Chapter 1133: Battle in the Valley Again

The next day, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Xia Qing got up.

She patrolled her own territory, then took a turn around the Ninth Center, and after coming back and eating breakfast, she noticed the fog was thick today and the temperature hadn't risen much, so she simply shouldered her hoe, led her ox, and took Sheep Boss for a stroll toward the northern buffer forest.

The ox was tethered on the hillside to graze, Sheep Boss roamed freely, and Xia Qing went to weed the cabbage terraces.

In mid-August, Xia Qing pulled up the bean vines and eggplant vines and planted three hundred Green Lantern cabbages in the terraces. Green Lantern cabbages were high-yield and easy to store, a favorite food of Sheep Boss and the chickens, and she figured the little yellow ox would like them too, so she planted extra.

Because the terraces were used to cultivate premium crops, Xia Qing hadn't let Beard Feng's squad handle the terrace crops. A few days ago, after one watering, a dense layer of various small weeds had sprouted in the cabbage field, and they had to be cleared by her personally.

Compared to fighting in the Evolution Forest, Xia Qing preferred working inside her territory. She carefully stood among the lush green cabbages, already a palm's height tall, and skillfully swung her hoe, cutting away the weeds while also loosening the soil in the cabbage field.

Loosening the soil could improve its structure and promote plant growth, but the measure had to be just right. If the hoe went too deep or too close to the plant, it would damage the root system and stunt the crop's growth.

Xia Qing was an experienced farmer, so of course she wouldn't make that kind of mistake, but Huo Zhun over in Territory Eleven wasn't so lucky.

Huo Zhun was weeding in the shed with three teammates, chatting about going hunting after the disaster-relief program ended. The more they talked, the more worked up they got, and before he knew it, he'd chopped down a cabbage seedling. Before he could sneak it back underground, his old man caught him.

In front of so many people, Lord Huo Lei didn't scold his son, only said he was too clumsy for such delicate work, so for the next half month he would be in charge of cooking and washing dishes, sweeping the room and doing laundry.

Huo Zhun felt the sky was falling. He struggled to protest, "Dad, I still have to go out on a mission with Sister Qing today, I probably won't have time to come back and make lunch."

Xia Qing had been absent from her territory for two days straight, which would arouse suspicion. So disaster-relief commander Zhang San requisitioned a helicopter from the Azure Dragon Squad, sending Xia Qing, Huo Zhun, and Zhang Hongda to pilot it and track the Qi Snakes in the Evolution Forest's water system from the air, coordinating with the ground mission teams to improve snake-catching efficiency.

Tang Huai actively lobbied to team up with Xia Qing, but Zhang San refused him outright. Because he was a hearing-evolved person and couldn't pilot a helicopter, teaming him with Xia Qing had zero value—his only contribution would be wasting fuel.

Just as Wu Lianmin was secretly winking and making faces at Huo Zhun, Xia Qing's voice came over the walkie-talkie, "Brother Huo, Dazi, you there?"

Huo Zhun immediately grabbed the walkie-talkie, "Here! Sister Qing, I'm here!"

Zhang Hongda also replied, "Sister Qing, I'm ready."

"Good. Meet at the Number Forty-Nine Mountain helipad in fifteen minutes."

"Copy that!" Huo Zhun answered loudly, then turned to look at his dad with pleading eyes.

Lord Huo Lei had no temper left. "When you're teamed with Xia Qing, in any situation you listen to Xia Qing completely. Do whatever she tells you, keep your mouth shut and stop talking nonsense."

Both Xia Qing and Xin Yu liked quiet and disliked annoyance; Tang Huai was despised precisely because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"Yes!" Huo Zhun answered crisply, dropped his hoe, and ran.

Lord Huo Lei roared, "You've got fifteen minutes, why are you running? Go inside, fill a thermos with warm water, and bring it!"

"Okay—"

Watching his son still running as if his tail were on fire, Lord Huo Lei complained to Wang Dashan, "He's already twenty-three, and not a shred of proper behavior."

Looking at the patch of ground in front of Lord Huo Lei that had been hacked into a mess, Wang Dashan chuckled sheepishly, "For their generation, after evolution their lifespan extended to over a hundred years. Twenty-three is basically still a kid."

"Flying a helicopter around for surveillance is too noisy and burns too much fuel." Tang Huai called out to Xin Yu on the Lord Channel, "Xin Yu, want to team up with Guagu, Xiaoxiao, and Xiaoyu? I'll be responsible for protecting your safety."

Xin Yu didn't want to deal with Tang Huai, but she had to get online and explain, "My tamed bird got startled while out on a mission yesterday and can't go out again for a while."

Before Tang Huai could press further, Zhang San came online. "Attention, members of yesterday's snake-catching squads: anyone who can't go out on a mission today, state your reason in the group. Those who can, assemble and depart in twenty minutes."

