Chapter 1208: The Box

The terrain was flat with no caves, and it couldn't be underground either, so it had to be hidden in the trees.

Xia Qing raised her head and looked at the towering trees dozens of meters tall before her. Such trees usually housed many birds, even raptors. The giant eagle that had fled from Gui Three to Hui Three's Evolution Forest had entered the northern wolves' territory and taken up residence in a nest at the top of one of these giant trees.

Could the supplies be in a raptor's nest?

After confirming that Xia Qing's breathing had steadied and her stamina had recovered, the old wolf led her into the giant tree forest, with the adult male wolf and Scarface pup still covering the rear. After weaving through the forest for several minutes, the old wolf stopped in front of a giant tree nearly two meters in diameter, sniffed left and right, then pricked its ears and listened for a while before turning back to look at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing understood. "Old Four, the supplies are in the tree?"

Old Four bared its grey-white fangs with great ferocity.

Xia Qing deployed her full suite of evolved hearing, vision, and magnetic-sense abilities to scout the surroundings, confirming there were no large animals breathing nearby and no aggressive evolved plants. But climbing a tree was extremely dangerous—if snipers were lying in ambush around her, she would become a living target.

So Xia Qing didn't rush to act. She first took the three wolves and scouted everything within two thousand meters. Only after confirming there were no snipers in ambush did she return to the big tree Old Four had selected, strap on her cat-claw shoes, and begin climbing.

Watching Xia Qing scramble up the tree, Scarface pup widened its grey-yellow eyes in astonishment.

When Xia Qing had climbed over twenty meters up, Old Four below let out a low howl.

Xia Qing paused, glanced down at Old Four, then looked around to confirm there was no danger before starting to pound the trunk with her fists, searching for a possible tree hollow.

"Thud."

"Thud, thud."

"Thud, thud, thud… thud!"

After knocking up and down and around in circles more than forty times, Xia Qing indeed found a spot where the bark's echo was clearly different from the rest, and her anticipation immediately spiked.

She shone her small flashlight on this patch of bark and discovered a semicircular cut mark longer than an arm's width across. The cut wasn't a standard arc but had been made following the natural fissures of the bark—without pressing close to look carefully, it would have been very hard to spot.

She stabbed her black knife into this semicircular patch of bark. After piercing through the bark, the blade struck a non-woody hard object with a sharp "Clang!"

Xia Qing's heart trembled along with that sound.

There was foreign material inside the bark—proof that something was hidden here!

Being experienced, Xia Qing didn't rush to open the cache. She first switched on her signal jammer to block signals in the area, in case the supplies inside the hollow contained alarm triggers that would bring unwanted trouble.

Then Xia Qing waved down at the wolves, signaling them to move farther away. She checked her protective gear once more, and only after confirming there wasn't a single weak point did she use her black knife to slice open the bark along the healed cut mark.

To avoid damaging the bark, Xia Qing cut very carefully.

After the bark was peeled back, Xia Qing discovered inside a thirty-centimeter-square box door wrapped in two layers of cloth. The cloth and the box door's material both felt very unusual—they had to be new materials capable of blocking instrument detection.

Whoever had thought to hide supplies like this was definitely a genius. But this genius was a bit overconfident, because the box used an ordinary mechanical lock.

Xia Qing switched on her small flashlight again to illuminate the inside of the keyhole. After looking for a few seconds she turned it off, then pulled two short pieces of steel wire from her satchel. For a high-level evolved hearing and vision user, two short pieces of wire were more than enough to pick this kind of mechanical pin lock.

"Click, click…"

Xia Qing probed a few times with the wire, found the position of the pins inside the lock, then held them in place with the wire and twisted—the box door swung open. The box was stuffed full of fist-sized stones Xia Qing didn't recognize. There was no poison gas, no explosives, no lethally toxic creatures, and no signal transmitter.

Stones hidden in a place like this had to be new-material ore with major uses!

Jackpot!

This wasn't the place to take stock of supplies. Xia Qing gripped the edges of the box with both hands and gradually increased her force. Using only thirty percent of her strength, she pulled the cloth-wrapped thirty-centimeter cubic box out of the hollow, tied it with rope, and lowered it to the ground.

