Chapter 1071: Changing Doors

Through the camera, Xia Qing watched the old wolf place its companion's corpse in a crevice within its ruined territory, then use its claws to scrape away the dead grass and rubble beneath the wild grass, burying its companion bit by bit.

Then, the bedraggled old wolf stood atop the ruins, gazing up at the night sky, howling silently in grief.

Xia Qing rose and pulled back a corner of the blackout curtain in the living room, looking toward the ruins south of the yard.

From this angle, Xia Qing couldn't see the old wolf, only the vast expanse of dead grass swaying in the wind atop the ruins beneath the scattered starlight.

This scene, for no apparent reason, reminded Xia Qing of the first dead-rain after the sixth year of the Catastrophe, when she took on a mission to clear the dead grass outside the safe zone's perimeter wall.

That night, like tonight, there was no moon in the sky, only a few stars darting in and out of the dark clouds. Xia Qing, with a backpack on her back and a machete in her hand, stood beneath the tall perimeter wall. No matter which angle she looked up from, she couldn't see the section of wall stained red by her father's blood. The overwhelming dead grass, taller than her by a head, pressed down on her so she could barely breathe, nor make any sound.

Xia Qing let go of the curtain and went into the kitchen, filling the large iron pot with filtered water, then struck a match and lit the firewood.

Wolf Lao Er, freshly washed with fluffy fur, walked over and lay down on the firewood, gazing at her. Xia Qing gently stroked Wolf Lao Er's forehead, which bore no scars.

When the pot gave off the sound of small bubbles rising densely and popping, Xia Qing lifted the lid and ladled out the nearly boiling water, pouring it into the clean bathtub, mixing in cold water and medicine. With Wolf Lao Er, she pushed open the warped security door that groaned under its own weight, and pointed toward the ruins outside the window. "Wolf Lao Er, go bring the old wolf in for a bath to kill the bugs."

This old wolf had been brought over by Wolf Lao Er. To get Xia Qing to treat the old wolf, Wolf Lao Er had even paid a pebble; the two of them got along quite well.

Although Wolf Lao Er wasn't a brain-domain evolver, it was still smarter than pre-Catastrophe wolves and dogs, and could understand Xia Qing's meaning. It climbed up onto the ruins and quickly brought the old wolf over.

Xia Qing had given the old wolf, which had been caught in the dead rain, a bath the night before last and applied insect-repelling powder, so its coat and skin were in much better condition than Wolf Lao Er's.

When Xia Qing examined it, applied medicine, and removed the bugs, the old wolf was very calm and docile, as if it had handed its body over to Xia Qing while its soul had gone somewhere else.

For the first time, Xia Qing felt complete trust from this old wolf.

After rinsing the dirt from the old wolf's coat and letting it soak in the tub, Xia Qing took a shovel up onto the ruins, added soil to thoroughly cover the spot where the wolf was buried, then sterilized and disinfected the old wolf's den, replaced it with the thickest dry grass mat, and pulled out the surrounding dead grass before returning to the house to pull the old wolf out of the water.

After tending to both wolves and finishing her own bath, it was already past three in the morning.

She felt that she had only just closed her eyes after lying down when she heard a rooster crow. With her eyes closed, she quietly listened for a few seconds to the roosters, birds, and flowing water within the territory. Xia Qing slowly stretched her limbs before picking up her phone from the bedside to check the latest battle situation between Blaze and Extinguisher.

Yang Jin hadn't contacted her yet, which meant both sides were still locked in fierce combat. Seeing Xin Yu, Tang Huai, and Xu Juan had all sent her messages—different in detail, but all about the same thing:

The Blaze Squad had seized the Extinguisher Sect's Holy Stone, triggering a fierce conflict between the two factions. Blaze Mountain was bombed, with casualties exceeding two hundred and heavy losses. Because the commotion was so great, it had attracted the attention of the officials.

In Seeing Xin Yu's message, there was also one item: the unpolluted spring on Blaze Mountain might have been destroyed.

That spring was the main reason the Blaze Squad had settled on Blaze Mountain, a dozen or so li from Huiyi Safe Zone, and the root of Blaze's rise. If the spring was truly destroyed, Blaze's ability to improve the quality of their crops and medicines would become far more difficult.

The smile Xia Qing had been wearing slowly faded when she saw the last message. The Beimen of Territory Three and the Beimen of Northern Zone One both indicated that the old wolf had passed through these two gates at five in the morning and left the territory.

Perhaps because she had witnessed the scene of it burying its companion last night, Xia Qing now looked at Lao Si's retreating back and felt it carried a sense of bleakness and resolve.

Although she didn't know what it was going to do, Xia Qing was confident it would return by evening. Because its stomach and intestines hadn't been fully conditioned yet, it still couldn't eat raw meat and needed to take medicine morning and evening.

Xia Qing checked the cameras and found Lao Da eating grass in shed 15, while Wolf Lao Er was catching bugs with a small basket in its mouth. A smile returned to her face.

Wolf Lao Er had probably finished its task of guarding the cubs, so from now on it could stay in the territory permanently!

Xia Qing got up and went downstairs, only to find Little Feimao wasn't in the house either. In the cage, the freeloading red squirrel mother and her strong kit were bouncing around frantically. Morning is the active period for red squirrels; these two also wanted to go out and forage. But they hadn't defecated yet after eating the aggressive dead grass, and were currently in a fasting and medication period, so they had to stay locked in the cage.

Not just them—the ground-walking eagle in Territory Eight was also locked in a cage by Seeing Xin Yu.

Xia Qing put on protective gear and went out. She first made a round of the greenhouses, then checked the now-quiet red-leaf bamboo grove, before arriving at the fish pond to ask the wolf-dog, who was feeding the fish, "Wolf Lao Er, what did Lao Si go out to do last night?"

Wolf Lao Er looked up and gave Xia Qing a happy smile.

Seeing it so happy, Xia Qing asked nothing more. She wiped a grass leaf from its mouth and let it continue feeding the fish, while she went home to clean the dead grass out of the chicken coop and release all the chickens locked in the hencoop cage.

At the beginning of spring this year, Territory Three had a total of 1 rooster and 15 hens, making 16 chickens. After the weather warmed, from early February to the end of May, a total of 12 hens successively went broody and hatched 120 chicks. Subtracting those that died from various causes and those Xia Qing slaughtered for meat, 56 remained, of which 18 belonged to the Idol.

That is, of the fifty chickens Xia Qing had agreed to raise for the Idol last year when she traded for the Dead-Grass Resistance Potion, this was the portion that hadn't yet been sent to Territory Seven.

The remaining chickens belonging to Xia Qing weren't numerous, but the eggs they produced were enough for her to eat.

After cleaning the chicken coop and finishing breakfast, Xia Qing drove the micro-tiller to harvest along the north-south boundary line of the territory, because the people from Territories 15 and 17 who helped her clear the dead grass in the territory were about to arrive.

It was quite a coincidence—by the time Xia Qing reached the Beimen of her territory, not only had the people who helped her clear the grassland arrived, but so had the people delivering goods to her.

This morning, after screenshotting the East Zone One surveillance footage and circling the area where the laboratory would be built, Xia Qing sent it directly to the Idol, along with a message asking whether she could trade for an entry door like the one in the Territory Seven food storage room, equipped with a smart lock that used facial recognition.

Because her security door had been kicked twice last night, and even after repairs it looked terrible, Xia Qing decided to replace it with one that didn't need kicking and could be opened with a face scan.

With this kind of door installed, no one other than Xia Qing and her animal friends could enter her home through this door, further improving the security level.