Chapter 132: Digging a Cave

In the second half of the night, Xia Qing was woken up by the chickens.

Because the wolves had moved into the sheep shed she'd prepared for the chickens, Xia Qing had no choice but to bring the chickens into the house she shared with Sheep Boss, lay down a board covered with a rainproof tarp, and set them up in the tool room on the first floor.

Although the chicks, just over a month old, couldn't crow yet, seventeen of them squeezed together clucking and pecking at the cage was plenty noisy for someone with evolved hearing.

Xia Qing, woken up, fumbled for her phone, squinted at it — it was barely past four in the morning.

The sky wasn't even light yet, what are they making a fuss about?! Xia Qing took a deep breath, pulled the blanket over her head, turned over, and tried to go back to sleep.

But before she could fall asleep, the sound traps outside the yard started going "ding ding," "dang dang." No need to ask — the wolves had come.

Seriously, is nobody tired?

Xia Qing got up with a bird's-nest hairdo, got dressed, went downstairs, and opened the security door. Before she could speak, the lead wolf, along with its two underlings, leapt into the yard carrying four rabbits in their mouths.

Three of the rabbits belonged to the wolves; one belonged to her.

All of Xia Qing's irritation vanished. With a pleasant expression she picked up the rabbit that had just stopped breathing and was still twitching, and thanked the lead wolf. "Thank you, my lord, for the rabbit. You've worked hard, my lord."

The lead wolf looked at Xia Qing with its golden eyes, seemingly quite satisfied with her attitude.

Truly worthy of being Sheep Boss's friend — they both like hearing nice things. Xia Qing pressed on, "If my lord comes again next year to deliver food, could you bring me a live rabbit? One that is…"

Xia Qing showed the lead wolf the bleeding wound on the rabbit's neck and explained in a gentle voice, "…one without a wound like this, one that's still breathing and can eat grass. Thank you, my lord. You've worked hard, my lord."

The lead wolf narrowed its eyes, glanced at the rabbit, turned around and went into the sheep shed. After a short while it came out with the brain-domain evolved wolf gripped by the scruff of its neck, dragged it over in front of the other two rabbits, tore the rabbit's skin open for it, then licked the fur on its neck and head, and looked at Xia Qing again.

Xia Qing understood immediately. "Rest assured, my lord, I'll take excellent care of these two wounded soldiers for you."

After the lead wolf vanished in a bound, Xia Qing first carried the heavy rabbit inside, and while the two injured wolves were busy eating, she quickly cleaned the sheep shed, sprayed disinfectant, and laid down a fresh straw mat — making sure the two wolves stayed as comfortable as possible at her place.

After tidying up the sheep shed, Xia Qing went back inside and asked Sheep Boss, who was lying on the tatami, "Boss, your friend came and you didn't even go out to look?"

Sheep Boss didn't move its head, resting on the ergonomic sheep pillow, and didn't even shift its half-closed sheep eyes — it seemed to be dreaming.

Xia Qing stopped bothering with it, turned on the kitchen light, and began processing the rabbit.

Bleed it, test it — green light. This was the Wolf Queen's standard procedure, nothing to be surprised about.

This big rabbit was heavier than yesterday's egret, a full fifteen jin. Xia Qing sliced off the meat, added chili powder, bay leaf powder, Sichuan peppercorn powder, salt, minced garlic, minced ginger, and minced scallion — all ground with the flour grinder…

In short, she added every seasoning she had on hand, then added more salt, poured in baijiu and soy sauce to marinate for two hours, and finally put it in the dehydrator to make jerky.

Xia Qing dug out her collected recipes and found a recipe for braised rabbit ribs. Although she was missing three of the listed seasonings — star anise, cassia bark, and tsaoko — she could still make it.

First wash the rabbit skeleton clean, blanch it in a pot, then add Sichuan peppercorns, two dried chilies, and four bay leaves to fresh water and bring to a boil. Put the blanched rabbit skeleton into the pot, add salt, baijiu, and soy sauce, cover with a lid, bring to a boil, then simmer on low heat for two hours, and it's ready to eat.

