on what basis would the wolves listen to him, just to be P-starved?

"Eh? Raising wolves?"

At this, Teacher Shen Fei could no longer keep up with Chen Fei's bizarre trains of thought.

Wolves were known to eat children; killing them would be too kind. Using rabbits to feed them was like creating unnecessary trouble, wasn't it?

"I am now the Wolf King of this area. The wolves can protect the School and the Aircrew Base. After all, it's not just wolves that are fierce beasts in the mountains; bears, snow leopards, and lynxes too could threaten the teachers and students at the school."

Chen Fei's strategy was to use beasts to control beasts, which would save a lot of trouble.

He couldn't truly kill all of those three hundred plus wolves, which would not be good, as it would break the fragile ecological balance of the Xingdu Kush Mountain Area.

The human impact on the natural environment is significant, and carelessness could lead to irreversible consequences.

The existence of the Aircrew Base was to maintain the ecological environment, not to destroy it.

"The Wolf King? How is that possible?"

Teacher Shen Fei looked incredulous. How could a human become the Wolf King? Were all those wolves blind?

Chen Fei pointed at the black wolf hiding behind Teacher Shen and said, "'Ah Mao' was the former Wolf King, but I beat it, so I'm the current Wolf King."

Wolves are creatures that value ritual. As long as one fulfills the conditions for challenging for kingship, even a cat could unexpectedly command the pack.

In nature, wolf packs straying off course are not uncommon, and this peculiar phenomenon cannot be prevented.

Shen Fei reminded, "Well! So that's how it is, but you must keep an eye on those wolves and stop them from harming people."

She had witnessed the number of wolves with her own eyes, and it was indeed a bit alarming. If it hadn't been for the timely arrival of nearby villagers, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Now that someone was finally taking control of them, no matter what, the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. However, Chen Fei still needed to be more attentive.

"As long as they are well-fed, they will be obedient!"

Chen Fei thought the same as Shen Fei. By taking this opportunity, he wanted to stabilize the wolf pack and prevent them from targeting humans.

After all, there were more than three hundred wolves. Neither exterminating them nor neglecting them was acceptable.

"My student Mo Erhan is very familiar with the local terrain, I'll have him take you to find a suitable place later." Explore stories on empire

Having understood Chen Fei's intention, Teacher Shen Fei brought the conversation back to the point.

Chen Fei continued, "Then thank you, and also, do you have many types of vegetable seeds here?"

"Yes, there are plenty! Lettuce, cabbage, baby cabbage, broccoli, bitter melon, cucumber, winter melon, pumpkin, almost more than thirty kinds. What we have most is vegetable seeds."

Upon mentioning fruits and vegetables, Teacher Shen Fei immediately became verbose.

Since she had come from the mainland to the Xingdu Kush Mountain Area to support local education, she was well prepared for the harsh environment and brought many kinds of seeds with her. Every harvest she would save seeds and, despite sharing some with Chen Fei, she still had plenty to spare.

"Then that's even better. I'm planning to build a few more vegetable greenhouses near the Aircrew Base."

Chen Fei openly shared his plans. With recycled glass, reclaimed metals, and biodegradable organic fertilizers, as well as the seeds provided by Teacher Shen, all the necessary conditions were readily available without the need for additional preparation.

The lack of a logistics supplier still had some impact on the 911 Aircrew Base.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, relying solely on the base's own small-scale cultivation, were not enough to meet the needs of everyone, not to mention ensuring the supply for the combat squadrons. Relying on long-lasting preserved foods such as oil-soaked, salted, sugared, and dehydrated fruits and vegetables was still insufficient.

Even with things like composite vitamin tablets available, they could only be used as supplements and not as the primary source of vitamins.

"After lunch, I'll bring them to you!"

Teacher Shen Fei had just finished preparing dinner, placing pizza dough into what appeared to be a large wardrobe-sized refrigerator.

Being a replica of the cafeteria kitchen in the aircrew base, it lacked smaller sizes or other reference samples, so Chen Fei's metal elemental psychic power could only replicate what he saw.

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After lunch, Chen Fei not only received vegetable seeds from Teacher Shen Fei but, under the guidance of her student Mo Erhan, he also arrived at a valley about 5 kilometers away from the school.

Mo Erhan indeed knew the terrain within a thirty-kilometer radius like the back of his hand. After listening to Chen Fei's requirements, he immediately identified the right place.

The Xingdu Kush Mountain Area was abundant with variously shaped valleys, basins, highlands, and canyons. It was fortunate that Mo Erhan had found such a place when he used to herd sheep.

The valley's cliff walls were not steep, but they were also not something a rabbit could climb over. The widest part of the mouth of the valley was only fifty meters across. Building a chest-high wall on both ends, extending five feet deep into the ground, would essentially be the same as erecting a wire fence. The rabbits would literally be unable to fly away or escape.

In various parts of the valley, springs seeped out of the rock walls, flowing out and converging into numerous large and small shallow ponds below. The overflowing water even formed streams, narrow in places to the width of a hand. The water flowed gently or swiftly, the widest parts easily stepped across. Mountain goats carefully descended from the cliffs to drink from the ponds.

A bit of grass seed and fertilizer scattered around, and this approximately seven to eight kilometer long valley could support three to five thousand rabbits with no problem. With the reproductive rate of rabbits, there could easily be enough to feed the entire wolf pack, and even if that was not sufficient, there were plenty of other animals in the mountains for the wolves to prey on.

With this ample food supply, the wolf pack should become much more obedient.

Using the "Flying Dragon" tactical armor's satellite positioning, Chen Fei confirmed the valley's location, then returned to Teacher Shen Fei's Patan Elementary School with the student Mo Erhan. Carrying a large bag of seeds, he drove the large tricycle back to the Aircrew Base.

The 911 Aircrew Base had already chosen a location for the vegetable greenhouse. The bases' interior was filled with mountainous stacks of standard shipping containers, leaving no open space. The suitable spot for the greenhouse was about two kilometers away on a hillside near the base. After some minor land leveling, the greenhouse could be erected.

Chen Fei used his "Metal Shaping" ability to lay a two-meter-wide steel rail directly to the site. A single line was sufficient, with no need for a double track.

The mountains had no shortage of stone, and with explosives, there was as much as needed. The equipment used for building the Aircrew Base was still there, ready to be reactivated. If the concrete sleepers were insufficient, concrete could be mixed and poured into metal molds on-site. Later, the materials could be absorbed as energy points, saving on transport and installation.

Large hexagonal double-vacuum glass panes of less than pure quality were transported along the rail to the greenhouse site. With a little over two hundred people working together, they cleared the site in three days, laid foundations in one day, and in half a day, they had erected forty greenhouses, each about two stories tall. The interchangeably arranged greenhouses gleamed in the sunlight like translucent fish scales.

Subsequent tasks would still include soil padding. The barren and weathered soil accumulated over the years was insufficient for growing vegetables, as almost all crops cultivated by humans were demanding on soil nutrients. However, finding suitable soil for planting was easy; it was readily available. They could simply dig around the main runway where urine had been used as a fertilizer, shred the grass roots, and use it directly.

With the vegetable greenhouses completed, not only could the fresh produce supply of the entire Aircrew Base be secured, but Boss Hana could also negotiate with the logistics suppliers from a position of greater strength. After all, the more the 911 Aircrew Base depended on external supplies, the more it was at the mercy of those merchants.

Just as Chen Fei was about to start sealing off the valley to raise rabbits, the 909 Aircrew Base, which had suffered a big loss, finally agreed to the mediation talks held under the auspices of the Blue Star Global United Defense Committee.

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