Chapter 1275: The Hive With the Problem

Xia Qing showed the two wolves the videos she had recorded, in the order the events had happened:

the video of her, Old Wolf and Zhang Song testing the southern wolf pack for poison and injecting the antidote; the video of her and Old Wolf tracking down and killing the six Blaze team members who had done the poisoning; the video of her teaming up with Yang Jin to collect the blown-up corpses; the video of her climbing aboard a helicopter from the top of the sinkhole and looking down on the beast tide from the air; the video of Blaze Mountain exploding and collapsing; and finally the video of Scarface Junior bringing Xia Qing prey.

While Lao Si had brought another injured old wolf to find Xia Qing, and Xia Qing had questioned it for intel on Blaze Mountain, Xia Qing hadn't recorded that, because Lao Si wouldn't allow her to. Still, Xia Qing told the head wolf and Broken-Waist wolf about it, then reminded Broken-Waist, "Lao Si can already write the character for 'tongue,' which means it heard humans talking inside the Blaze Mountain cave. Broken-Waist, how many characters can you write now? You need to pick up the pace too."

The head wolf and Broken-Waist wolf kept staring at the video of Blaze Mountain exploding; neither had any interest in Xia Qing's question.

After watching this video six times on repeat, the two wolves signaled Xia Qing to play the next one.

Here came the highlight! Xia Qing played the video of Scarface Junior bringing her prey with a face full of smiles, and chattered away explaining, "Your Majesty, Broken-Waist, look how sensible Scarface is."

"This prey was a green-light one; the meat I just ate was made from this prey… Once Lao Si comes by, I'll trade it a tube of scar-removal cream so it can wipe the scar clean off Scarface Junior's face…"

Broken-Waist wolf stared at the little wolf on the TV screen, lost in thought.

The head wolf had no interest in this video; it nudged Xia Qing's arm, signaling her to switch to the next one. Only Wolf Lao Er was still gazing at Xia Qing with clear eyes, happy to listen to whatever she said.

Xia Qing shook her head. "That's all, that was the last video. Your Majesty, Broken-Waist, do you know why the Blaze team among humans wanted to kill Lao Si's companions?"

The two wolves stared at Xia Qing with solemn faces, listening intently.

"Because the supplies Lao Si and I dug out of that tree hollow last time were hidden by members of the Blaze team…" Xia Qing played the footage of the supplies found in the tree hollow, and began explaining the whole cause and effect in a language and manner the two wolves could understand.

After the two wolves listened solemnly, Xia Qing warned them, "Among humans there are good ones, like me; and there are bad ones, like the Blaze team and the blue-skinned wanderers. If you run into bad ones, you must be careful—seizing a bad person's supplies will get you hunted down by them. Some bad ones have mastered a lot of poison; they're very powerful. They'll use drugs to mask their scent and breathing, hide in the Evolution Forest, and use poison to kill wolves. That's exactly how the five wolves of Lao Si's pack were killed. Your Majesty, Broken-Waist, have you remembered this?"

The head wolf gazed calmly at Xia Qing with tycoon-gold eyes; Broken-Waist wolf bared the tips of its fangs.

Xia Qing nodded, and displayed on the screen the faces of Fire Phoenix, Qu Fangzhou, Liao Wendong, and the main members of the Blaze team who had escaped, so the head wolf would remember what they looked like. "If you see these people, don't rush them. Contact me as fast as you can, and Yang Jin and I will bring people to capture them."

Unlike humans, wolves identify companions or other creatures mainly by smell, then hearing, and only lastly by sight. When humans move through the Evolution Forest, they wear protective suits and masks, so showing the two wolves the facial features of unfamiliar humans isn't of much practical value—but Xia Qing did it anyway.

Because the two wolves in front of her were both brain-evolution wolves.

After those two clever wolves left, Xia Qing, who had slept only two hours the night before, went to bed early. The next day she didn't go to the Azure Dragon team's training; instead she stayed in the territory to tidy up the breeding greenhouse where she'd planted a crop of sweet potatoes.

According to the weather forecast, Hui Three Base would experience a cold snap over the next six days: the nighttime low would drop from the current 13°C to 1°C, and the daytime high from the current 17°C to 11°C. To cope with this cold wave, Xia Qing had to move her green-light chickens from the coop into the greenhouse today, add firewood to the fire-walls of the breeding greenhouse and the beekeeping greenhouse, and harvest and store the breeding rice and mature vegetables on the terraces as quickly as possible.

In just one hour, Xia Qing had tidied up the breeding greenhouse and driven the green-light chickens straight into the iron cages she'd set up inside.

This iron cage was two meters tall; the floor inside was covered with a 15-centimeter-thick layer of bedding made from sawdust mixed with chopped straw, and a chicken-manure-specific fermentation bacterial powder newly developed and produced by Territory Eight had been added to the bedding.

Raising chickens this way didn't just save the time spent regularly cleaning out the manure—the microbial agent in the bedding could also break down the manure, reducing odor and pathogenic microbes. Next spring, after the chickens were moved out of the greenhouse, the chicken manure in this bedding layer could be used directly as fertilizer, killing several birds with one stone.

Of course, this method of raising chickens wasn't a once-and-for-all solution either; Xia Qing had to regularly check whether the bedding had gone moldy and whether the bacterial agent in it was still active, to ensure the chickens' health.

Currently, Territory Three still had 28 hens and 12 roosters, of which 20 hens and 11 roosters were chicks hatched this spring.

This spring, Xia Qing had hatched 92 chickens from 180 eggs. During this year's thunderstorms, giant eagle cries scaring them, and the red maiming grass in the territory corridors, 14 had died; 17 had died of illness; and 30 had been slaughtered and eaten.

The 40 chickens now in the greenhouse didn't all belong to Xia Qing. Because last year she had struck a deal with her idol to raise 50 green-light chickens this year for the idol to eat. Up to now, Xia Qing had sent the idol a total of 22, so of the chickens in the shed, only 12 truly belonged to Xia Qing.

The shrewd Xia Qing had already picked out which chickens could be killed and sent to Territory Seven, and which had to be kept for laying eggs.

The high-evolution white-feather hen, the mid-evolution black-feather rooster, and the 6 little hens hatched from the white-feather hen's eggs that had already started laying—all had to be kept.

By next spring, she would trade with Territory Seven for a batch of breeding eggs from high-evolution chickens, hatch more quality green-light chickens, and then she'd have more quality green-light eggs and green-light meat, which she could trade with the animals in the Evolution Forest for more good things…

Xia Qing was just leaving the breeding greenhouse in high spirits, about to go check on the cuttings of her fig-tree branches, when she saw Wolf Lao Er standing outside the beekeeping greenhouse with a solemn face; the little basket it used for catching insects had tipped over by its feet, and it hadn't even bothered to right it.

Xia Qing hurried over. "Lao Er, what's wrong with the beekeeping greenhouse?"

Lao Er stared at the hive and bared its fangs in a low growl.

Xia Qing understood at once. "There's a problem inside the hive. Got it. Lao Er, wait here—I'll go in and take a look."

Although Lao Er was wearing a protective suit, it wasn't wearing a protective mask. This was the bees' active period, so if it went in it would very likely be attacked by the green-light bees.