After turning down the heat, Xia Qing checked the time — it had just turned five. Although the sun hadn't risen yet, the eastern sky was already brightening.

Xia Qing mixed chicken feed with wheat bran, picked up the clucking, thudding chicken cage, and headed out. Sheep Boss followed behind her and left the house too.

"Boss going to eat breakfast? The dew hasn't even dried yet." Xia Qing casually asked Sheep Boss, then turned to greet the two honored guests who had already eaten their fill and returned to the sheep shed to rest.

"Full? You two rest up first. I'm going to put the chickens in the chicken coop, then come back and clean up the yard and patrol the territory. Don't forget to drink water — there's anti-inflammatory medicine inside, it'll do you good."

The wolf with the broken leg, although it didn't bare its teeth, still looked at Xia Qing with a vicious glare; the brain-domain evolved wolf with the broken back stared calmly at Sheep Boss standing behind Xia Qing — it was hard to tell what it meant.

Xia Qing hadn't expected a response anyway. She put the chickens in the coop, added food and water, went back home to clean up the blood on the ground, and then set out to patrol the territory.

Sheep Boss was actually still following behind her. Xia Qing laughed. "Boss, I really think you can understand what I say. Otherwise, why would you follow me to patrol the territory today after I said I felt lost yesterday?"

Seeing Xia Qing stop moving, Sheep Boss grew impatient and nudged her with its head to keep going.

Xia Qing stopped asking and cheerfully began the patrol.

Today's main patrol tasks, besides catching insects, checking the various traps and tracks, and judging whether any humans or large animals had broken in, included one important mission for Xia Qing: to check the cave-digging site she had chosen.

She had chosen a spot in the southern part of the western shelterbelt, because there were many stones and little soil, with no tall trees. Even if trees evolved during the Devastation Rain, their roots wouldn't damage the cave.

Secondly, this spot was far from the spring, so digging a cave would have the least impact on it.

Lastly, digging here meant the cave entrance could be hidden behind a large rock and shrubs. Even if people from Territory Four climbed the trees on their own territory and used binoculars to spy on Territory Three, they wouldn't notice a cave here.

No time like the present.

Xia Qing stuffed a ration into Sheep Boss's mouth, told it to carry the basket of insects to feed the fish, then used a knife to cut down the shrubs, cleared the dirt and loose stones, and began digging the cave.

"Digging" was really just scraping out stones and dirt.

She didn't need to store much food, so the cave didn't need to be large. In just over an hour, Xia Qing — a strength-evolved human — had scraped out a cave facing east, two meters high and three meters deep. The cave sloped slightly upward, so rain wouldn't flow in; even if water somehow leaked in and pooled, it could flow back out.

Three-plus meters wasn't deep enough yet, but the meat was done stewing. Xia Qing shouldered her shovel and went home to eat.

The rabbit meat was very fresh, but she'd added too much salt, so the flavor was a bit heavy. Still, Xia Qing ate it all.

Green-light food had low Devastation Element content, which was good for growth and evolution — absolutely couldn't be wasted.

Xia Qing didn't throw away the bones either. After washing them, she bagged and sealed them, planning to dehydrate them once the rabbit jerky was done, then pound them into bone meal with a stone pestle to feed the chickens. She had a book on raising chickens that said chickens needed a variety of nutrients, plus disease prevention and disinfection, to stay healthy.

Disease prevention was beyond Xia Qing's ability, so she could only try her best to supplement the chickens' nutrition.

After eating and cleaning up, Xia Qing said hello to the two injured wolves and went back to digging the cave.

She didn't dig straight in, but followed the structure of the rock, making a 7-shaped turn, for a total length of over seven meters. The bend helped with temperature and humidity control.

After the cave was finished, Xia Qing went home, washed the dirt off her body, then came back to measure the temperature and humidity inside the cave.