"Copy that." Tan Qi replied crisply. School was suspended during the disaster-relief period, so Tan Qi had joined the disaster-relief mission squad to earn points and contribution value.

Qi Fu responded on the Lord Channel, "Third Brother, Number Five Territory is switching personnel today. I'm the one going out on the mission."

"Fine. Stay safe."

Inside Territory Eleven, Wu Lianmin, who hadn't managed to snag a chance to go out yesterday, discussed with two teammates, "Man-jie, Mingzi, which of you two is staying in the territory? I want to go out for a look around."

Before Di Ming could speak, Wang Man pointed at the neatly hoed vegetable beds in front of him, "Mingzi does the best farm work. You stay and weed. Mingzi and I will go out."

Di Ming...!!!

The helicopter stopped at Number Fifty-Nine Mountain. Xia Qing hurried toward Number Sixty Mountain, while Huo Zhun and Zhang Hongda continued the aerial search mission.

She hadn't expected a strong wind to scatter the clouds and fog, causing the temperature to rise rapidly. The snake swarm was very likely about to launch their fourth invasion, and if she didn't hurry, she wouldn't get any meat strips.

Just as Xia Qing had predicted, before she even reached the battlefield, wolf howls and bear roars rang out from over there!

When Xia Qing arrived at the scene, the valley hunt had already begun. Glancing at the six giant pythons standing upright on the lake surface two thousand meters away, Xia Qing grabbed her bag and charged into the valley to snatch snakes.

Her main goal today was to grab a few live Yi Snakes before the wolf pack killed them all.

Xia Qing's sniping skills were excellent and her strength wasn't small either, but when it came to speed she was far inferior to the evolved wolves. After half a day of frantic effort she finally managed to grab one, and the result... was another male snake.

This luck was really something else...

Xia Qing lifted her bag and looked around, spotting another Yi Snake fleeing south in the middle of the water, and immediately charged over.

The mother giant bear on the opposite side was much faster than Xia Qing. It charged into the water, slapped the snake into the bear clan's territory with one paw, and roared at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing got angry too, but before she could roar back, the handsome giant wolf leaped into the lake, grabbed Xia Qing's protective suit in its jaws, and flung her back onto the shore, then led three giant wolves to face the mother giant bear.

The Yi Snakes that crawled out were all dead, and the hunt in the valley turned into a vicious brawl again. The greedy little bear with medical tape on its leg also fought fiercely alongside the broken-legged wolf and the others.

Xia Qing scrambled up and ran to the hillside, aiming her gun at the five-and-a-half giant pythons standing on the lake surface, guarding against a sneak attack.

The giant python with golden vertical pupils noticed this dangerous human had appeared again, hissed angrily a few times, and slammed the water surface hard with its tail.

After the spray fell, the lake surface returned to calm, and not a single giant python remained. The snake commander had aborted this invasion. The medium pythons retreated, and only several dozen small snakes swam upstream from the lake into the river channel, using the chaos of the bear-wolf brawl to scatter and flee.

The Wolf King and Xiong Wang quickly put a stop to the chaos in the valley. Once the bear clan and wolf clan calmed down, they began fighting over the Yi Snakes on the ground. Xia Qing used this chance to rush down and grab three male snakes and one female snake, but unfortunately the female snake was already dead—it could only count as a meat strip.

After sealing the Yi Snakes, Xia Qing caught every Qi Snake she could, then stood by the river channel gazing longingly at the Xiong Wang across the way.

The well-fed Xiong Wang locked eyes with Xia Qing for a few seconds, then waved a big paw and tossed her a white meat strip.

"Thanks, Brother Bear, Brother Bear is so generous!" Xia Qing nimbly packed the meat strip into a bag and sealed it, then stuffed it into a large insulated bag.

This was a three-layer insulated bag made of thickened aluminum film, polymer insulating pearl cotton, and a waterproof outer layer. Xia Qing had packed over a dozen ice packs inside; sealed Yi Snake meat strips placed in the bag wouldn't spoil for five or six hours.

Because the pythons hadn't had time to enter the fight, neither the wolves nor the bears suffered serious injuries in the melee. Xia Qing only briefly treated the wounds on two wolves, then sat in the shade and negotiated with the broken-waist wolf, asking it to catch two live Yi Snakes for Third Brother during the next invasion battle.

The broken-waist wolf agreed readily.

After waiting over four hours with no movement, Xia Qing felt something was off and called the helicopter to scout from above, only to learn that the snake swarm had given up on heading south and had instead gone to the Number Sixty-Eight Mountain area northwest of the python lake to look for a hibernation habitat.

The Number Sixty-Eight Mountain area belonged to neither the wolf clan nor the bear clan, but was the fringe territory of the evolved raptors!