Chapter 1040: Dividing the Spoils

Year Eleven of Calamity, third Calamity Rain intermission, western Hui-3 Evolution Forest, Mountain Zone Thirty-Seven.

In a valley of shattered trees and collapsed rocks, a thick column of black smoke rose, driving back the water mist drifting through the valley and revealing four busy figures.

Seven vagrants' corpses, the mangled limbs left by animals fighting in the valley, and the carcass of a giant lizard were piled by the four onto pine branches, doused with oil, and set alight.

The potions these seven vagrants used were toxic, and the insects they employed to lure wild beasts were also problematic. The animals that ate the insects and fled are beyond Xia Qing's control, but these dead ones must be thoroughly destroyed—she can't let them pollute this valley's ecosystem.

Burning is the cheapest, simplest, most brute-force way to sterilize and neutralize toxins. It's the Calamity Rain period now, so there's no need to create firebreaks or worry about the blaze spreading and burning the mountain.

After the bonfire was going, Xia Qing left Eryong to watch the fire. She took Hu Zifeng and Jing Kuan to the other side of the cave, lifted the vine-woven trap cover, and checked the situation inside.

The vagrants had dug this trap to catch tigers and wolves, so they didn't plant poison-smeared wooden stakes at the bottom. Though the prey inside had suffered some fall injuries, they were all still alive, packed into the pit in a writhing mass.

This batch of prey hadn't come into contact with the insects the vagrants scattered, so they're still usable.

"Sixteen wild boars, four antelopes, two sambar deer! Sister Qing, we're rich!" The visual evolver Jing Kuan finished counting the prey and was overjoyed.

All this prey is alive—even if every one of them flags red, hauling them back can still fetch 20 points per jin. We're rich!

Xia Qing also smiled. "Captain Hu, use the tranquilizer gun to put the prey down, then we'll move the cover aside and load them onto the helicopter to check their quality."

"You got it!" Hu Zifeng eagerly drew his tranquilizer gun and shot each animal once.

A few minutes later, all the animals had collapsed. Xia Qing used a crowbar to move the large stone pinning down the central wooden pole of the vine net, lifted the trap cover aside, and jumped into the three-plus-meter-deep pit.

The vagrants' squad had chosen the trap location very well—there was no standing water in the pit, the vine-net cover was slanted, and beneath the vine net was a layer of finely woven grass matting. The Calamity Rain that fell slid down the cover toward the lower parts of the valley, so the animals in the pit hadn't come into contact with that red Calamity Rain.

Hopefully among this batch of prey there are still a few edible ones, especially the sambar deer and antelope. In Evolution Forest zones with frequent human activity, these two large prey species are rarely seen. If they're edible, Xia Qing can bring them back and let her idol have a taste of something fresh.

"Captain Hu, catch!"

"Got it!"

Xia Qing gripped a wild boar weighing over three hundred jin with both hands and hurled it upward with all her strength. Hu Zifeng raised his hands and caught the prey Xia Qing threw, passed it to Jing Kuan beside him, who then tied the prey up with rope.

Evolved animals have all manner of abilities—any one of the prey in the pit might have evolved drug resistance, and before they could get back to the territory, they'd be rampaging all over the helicopter.

After Xia Qing had thrown all twenty-two prey animals up, she noticed a few small animals that had been trampled to a pulp at the bottom of the pit—those weren't worth collecting.

After climbing out of the pit, Xia Qing carefully examined the vine-net cover the vagrants had woven. Once she'd mastered the weaving method, she pulled out the grass matting and rolled it up. She turned and called to the alpha wolf crouching at the cave mouth halfway up the mountainside to come down and pick its spoils. "My lord, the prey are all out. You pick first—whatever's left is mine."

The alpha wolf stood up, leaped in a single bound to the prey's side, and fixed Hu Zifeng and Jing Kuan with a fierce stare from its rich, arrogant-gold eyes.

Hu Zifeng and Jing Kuan, who frequently went in and out of Territory Three, immediately understood what the wolf meant. They backed up over ten meters to give it space, waiting for the alpha wolf to finish choosing before they loaded the prey onto the helicopter.

The alpha wolf sniffed each of the prey Jing Kuan had tied up, finally stopping beside an antelope and looking at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing immediately carried the antelope aside. "Alright, this antelope is yours. Which of the rest would you like?"

