Chapter 1023: Emergency Bounty Mission

The helicopter, dangling the nine wrecked vehicles from the Ninth Center, flew toward Northern District One. En route, security captain Guo Chongjun briefed Xia Qing in detail on what had happened in the sudden incident.

"It happened without warning. You protected Geng Min and Wang Jun, pulled them back into the solid bunker, and immediately called for support. Your reaction was extremely fast and your arrangement very reasonable — that's how you kept the casualties to a minimum."

As director of the Ninth Center, Xia Qing first affirmed the security team's work, then the performance of the two Magnetic Sense Evolvers. "At the critical moment, Geng Min and Wang Jun didn't just keep up with the security team's pace — they also took on the responsibility of carrying the wounded. They performed brilliantly."

The vehicles were blown apart; one Ninth Center security guard died on the spot and another was wounded, and two more were hurt during the retreat into the bunker. If Wang Jun and Geng Min — the ones being protected — had reacted too slowly and needed to be carried, the security team wouldn't have been able to raise the shield wall, and under the covering fire from the sweep team in Northern District Three, they wouldn't have made it quickly into the bunker.

Wang Jun answered sincerely, "It's all thanks to you, Director, for arranging the four of us Magnetic Sense Evolvers to train with the security team. Otherwise we couldn't have run that fast."

Geng Min, whose ears were still ringing, nodded along too, truly grateful that Xia Qing had let them join the training and had come in the helicopter the moment it happened to rescue them.

While abandoning the vehicles and fleeing toward civilian houses, when a security guard was shot in the ankle and fell right in front of her, Geng Min immediately hauled him up and slung him over her shoulder.

At the time, her first reaction wasn't to save him — it was fear that when the shield wall passed the wounded man and kept moving, enemy bullets would hit her legs.

Huddled in a swaying, half-collapsed civilian house, all she could think about was how to survive and get back to her family — a survival instinct forged over eleven years of disaster.

Xia Qing was about to go check on the wounded when her phone rang.

Seeing Xin Yu called, "Target spotted in Mountain Forty-Seven — ten of them, running southwest at full speed. Want me to drop bombs and clean them out?"

Xia Qing asked, "Where exactly in Mountain Forty-Seven are they?"

Seeing Xin Yu answered, "Second peak of Mountain Forty-Seven. Looks like they're trying to avoid the core territory of the western wolf pack and cut diagonally through Mountain Forty-Seven into Mountain Forty-Five."

Running southwest — eight or nine out of ten, they're Hui One's people! Fourteen in the squad, ten left, which means the other four are Hui Three's moles, still hiding somewhere in the mountains.

Xia Qing gave a calm order: "Don't bomb yet. Send me a screenshot with coordinates and a timestamp. I'll report it immediately and call for combat support from Mountain Forty-Five and Mountain Forty-Seven."

Ninth Center staff on an official mission outside were attacked, and the targets were Magnetic Sense Evolvers — this is a major malicious incident.

Major malicious incidents have a standard handling procedure.

The situation was urgent. Xia Qing had just led the team to directly wipe out the enemy squad besieging the Ninth Center staff — that was within regulations. The fleeing enemies should be captured by people dispatched from the base; if there's no time to send anyone, the bombs can only be dropped when they're about to escape Hui Three.

"Copy."

After Seeing Xin Yu hung up, Xia Qing immediately contacted the Hui Three base commander's office — the specialist in charge of emergency missions.

"Copy that. I'll dispatch nearby combat teams and troops to capture them right away. Please provide enemy coordinates every two minutes, Director Xia." From the other end of the phone came the clatter of fingers on a keyboard.

Half a minute later, the Safe Zone mission hall and the online bulletin board posted the emergency bounty mission notice, and the phones of every combat team and soldier out on a mission that could get online also received it.

At the same time, the mission to search the area of Mountain Forty-Eight near the Northern District Three territory for anyone lying in wait was phoned in to the danger sweep teams of Northern District One and Northern District Three.

The sweep team members, who had just finished the rescue mission and were heading back to Northern District One and Northern District Three, immediately turned around and headed for Mountain Forty-Eight to carry out the search-and-capture order.

