Chapter 1010: Black Salamander

Possessing advanced visual evolution abilities and having tangled with this swarm of evolved hornets several times before, Xia Qing immediately identified that the palm-sized evolved hornet flying toward her was a worker bee, not a queen, and decided on the spot to capture it and bring it back.

The quality of the chestnut grove hadn't changed noticeably, yet the hornets feeding on the insects trapped by the chestnut grove's sap had undergone such obvious evolution—this was an anomaly—so Xia Qing decided to bring this hornet back and let her idol study what was going on.

But the instant she pulled out her insect-catching net, a strange magnetic field shot straight at her forehead, and Xia Qing froze.

At the same moment, the hornet swarm suddenly went berserk, no longer afraid of the chemical repellent on her, and hurled itself at her!

"Aoo—woo—"

"Aaaah—"

"Shrimp, shrimp!"

"Squeak squeak—"

Seeing Xia Qing completely wrapped up by the hornet swarm, her companions anxiously let out all kinds of cries.

"Daigua, Fourth, Little Feimao, Guagua, don't be scared, I'm fine, don't come over!" Wrapped up by the hornet swarm, Xia Qing shouted, dodging the giant hornet while soothing her companions, keeping them from rushing in and clashing with the swarm.

Coming to the hornets' territory to pick chestnuts, how could Xia Qing possibly go unprepared.

The insect repellent and her tattered Level-1 field protective suit couldn't hold off the swarm's attack, but underneath she was also wearing a protective suit made of hardened evolved python skin.

Apart from that giant evolved hornet, the other hornets posed no real threat to her. After tangling at close range with the giant hornet for a few seconds, Xia Qing turned and darted through the thorny hedge, stuffed her weapon and backpack into a large packing bag, grabbed the bag, and plunged into the stream.

Hornets can release pheromones to gather large numbers of hornets in a short time for coordinated attacks. Once the giant hornet emerged, the swarm's attack power skyrocketed—surely the giant hornet had released a powerful pheromone that made the swarm ignore the repellent on Xia Qing and launch a ferocious assault.

Xia Qing, who likely had the giant hornet's pheromone on her, had been locked onto by the swarm. Based on the combat experience the squad had summarized, diving into the water was the best way to evade the hornets.

Because even though the hornets had evolved, they still couldn't dive.

Both Daigua and Old Wolf had seen Xia Qing swim in the reservoir on the territory and stay underwater for a long time without coming up. So when these two brain-evolved animals saw Xia Qing lying in the water, they calmed down. Once they quieted, Little Feimao settled down too.

The two red squirrels—one big, one small—who freeloaded? Already gone.

The brain-evolved raven Molly? Also flown off.

Able to hold her breath underwater for over ten minutes, Xia Qing felt the cool of the stream, glanced through her protective visor at the hornet swarm buzzing around above the water like headless flies, raised her arm for a look, and couldn't help the corner of her mouth twitch.

The Level-1 field protective suit she'd brought out from the Safe Zone, patched in several places, was now bristling with hornet stingers—ruined.

Because when hornets use their stingers to inject venom, they also release a smell that's very hard to get rid of. Once tainted with this smell, the swarm will chase and attack the target until it's torn apart and eaten clean before they stop.

In other words, Xia Qing was now covered in both the giant hornet's pheromone and the hornet-venom scent. There was no way she could pick chestnuts today.

But today's haul was enormous!

"Buzz—"

Hiding in the water, Xia Qing felt her phone buzz in her pocket, swam forward quickly for over twenty meters, then pushed her upper body out of the water, shook the droplets from her hands, unzipped the waterproof suit pocket and pulled out her phone—it was a call from Xin Yu.

Xin Yu's tone was urgent. "Xia Qing, Guagua told me something happened on your end. Do you need help?"

Guagua really was a good bird—realizing something was wrong with her, it had rushed back to call for reinforcements.

Xia Qing replied, "An evolved giant hornet appeared in the swarm. I can handle it. Thank Guagua for me. I can't pick chestnuts today; I'll bring them over tomorrow."

"No rush. Stay safe."

After hanging up, Xia Qing pulled a medium thickened packing bag from her pocket, quickly stripped off the Level-1 field protective suit bristling with stingers, stuffed it into the bag and tied it tight, then plunged back into the water just before the pursuing giant hornet could attack.

Wearing a fitted, glossy-black python-skin protective suit and a face mask, Xia Qing did a nimble spin underwater, pushed hard off the rock beneath her feet, and shot up out of the water like an arrow toward the edge of the chestnut grove—seen from above, she looked just like a pure-black evolved salamander.

Xia Qing grabbed onto waterweed, ignoring the evolved aquatic creatures that tangled around her or snapped at her with clicking jaws, and quietly admired the palm-long giant evolved hornet hovering on rapidly beating wings in the low air.

An orange-yellow head, long dark-brown antennae, two pairs of translucent wings, a black-brown abdomen, and glossy black micro-stingers all together—quite pretty, and more importantly, its magnetic field really did feel very pleasant to Xia Qing.

Xia Qing only discovered today that magnetic-sense ability works underwater too. It made sense—magnetic sense detects electromagnetic waves produced by bioelectric currents in living things, and water doesn't block the transmission of electromagnetic waves.

After soaking underwater for fifteen minutes, Xia Qing surfaced to catch her breath, then ducked back under when the hornet swarm came buzzing in, and kept rubbing her snake-skin suit underwater to wash it.

After waiting half an hour, once the evolved giant hornet withdrew into the chestnut grove and the evolved hornet swarm dispersed, Xia Qing leapt out of the water, sprayed insect repellent on the two packing bags and herself, then, with Daigua and Little Feimao still perched on a branch waiting for her, climbed out of the valley along the steep animal trail and called up to Old Wolf standing on a tall rock: "Fourth, let's go pick Chinese Torreya nuts."

Chinese Torreya nuts don't ripen until October, so there aren't many to pick now. But not wanting to show up empty-handed before her idol, Xia Qing still tied a climbing rope to a big tree at the top of the slope, had Fourth watch the rope and keep the flock of shameless birds that had already gathered from pecking through it and dropping her.

The toxic content in the Torreya fruit flesh in this valley of District 3 is very high; animals that touch it get poisoned and lose mobility. So, seeing a person and a wolf lingering not far from the Torreya tree, the birds nearby had already started gathering, ready to feast.

Xia Qing had brought Old Wolf along precisely to guard the climbing rope and keep birds and beasts from sabotaging it.

Old Wolf said nothing, but stood reliably beside the big tree, watching all the birds in it.

Xia Qing gripped the rope, dodging the aggressive evolved purple-leaf vines that could ensnare prey, and lowered herself to the Torreya tree. She picked the deep-brown fruits from the branches and put them into the bag at her waist, watching her feet so she didn't step on the evolved ants on the tree and the ground.

The toxic compounds in Torreya fruit flesh can rapidly interrupt nerve transmission in animals, making it one of the plant raw materials for producing anesthetic agents after the Catastrophe. And the evolved ants here can neutralize the anesthetic toxicity of Torreya fruit flesh.

Last autumn, her idol sampled the evolved ants here for study and found that this species of ant had excellent detoxifying effects, so they mass-bred the ants in the Territory Seven lab, extracted the active compounds, and made a special-effect anesthetic-toxin antidote.

The reason Daigua monkey, injected with a huge dose of anesthetic by Hui Six's poachers, still pulled through was that this antidote was used.

So the evolved ants here are the original wild stock of the ants being bred in the Territory Seven lab—the ancestors of the life-saving ants that saved Daigua monkey. They have to be well protected.