Chapter 1199: Do You Want It, or Does Broken-Waist Want It?

Raise a cat?

Xia Qing was caught off guard by her idol's question. "Third Brother, you revoked Beard Feng's custody rights?"

What kind of bizarre brain is this? Zhang San shot her a disdainful look. "Next spring."

Oh? Oh!

Xia Qing shook her head. "Last year I wanted to raise a cat to catch mice, but I don't need to now. Besides, my territory already has two red squirrels living in it, and they probably can't coexist peacefully with a cat."

If there were a cat in the territory, the ones in the most danger wouldn't be the big red squirrel living in the buffer forest, nor Qiangzai living in Zone 3 of Mountain 49—because those two are speed evolvers, and unless it's a same-level speed-evolved cat, it couldn't catch them.

The one in the most danger is the brain-evolution Little Feimao living in the first-floor living room. It's not that fast.

Because it was once grabbed by an eagle when it was young, Little Feimao is very timid. Even if a cat could hold back from pouncing on it, it would still be so scared that it'd hide in Xia Qing's pocket all day.

This debt-paying working mouse that can pick out quality seeds is Employee No. 001 of Territory Three, and is very important to the farmer Xia Qing.

Also, the brain-evolution raven from Territory Eight loves to drop by Xia Qing's territory, peck at the leaves of the big Chinese toon tree, and chat with her for a bit. If Xia Qing raised a cat, Guagua would also be in danger.

For their sake, Xia Qing can do without a cat.

Besides, the her of now is no longer the her who just entered the territory last year. She now has sheep, wolves, squirrels, monkeys, and red foxes—she can pet whichever she wants, for as long as she wants.

Zhang San could tell Xia Qing genuinely didn't want to raise one, so he dropped this experimental project and continued asking, "How do you deal with the mouse problem in your territory? With wolves?"

"Not entirely. In that bamboo grove you visited, there are three red foxes—two big ones and a little one. I've saved the little one a few times. They often wander through my territory and catch mice, frogs, and snakes along the way."

Two big ones and a little one?

A blurry image from the video he'd just watched flashed through Zhang San's mind. "The three that appeared in today's video?"

"Right. The little one is an elasticity evolver, but not very bright—it often gets itself stuck."

Birds of a feather. Every animal around Xia Qing is bizarre.

Zhang San stopped asking, turned around, beep-beep-beep entered the code on the door, went inside the lab, and came out with a big bag of medicine. "Use these on the old wolf in the southern wolf pack. Get the river moss grass deal settled as soon as possible, or we'll miss the seed-harvesting window."

"Understood. I'll head to Mountain 22 tomorrow." Xia Qing took the medicine and asked again, "Third Brother, can I go to Song Ge and ask for some videos and books on raising bamboo rats?"

Zhang San shot Xia Qing a look. "Do you want it, or does Broken-Waist want it?"

Although he felt there were too many unpredictable risks, Zhang San admitted one thing Xia Qing had said: Blue Star didn't belong to humans alone, but to all living creatures.

If the brain-evolution lords among the animals could also join the effort to protect Blue Star's ecological balance, they'd be far stronger than humans going it alone.

Zhang San decided to treat the northern wolf pack as cooperative, communicable lords for a period of time and see how it went.

As for the future, they could only take it one step at a time.

Xia Qing immediately understood what her idol meant. "Broken-Waist wants it! What do you want to trade with the wolf pack? Pork, bamboo rats, or herbs?"

Xia Qing and her idol often traded various supplies. Her idol still owed her over sixty-eight thousand points, which was why Xia Qing had said she wanted to "ask" Zhang Song for them.

Broken-Waist Wolf had no direct trade with her idol. If it wanted supplies from Territory Seven, it would have to trade with Third Brother.

The wolf big shot's yi stones and pollution-free water were secrets and couldn't be traded away, and the qianwu grass was hers too, so it couldn't be traded. So even with her idol, she could only trade the wolf pack for supplies that were visible on the surface.

Actually…

Broken-Waist had already paid Xia Qing quite a few Green Lantern mountain walnuts in exchange for new knowledge. So even if Broken-Waist Wolf wanted these videos, the supplies her idol offered in trade still had to come from Xia Qing.

Of the three things Xia Qing mentioned, Zhang San didn't pick any. "I want to take a turn around Mountain 49. On the way I'll first check on the evolved hornets in the chestnut grove, then look at the bamboo rat feeding area, and dig up a few bamboo shoots while I'm at it."

