Chapter 1248: A Million Credits

"Beep."

The phone on the bedside table chimed once, instantly waking Xia Qing from deep sleep. She grabbed the phone for a glance, propped herself up on one arm, pulled back a corner of the blackout curtain, and looked outside.

At four in the morning, Old Wolf—who should have been guarding the waterfall pool in the southern Evolution Forest—had swiped open the north gate and entered Xia Qing's territory. He sniffed Wolf Lao Er, then raised his head and met Xia Qing's gaze with unerring accuracy.

Xia Qing pulled the blackout curtain open, raised a hand to greet him, got dressed, took a bottle of uncontaminated spring water from the fridge, poured it into the kettle and had just set it to boil when the sound of Old Wolf rinsing his paws in the water basin by the door drifted up from downstairs.

Old Wolf liked to stay on the ruined house to the south of Xia Qing's home, so if he came inside to rinse his paws, he must have something on his mind.

Xia Qing went downstairs and saw two wolves. The eldest wasn't in the house; the weather had turned cold recently and Xia Qing hadn't lit the stove yet, so the eldest had gone to the sheep pen to sleep with the little yellow ox.

"Wolf Lao Er heard the movement and went out to check right away, protecting our territory. Wolf Lao Er is amazing—Wolf Lao Er is a good wolf standing at the top of Blue Star's Jin Zita." After praising her companion, Xia Qing asked Old Wolf his reason for coming. "Old Four has something to discuss with me—why didn't you call ahead? What's in the pouch you're wearing?"

Old Four swung the pouch from his neck onto the sofa, pried open the flap with his paw, pulled the zipper, and dug out the card reader Xia Qing had traded him.

"What's wrong with the card reader?" Xia Qing walked over, picked up the card reader—about the size of a remote—and pressed a button, only to find the screen was still dark.

"It's out of battery, needs new ones. The batteries the card reader uses are pretty pricey—50 credits in the Human Safe Zone. Trading with me costs 55 credits; the extra 5 credits, that's 10%, is my fee for buying goods from the Human Safe Zone for you. Does Old Four agree to the trade?"

Xia Qing felt her idol had a point—the animals in the Evolution Forest were getting smarter and smarter, so she had to mark her prices clearly.

She didn't make much either, taking a 10% transaction fee on every deal. If the buyer needed processing, repairs, installation, or home delivery, she'd add a service fee at her discretion.

Old Four bared his teeth briefly, then dug out a credit card from his pouch, indicating he wanted to trade credits for batteries.

Xia Qing went upstairs and brought down two new batteries. While changing them, she asked, "Card readers are very energy-efficient—these two new batteries will last several months, so there's no need for more expensive rechargeable ones. Old Four, when I traded you the card reader, it still had 20% battery left—how did it run out in just a few days?"

Old Four pretended not to hear, watching calmly as Xia Qing finished changing the batteries. When the tiny screen on the card reader lit up, Old Four's eyes lit up too.

Likes the card reader that much? Xia Qing laughed and began testing his learning results. "Old Four, one battery is 55 credits, you need to trade for two batteries—how many credits is that? Do you want to swipe it yourself?"

Old Wolf didn't like answering questions in class either, but he always got his arithmetic problems right. Xia Qing hadn't taught him addition and subtraction above one hundred yet, but Old Wolf's notebook had follow-up lessons—if he'd studied recently, he should be able to do this problem.

Old Four pressed the card reader with his right forepaw, used his left forepaw to insert Xia Qing's credit card into the slot on the left side of the card reader, then inserted his own credit card into the slot on the right side. With a "beep," two strings of numbers appeared at the top of the screen on the left and right: 3025,.

Xia Qing raised an eyebrow. Among the four credit cards she'd traded to Old Wolf, none held a full million credits—where did this number come from?

Old Four first tapped the number 5 key twice with his paw and confirmed, then tapped twice more and confirmed again. The numbers on the screen changed to 3135 and.

Old Wolf stared at the numbers for a full minute before raising his head to look at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing gave a thumbs-up. "The operation is correct—Old Four is very impressive. Subtracting credits one battery at a time is correct, and deducting the sum of two 55s—110 credits—all at once is also correct. Old Four, have you been playing with the card reader in your cave a lot?"

Old Wolf bared his lips, revealing his grey-white fangs.

Xia Qing laughed.

This old wolf had taken her to a tree hollow, and from being a penniless wolf with zero credits, had transformed into a wealthy wolf worth a million. A newly rich wolf fiddling with credits back and forth in his den all day, seeing how rich he was—that was normal.

"Does Old Four have anything else this time?" Coming all this way, surely it wasn't just to swap batteries?

Old Wolf pulled his phone from his pouch. Instead of using a stylus, he operated the touchscreen phone using the outer side of the little toe on his right paw.

Seeing him operate it that way, Xia Qing once again gained a direct sense of how far this old wolf's brain had evolved. This was a landmark shot—Researcher Xia Qing immediately picked up her phone to record video, then squeezed in a photo together.

Old Wolf opened the album, found a photo, then looked at Xia Qing with a solemn expression.

It was the first time Xia Qing had seen a tiger's rear end from this angle. She looked at the dung stuck to the tiger's tail and the thin, scattered droppings on the ground, and asked, "There's an evolved tiger in the western tiger group that's sick and has diarrhea?"

Old Four stared at Xia Qing with a solemn expression.

Xia Qing thought again. "Mountain Thirty-Six—the blind tiger with the evolved violets in its territory—is sick and has diarrhea?"

Old Wolf bared his fangs briefly, then used his paw to flip through a few badly taken photos until he found two pictures of wolves with diarrhea, and looked at Xia Qing solemnly again.

"There are wolves in the southern wolf group that are sick with diarrhea too? You want me to come treat your sick blind tiger and your wolf companions?"

Old Wolf bared his fangs.

Xia Qing nodded. "I can, but I'll need to charge a consultation fee, a testing fee, a medicine fee, and helicopter fuel costs. Old Four can pay with credits, or with yi-stones or herbs."

Old Wolf simply used his paw to slide the million-credit card he'd brought over to Xia Qing's side.

"It won't take that many credits—after the treatment we'll settle how much should be transferred. We'll use Old Four's card reader then, and Old Four will operate it." Xia Qing was now a second-hand dealer with professional ethics; she wouldn't take advantage of a wolf in need and charge him a million credits all at once.

Xia Qing scrolled through her phone's album and showed Old Wolf a photo of Zhang Song. "Old Four, can I bring this human, Zhang Song? His treatment knowledge is richer than mine."

Old Four disagreed, and wrote a number on the ground: 3.

Xia Qing explained, "Third Brother is too busy to leave his territory. If your companions are seriously ill and neither Zhang Song nor I can treat them, I'll send your companions to Territory Seven and ask Third Brother to treat them…"

After the human and wolf finished their discussion, it was already daylight.

Xia Qing first called Luo Pei to ask for leave, then contacted Watching Huo Zhun and Hu Zifeng, then called the Broken-Waist Wolf, and only at the end called her idol.

Saving her idol for last was because she hoped he could sleep a little longer.