Chapter 1271: Liao Wen Turns Himself In

After finishing the boiled meat with Wolf Lao Er, one person, one wolf, and one sheep lay in their respective hammocks in the living room for an afternoon nap. Little Feimao poked out of the luxurious wooden nest on the wall, sniffed Xia Qing, and burrowed into her pocket.

"Clip-clop-clip-clop—"

At three in the afternoon, the sound of hooves on the floor rang out. Xia Qing woke from deep sleep, closed her eyes, and quietly listened to the sounds around her.

The footsteps of Boss in a good mood, the magpies under the eaves arguing noisily, the green-light chickens clucking in long, drawn-out calls, the rustle of wind through the weeds on the ruins of the southern building, and…

Xia Qing pulled out Employee No. 001 Little Feimao, who had been sleeping in her pocket, and rubbed its little head a few times. "Feimao, where were you when the raptors attacked yesterday? Your mom and sister weren't carried off by raptors, were they?"

Little Feimao was still sleepy, wriggled free of Xia Qing's hand, and burrowed back into her pocket.

Xia Qing stood up and stretched, stuffed Little Feimao into its own nest, put on a set of Level-2 outdoor protective clothing, and went to clean the sheep pen.

After the soil anaerobic bacteria evolved, the Territory Management Department required lords to strengthen personal protection—protective clothing must be worn whenever leaving a room, and indoor and outdoor disinfection must be intensified.

A few days ago, someone in a Northern Zone 1 territory was bitten by an insect while using an outdoor latrine and nearly died of fever. So every territory and the Ninth Center rebuilt their latrines and increased the frequency of disinfection.

Territory No. 3 had few people and no outdoor human latrines, but Xia Qing had also stepped up disinfection work for Boss and Wolf Lao Er's latrines, the chicken coop, and the sheep pen.

Little Huang Niu was an ordinary animal, not as smart as Sheep Boss and Wolf Hound Lao Er—it relieved itself wherever it happened to be.

Because Xia Qing provided Little Huang Niu with plenty of high-quality feed, it ate a lot and excreted a lot. Xia Qing hadn't come back last night, and over a dozen piles of dung had already accumulated where the ox was tethered in the sheep pen.

She shoveled the cow dung into a basket, then shoveled the dung from Sheep Boss and Lao Er's latrine and the chicken droppings from the coop, carried them all out to the abandoned village, poured them into the cold-protection ditch beside the wheat greenhouse, added fermentation bacteria powder, covered them with soil, and fermented them into manure.

Boss, the chickens, and Little Huang Niu were green-light animals, so the manure fermented from their droppings was high-quality green-light manure, which could be used in Greenhouses No. 1 and No. 2 to improve crop quality.

Wolf Hound Lao Er was a yellow-light animal, so the manure fermented from its droppings was yellow-light manure.

Last summer, when the lead wolf brought the sick, nearly dying Wolf Hound Lao Er into Territory No. 3, the qiang element content in its body was an alarming 25‰, in a state of qiang-yi two-element imbalance.

As long as Lao Er was in Territory No. 3, Xia Qing gave it the best diet. Under the dual effects of treatment and food therapy, Lao Er's condition gradually improved—the qiang element dropped to 13‰ last winter, and to 9‰ in July this year, after which it stopped declining for the next three-plus months.

This indicated that, given the diet Xia Qing provided, the qiang-yi two-element balance Lao Er's body could achieve was a qiang element content of 9‰ and a yi element content of 4?.

Lao Er was a yellow-light animal.

But it wasn't the only one in Territory No. 3—it was one of two. The other was… Xia Qing herself, whose qiang element content was 12‰.

She had originally thought this was her optimal state, but her idol said that after regulating her hormone levels, her qiang element content should be able to drop below 5‰ and her yi element content rise above 7? —that was the balance a four-system advanced ability evolver should reach.

Thinking of this, Xia Qing felt delighted, and drove to Territory No. 7 with high-quality food to see her idol.

Zhang San wasn't in his own office, but in the command room with a wall of screens, where four disaster-mitigation assistants were tracking the disaster-mitigation progress in real time and reporting to Zhang San when necessary.

Seeing her idol was busy and had no time for her, Xia Qing stood in front of the twenty-plus monitoring screens, checking the disaster-mitigation progress everywhere.

Besides the deputy command room of sealed zone No. 5 where Yang Jin was, several teams were busy in the five sealed zones within the southern wolf pack territory, as well as the Zhang Song squad that had already entered the Liehu underground bunker, the Hui-1 No. 22 Mountain inspection team checking supplies being moved out of the Liehu volcano warehouse, Wang Rujiang standing with his head lowered, the Liehu team members being interrogated, the dark-red Fire Phoenix sitting with her legs crossed in the interrogation room, and Di Ming running fast with his protective mask camera open…

All the screens were muted, yet they laid bare human nature during the catastrophe years.

Xia Qing sat down on an empty chair, put on earphones, and tapped open the interrogation room's monitoring screen.

Xia Qing heard the interrogator saying: "Deng Peng, I'll remind you one last time. Qu Fangzhou splitting off from your squad to act separately was using you as bait to buy herself time to escape. If you don't want to be sentenced to lifelong forced labor, be sensible—hiding the truth any further won't do you any good."

The captured Liehu squad leader Deng Peng looked sincere. "Captain Zhang, I'm just a rank-and-file member of the Liehu battle team. I really don't know where Vice Captain Qu and the others went. I can't just make something up to fool you, can I?"

Xia Qing switched screens, watched the seemingly very pleased Fire Phoenix for a few seconds, and had just opened the real-time footage sent over by the Zhang Song squad, wanting to hear how their team was doing, when someone patted her on the shoulder.

Xia Qing immediately took off her earphones and stood up, following her idol through a long corridor into his office.

After closing the door, Xia Qing asked, "Third Brother, is Wang Rujiang Wang Wu?"

Zhang San slumped in his chair and gave a cold snort.

Xia Qing pulled a pack of lemon chicken feet from her pocket, tore open the package, and held it out to Zhang San. "Third Brother, try these. They're green-light boneless chicken feet, recently launched by Tang Heng's family. They're really good."

Zhang San pulled out a paper towel, wiped his hands clean, and took them.

Seeing her idol willing to eat, Xia Qing immediately felt half-reassured. "Yang Jin said most of the information Wang Rujiang gave us is fake. Looks like Liehu has leverage on him or has captured his family."

"Don't mention him to me."

"Okay." Xia Qing pulled out a bottle of chrysanthemum tea brewed with pollution-free spring water from her backpack and held it out to her idol.

The pollution-free spring water her idol received from the partners was all used on experimental projects—he couldn't bear to use it for tea—so every time Xia Qing came over, she would bring him some.

Zhang San took a sip of tea and began explaining why he'd called Xia Qing over. "How many poison needles did you find in total on the six Liehu team members you killed on Hui-3 No. 22 Mountain?"

Actually, she had only killed three; the rest were killed by Lao Si. But she didn't dare say that to her idol. "32 unused, 9 used. The numbers match up."

Five evolved wolves in Lao Si's pack had died of poisoning, and four evolved wolves had been injected with antidote after being poisoned and were currently in good condition, which was why Xia Qing said the numbers matched and no other animals had been poisoned by the needles.

Zhang San continued, "According to Deng Peng's confession, the reason that six-person squad attacked the wolf pack was because they had a batch of important supplies lost inside the wolf pack territory…"

"Commander."

Before Zhang San could finish, the pager on his desk beeped.

Zhang San pressed the button. "Speak."

"Liehu vice captain Liao Wen has turned himself in at the Hui-1 criminal investigation team."