With plenty of experience scavenging supplies, Xia Qing didn't rush to leave. She shone her flashlight into the hollow again and, sure enough, discovered another box inside!

Then a third, a fourth…

From this seemingly modest hollow, Xia Qing pulled out a total of eight boxes of the same size and material but differing weights.

She confirmed once more that whoever had chosen this method and location for hiding supplies was definitely a genius—and a very likeable one at that!

After lowering the eight boxes to the ground with rope, Xia Qing didn't rush to climb down. Instead, she very carefully sprayed the interior and edges of the hollow with odor neutralizer, then pressed the bark back on with perfect fit, and made her way down while continuing to spray odor neutralizer.

Xia Qing's pack contained disinfectant, paraffin, and tree-specific healing agent that could speed up bark recovery, but the medicine she carried was either produced in Territory Seven or traded from the patrol team—using it here would be the same as exposing her identity.

The odor neutralizer she had just used was also an ordinary commercial product, manufactured by a processing plant inside Hui One Safe Zone. Even if someone investigated this spot and found traces of odor neutralizer, they couldn't trace it back to her.

After returning to the ground, Xia Qing quickly packed up. She had Old Four and the adult male wolf each carry two boxes, while she herself carried four boxes with a combined weight of nearly seven hundred jin, and set off on the return journey.

After walking for a while, the old wolf found Xia Qing's pace too slow. It howled, summoning three giant wolves, signaled Xia Qing to tie the boxes onto two of the giant wolves, and had another giant wolf carry her. Amid Lord Cui Yan's howling, they evaded that human squad hiding in Shi Dong, left Hui One's Mountain Twenty-Nine, returned to Hui Three's Mountain Twenty-Four, and finally made it back to Old Four's cave on the cliff of Mountain Twenty-Two.

The outbound trip had taken Xia Qing nearly three hours; riding the wolves back with the supplies took less than one. It was nearly three in the morning.

Returning to the cave on the cliff was Old Four's request, and Xia Qing didn't want to carry unknown supplies back to the territory either, so she agreed. The wolf-human team had just entered the cave when rain began to fall on the mountains. After setting the supplies down, the other wolves left, leaving only Xia Qing and the old wolf in the karst cave.

Xia Qing quickly set up a tent inside the cave, took off her protective suit and handled her personal needs, then went outside the cave where there was signal to report safe to her idol and Yang Jin. Returning to the cave, she began sorting through the supplies she had acquired.

Sleep? Before she figured out exactly what supplies she had brought back, where would she find the time or the heart for sleep?

After drinking a vial of X-Nutrient Solution, Xia Qing put on her protective mask, switched on her flashlight, and prepared to sort through the supplies—but was blocked by the old wolf, whose face was deadly serious.

Xia Qing had already guessed the old wolf's intentions back when it had demanded the supplies be brought to the cave.

This old wolf was very clever. While living in Territory Three, it had learned to bargain. It had personally watched Broken-Waist wolf use an points card to buy supplies from Xia Qing, and during the math lessons Xia Qing gave them, she had worked through plenty of examples of bartering. So after acquiring supplies, it was perfectly natural for the old wolf to demand a share.

Xia Qing asked cheerfully, "Old Four wants this batch of supplies too?"

The old wolf bared its fangs in a grin.

"Sure, this batch of supplies was found by Old Four, who led me to it. How much does Old Four want?"

During her lessons, Xia Qing had taught her students the rules humans use to distribute supplies. This old wolf, though it didn't like answering questions as much as Broken-Waist wolf and Little Wolf Brother, had listened very attentively. Now, the moment had come to test the results of her teaching.

The old wolf walked over to four of the boxes and looked at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing asked, "Old Four wants four boxes—that's half the supplies?"

The old wolf grinned again, baring its fangs.

"These supplies were discovered by Old Four, who led me to extract them from the tree hollow and had the wolf pack carry them back. Old Four can have half."

Old Four gets fifty percent, Yang Jin—who provided her with information and identity cover—gets ten percent, and Xia Qing gets forty. She could accept this distribution ratio, but she could not accept Old Four's blind-box method of dividing the boxes.

(End of chapter)