One minute later, five mission squads inside the western Evolution Forest, along with one official Evolution Forest combat platoon of fifty men, simultaneously dropped whatever they were doing and raced at full speed from their respective locations toward Mountains Forty-Five and Forty-Seven to cut off the ten bastards trying to escape.

Whoever they are — anyone who dares come to Hui Three to snatch Magnetic Sense Evolvers isn't getting out. Not a single one.

On the helicopter heading back to Northern District One, Hu Zifeng gave Xia Qing an "OK" gesture.

Xia Qing immediately sent Seeing Xin Yu a number, then called her: "The Safe Zone mission center has issued an emergency mission to capture the ten-man squad. The Azure Dragon Squad has taken on the aerial monitoring and strike mission. Join the mission group I'm sending you, post the enemies' real-time coordinates in it, and report their combat strength and weapons loadout."

After briefing her on the mission, Xia Qing added calmly, "The mission points you earn can be used to buy snacks for Guagua and Xiaoyu."

"Got it." This was the first time Seeing Xin Yu was leading her trained birds on a formal base-level mission; her usually cool voice was tinged with excitement.

The helicopter landed smoothly on the Ninth Center training field. When the cabin door opened, Xia Qing and Guo Chongjun carried the fallen squad member's body down the helicopter step by step.

The veterans standing on the training field snapped their right or left arms up in unison.

The family members of the staff standing on the outer edge stared at the body bag gleaming in the harsh noon sun, then snapped their eyes back to the cabin door, hearts in their throats,

Seeing their own loved ones walk down or be carried down, the families exhaled in huge relief — their people had come back alive!

Those who couldn't find their loved ones stumbled to the body bag, trembling as they pulled it open, and wept as though their hearts were breaking.

Xia Qing handed the follow-up work to Deputy Director Yue Haiying and to Office Director Yan Yue, who had put on her prosthetic and was already standing. The moment she turned around, she saw Wang Shunkang dash to his father Wang Jun's side.

Geng Min's father, wearing his Ninth Center work uniform, also ran to his daughter, his trembling hands fumbling over her bloodstained protective suit. Perhaps afraid of scaring the child, Geng Min's mother-in-law hadn't brought the child out.

One hour later, Xia Qing received the notification: of the fleeing ten-man squad, four had been killed and six captured!

After the emergency mission ended, Tan Junjie, who was still carrying out the search-and-capture mission, contacted Seeing Xin Yu and borrowed her trained birds to search from the air for the four enemies that might still be hiding in Mountain Forty-Eight.

Half an hour later, Xia Qing left the Ninth Center and quickened her pace back to her own territory. It was past two — she had to get back and cook for her companions.

"Xia Qing." Tang Huai poked his head out from the tall grass wall of Territory Two and called out to her. "Everything at the Ninth Center settled?"

Xia Qing nodded and kept walking.

Tang Huai chased after her. "Did you break up with Crazy Hu?"

Xia Qing shot him a look. Tang Huai, afraid of getting hit, immediately jumped aside. "Just now on the Lord's walkie-talkie, when Crazy Hu was talking to Captain Tan, he called you 'Sister Qing.' If you hadn't broken up, would he call you that?"

Xia Qing……

"You're pretty cut out for intelligence work."

"You really broke up?!" Even though Tang Huai was always yelling at them to break up, hearing that they actually had left him with complicated feelings.

"Buzz—"

"Answer your phone — answer it first. I'll find you later, I've got something to tell you." Tang Huai, who had no idea what to say next, quickly ducked back into the tall grass wall and ran off.

"Captain Tan?"

Tan Junjie asked first, "Xia Qing, are you done on your end?"

Xia Qing answered, "Done."

Tan Junjie laid out the dilemma they were facing: "I led the team tracking the scent of the two who escaped, and we reached the outer edge of the Third Peak of Mountain Forty-Eight. The scout birds spotted eight Evolution Wolves blocking the way ahead, led by that silver-gray-furred, blue-eyed giant wolf from the northern wolf pack."