The alpha wolf stared at Xia Qing solemnly—one person and one wolf, big eyes meeting big eyes.

Jing Kuan asked quietly, "What does Her Majesty mean? She only wants one sheep?"

Hu Zifeng shook his head—he didn't know.

Xia Qing understood. This batch of prey was the western wolf pack's "payment" to the northern wolf king. She pointed at the antelope the alpha wolf had picked out and asked, "My lord, you mean this antelope is mine, and all the rest of the prey are yours?"

The solemn alpha wolf slowly curled its lips back, revealing two small pointed fangs.

Jing Kuan:!!!

Hu Zifeng...

Xia Qing had no objections to the distribution. "Alright. The vagrants' supplies go to me, this antelope goes to me, and that batch of prey goes to my lord. Thank you, my lord, for giving me an extra antelope."

Jing Kuan gaped in astonishment. Hu Zifeng closed his mouth and asked, as calmly as he could manage, "Sister Qing, are we moving all these prey onto the helicopter?"

"Hold on a moment." Xia Qing pointed at the alpha wolf's large pile of prey, then pointed at the cave nearby. "Could my lord pick one more prey animal and give it to the tiger in that cave? It's injured and can't hunt these past few days."

A... a tiger? An evolved tiger?!!!

Jing Kuan stared in astonishment up at the cave above.

"Woo—"

The alpha wolf stood in front of its prey, bared its fangs at Xia Qing, and growled low.

Xia Qing understood. "Alright, all of these are my lord's. Then may I trade the antelope you gave me to the tiger in the cave?"

The alpha wolf retracted its fangs: no objection.

Xia Qing had Hu Zifeng and Jing Kuan carry the alpha wolf's prey into the helicopter cabin. She carried the antelope weighing over a hundred and thirty jin back to the cave, first taking out the Calamity Element detector to check the prey's quality.

When the yellow light on the detector lit up, showing the antelope's Calamity Element content was only 6.2‰, Xia Qing was stunned. She hadn't expected an antelope that had been drenched in half an hour of Calamity Rain to still maintain such high quality!

That batch of the alpha wolf's prey—could they all possibly be this quality?!

Such high-quality antelope meat—who's worthy of eating it?

Xia Qing immediately sent a message to her idol and got a reply almost at once:

Bring it back.

Xia Qing put away her phone, briskly cleaned and disinfected the driest corner at the very back of the cave, pulled a moisture-proof mat from her backpack and spread it out, opened the tent and carefully lifted the evolved tiger out, placing it on the moisture-proof mat.

After packing up the tent, Xia Qing picked up two large bags of spoils and left the cave, set them down in the helicopter cabin, casually chopped two large branches that had been knocked down during the wolf-tiger battle, dragged them halfway up the mountainside, went back into the cave and repeatedly sprayed it with bactericide and insect repellent and scent-isolating agents, before finally taking out all the freeze-dried food, jerky, and pollution-free spring water from her backpack, placing them beside the big tiger's head, and slowly explaining to the fierce big fellow with gestures.

"This water has anti-inflammatory medicine in it—when you can move, drink plenty. This is over five jin of green-light and yellow-light meat. Tear open the packaging like this and eat it. You don't need to go out hunting during the Calamity Rain period. I'll charge you a bargain price for this jerky—2,000 points. You now owe me points in total."

After saying that, Xia Qing lifted one of the tiger's thick legs, pointed at the wound that had been sutured and covered with an antibacterial patch, and earnestly instructed, "This is to protect the wound—you can't tear it off, and you can't lick it with your tongue. Blindy, you have to survive, protect your territory, don't give your territory to other beasts, and remember to pay me back the points."

After saying that, Xia Qing gently set its leg down, rubbed its big head a few times, scratched under its big chin, then stood up, shouldered her own backpack, picked up the large bag of captured spoils, walked out of the cave, and used branches to seal the cave mouth tightly.

The small animals in this valley had been cleared out by the vagrants using purple flesh-worms, so the evolved tiger could recuperate in peace.

After Xia Qing left, the evolved tiger inside the cave opened a pair of pale-yellow large eyes that had faded somewhat from blood-red, gazed quietly for a while at the cave mouth blocked with branches, looked again at the treated wound on its foreleg, and slowly closed its eyes.

The tip of its thick tail curled up slightly, then slowly fell back down.