Chapter 1189: Attack

A little yellow weasel, a fire-red qiang snake dangling from its mouth, was sprinting toward Xia Qing at full escape speed.

No need to ask—surely some hunter was chasing it.

Xia Qing immediately drew the handgun at her waist, her evolved hearing and vision pushed to full power, scanning for the target behind it.

Whether you run on the ground or fly in the sky, if you dare hunt my companion on my turf, you'll go down!

The plucked kid, qiang snake still in its mouth, sprinted over at the fastest speed of its life, scrambled up Xia Qing's leg with a whoosh-whoosh, and clung to her backpack, trembling.

If it weren't terrified, this little fellow would never have voluntarily approached Xia Qing to seek shelter.

Movement in the trees—the hunter had arrived!

Xia Qing's muzzle aimed at a branch thirty meters away that had trembled unnaturally, and the image of a lynx that had once hunted in this area flashed through her mind.

But when the animal chasing the plucked kid appeared, Xia Qing didn't pull the trigger—she even holstered her gun.

A tabby cat wearing snow-white boots and a white neckerchief leapt nimbly from the tree onto a rock and stared at Xia Qing.

It was… Little Fifth!

Xia Qing turned and pointed at the weasel on her back, trying to communicate with the tabby cat that had no fate with her. "Little Fifth, this weasel is my companion—don't hurt it."

Little Fifth was indeed good-looking, but it belonged to someone else. The plucked kid—clever, good-looking, and able to catch qiang snakes—was Xia Qing's. So Xia Qing made her stance crystal clear.

After hearing Xia Qing's words, the tabby cat Little Fifth actually crouched low on the rock, muscles tensed, tail swishing side to side, striking an attack pose!

Two days ago, when Blind Tiger struck this pose at Xia Qing, she was genuinely scared.

But when this little thing struck the same pose at her, Xia Qing felt only one thing: speechless.

This was Section Three of Mountain Forty-Nine—Xia Qing's territory.

This cat had entered her territory, chased her companion, and after Xia Qing, whose combat power clearly surpassed its own, made her stance clear, it still dared to strike a provocative pose at the overlord.

It was challenging the lord's authority—and in the Evolution Forest, such a challenge was a display of territorial dispute.

Who gave it the courage? Hu Zi Feng? Or her own appearance of being too mild? Xia Qing reached up and removed her protective mask, her eyes locked on the tabby cat opposite, her aura unleashed, killing intent surging. "This weasel is my companion. Little Fifth, if you dare hurt it in my territory, you'll face the consequences."

Though the plucked kid wasn't as big as Little Fifth, if these two really fought, the plucked kid might not lose.

Survival competition in the Evolution Forest was brutally cruel. For a cat, this was just an ordinary hunting chase, but for the weasel, losing could very well mean losing its life—so it would go all out.

Little Fifth was indeed cowed by Xia Qing's presence; its ears flattened back, its center of gravity shifted backward, and it slowly retreated into the grass.

After hearing it leave, Xia Qing withdrew her killing intent, then turned her head and spoke softly to the half-grown weasel clinging to her backpack, qiang snake still in its mouth. "Don't be scared, plucked kid—that cat's gone. You can come down now."

The plucked kid, eyes wide open and whiskers trembling, stared motionlessly at Xia Qing.

Afraid it might accidentally release its stench, Xia Qing carefully crouched down, tilted back so her backpack touched the ground, and only then did the little fellow climb down and place the qiang snake on the ground.

Xia Qing immediately dug out a larger green-light egg from her backpack and set it on the ground. "Where did you find this qiang snake, plucked kid? You're amazing! I'll trade you this egg—thanks for catching the qiang snake for me."

Seeing the little fellow didn't dare come up and take the egg in its mouth, Xia Qing scooted back a few steps, pointed in the direction the tabby cat had left, and warned it, "That tabby cat is very powerful—don't go back over there. That's its territory.

You can head back this way to Mountain Fifty. This side is my territory."

Perhaps the tabby cat's appearance had left the plucked kid uneasy, so it didn't take the egg in its mouth—instead, it bit through the eggshell right in front of Xia Qing and started eating.

Unlike Old Four's hearty eating style, the plucked kid first bit open the eggshell with its teeth and only drank the egg liquid.

Then the little fellow turned and burrowed into the grass.

Xia Qing packed up both the eggshell and the qiang snake. The highly venomous qiang snake had to be sent to Territory Seven, and the green-light eggshell was excellent material for composting—not a bit could be wasted.

She had no idea how much dung the giant hornets in the valley had produced lately. The spinach seeds Xia Qing had planted in her lab had sprouted and were in urgent need of high-quality fertilizer, so she decided to ask Third Brother about it once she got back from Mountain Twenty-Six.

But she was about to send another qiang snake—traded from the weasel—to Territory Seven, so Third Brother probably wouldn't be in a great mood and might not let Dayà help her collect hornet dung.

Xia Qing was mulling this over when she heard a snorting sound, and her eyes immediately lit up.

The flat-top, who had followed the scent, came swaggering over with an indignant gait, head swaying, baring a mouthful of tiny teeth as it charged at Xia Qing.

This time Xia Qing didn't run. Instead, she beamed and held out the fire-red qiang snake. "Flat-top, want a meat stick?"

The flat-top unceremoniously snatched the meat stick from the tiny human's hands, pinned it down, and started gnawing.

Only after watching the fellow chew-chew-chew and swallow the entire qiang snake did Xia Qing jump down into the boar valley.

It was still a little over an hour until noon, so Xia Qing decided to take the chance to collect the boar dung that had accumulated in the valley over the past few days before heading back to her territory.

She put on her protective mask, jumped into the valley, pulled open the creaking wooden door of the wolf den, took out a shovel from inside, and began collecting boar dung from the valley.

The two wolves recuperating inside the den had recovered and returned to the wolf pack's territory, so the den had once again become Xia Qing's tool shed.

Most of the boars penned in the valley for a year had grown used to Xia Qing's presence, but when she approached the boars' den to collect dung, a big boar still bellowed and charged out at her.

Xia Qing dropped the shovel, and with swift, precise, ruthless force, grabbed the charging boar and flung it aside.

"Thud!"

The boar hit the muddy grass, grunted a few times, climbed back up, and slunk away.

Keeping a herd of boars in the valley had both pros and cons for Xia Qing.

The upside was she had meat to eat and could harvest animal manure for fertilizer; the downside was the boars had rooted up the valley's vegetation into a mess. Several medicinal herbs growing in the valley, like green-light ginger, had been rooted up by the boars, so there would be no harvest this year.

While Xia Qing was cleaning the valley, the walkie-talkie she carried crackled to life. "Sister Qing, have you seen Little Fifth? It's been out for a while. I just called it back up the mountain to eat green-light bamboo rats, but I can't find it."

Xia Qing pressed the walkie-talkie. "Half an hour ago, it chased a weasel into Section Three of Mountain Forty-Nine. I chased it off, and I haven't seen it since."

"Kra-kra."

Xia Qing had just finished speaking when she heard a sound from the plucked kid in the Evolution Forest on the east side above the valley—similar to a human sneeze, a sound yellow weasels only make when startled or calling for help.

"Meow!"

Before Xia Qing could react, she heard Little Fifth's anguished cry from that direction.

She immediately dropped her tools, whipped out the Dengshan rope, looped it around a big tree above the valley, and began climbing.

(End of this chapter)