So her idol just wanted to get out for a change of pace. Xia Qing nodded immediately. "No problem. When would you like to go?"

Zhang San was surprised. "Don't you need to discuss it with Broken-Waist?"

That place was now the wolf pack's territory.

"No need, I can decide something this small on my own." She was the wolf pack's No. 4 combatant, fully capable of deciding such a minor matter. "What do you think, Third Brother—can Yang Jin, Broken-Waist, and I protect you? That place used to be the Azure Dragon Squad's training ground, but now it belongs to the wolf pack, so the danger level isn't high. The wolf pack isn't familiar with the members of your special-ops squad. If they went, it might cause conflict."

Zhang San nodded. "Fine. Go after you've handled the Mountain 22 matter."

Xia Qing certainly didn't object. "I'll tell Yang Jin tonight. Let's bring back a few more Green Lantern bamboo shoots this time to add to your meals. You've gotten thinner again—is it because you've run out of anti-allergy medicine?"

"Still have some. If I keep taking the special-effect medicine, it'll expose Zhang Shi and her mother. Keeping my current state is safest." Zhang San didn't want Xia Qing to worry too much, so he added, "I just look unhealthy, that's all."

Her idol really did think things through. If he visibly maintained a normal state, Hidden Tolerance would definitely get suspicious.

Xia Qing didn't say any more. She went to find Zhang Song for the materials, then returned to her territory, put the medicine in her single-door fridge and locked it. After a quick bite to eat, she brought Daigua—who had eaten a piece of Yellow Lantern sweet potato—into Greenhouse 12 and handed it a small pair of scissors.

The big one? That guy found Xia Qing stinky and would rather squeeze into the sheep shed with Little Yellow Cow than come inside.

Wolf Lao Er? It had already drunk a vial of nutrient solution, eaten two Green Lantern bamboo rats, and was now sunbathing and sleeping.

Seeing Xia Qing bring Daigua into Greenhouse 12, Wolf Lao Er followed from home and lay down outside the shed to sleep. Sheep Big One also came over and lay on the other side of the greenhouse, chewing its cud.

Wolf Lao Er was even stinkier than Xia Qing, so Big One wanted to get even further away from it.

Daigua's claws weren't sharp enough. Picking cotton was fine, but tasks like plucking cotton bolls and picking green beans were a bit difficult for it. When picking beans, it would accidentally snap the bean branches, and a few times it even pulled up the whole bean seedling.

So, to improve the work quality of Employee No. 002, Daigua, Xia Qing had Watching Huo Zhun forge two small pairs of scissors for it to use.

Daigua was very smart and quickly figured out how to use the scissors.

Xia Qing had it harvest the last crop of green bean pods in the greenhouse, while she headed to Wolf Valley in Zone 3 of Mountain 49 to continue collecting wild boar dung.

The proper work that had been interrupted because of the fight between Little Fifth and the plucked brat had to be finished today.

Wild boars reproduce very quickly. Last November, the wolf pack drove eight adult wild boars and over twenty half-grown wild boars into this valley and gave Xia Qing a yi stone to raise them.

This spring, over a hundred piglets were born in the valley. After the wolf pack and Xia Qing had eaten them down to now, only six Green Lantern wild boars remained—two males and four females.

How did Xia Qing confirm the quality of the living wild boars? By dung testing, of course.

Regularly clearing out wild boar dung and disinfecting the valley was Xia Qing's job.

Based on Xia Qing's understanding of the wolf pack, although they'd added the rat-raising project, they would definitely keep raising wild boars. In a few days, a new batch of wild boars with unknown quality would be added here.

Before these new wild boars arrived, Xia Qing had to collect the Green Lantern high-quality dung fertilizer from the valley back to her territory to ferment, for use in cultivating high-quality crops.

After collecting five big bags of dung, Xia Qing carried two bags back to Territory Three and poured them into the cold-proof ditch that had been cleared out in front of the greenhouse. Then she called out to her companion, "Want to go fight Flat-Top, Big One? I just spotted it waking up."

Big One, who was grazing in the northern buffer forest, immediately ran to the north gate and squinted at her stinky little brother and the slow-moving Wolf Lao Er.

"Coming!"

Xia Qing cheerfully followed with two hanging baskets. "After the fight, Big One, can you haul the fertilizer back from the Zone 3 valley? There are three bags left—you carry two, I take one. How about it?"

Boss Sheep stood in place, his eyes urging his two underlings to be quick about it.