Chapter 137: Changing the Wolf's Dressing

By evening, Tan Junjie had announced in the lord channel the handling results from Hui Three Territory's management department regarding the illegal activities of Territory Nine:

First, all prohibited chemicals would be confiscated, and Li Si along with key members of the territory would be taken to the safe zone for investigation.

Second, Li Si would be fined thirty thousand points, and Territory Nine would lose all policy benefits for one year.

Third, the management department would dispatch people to conduct at least one surprise inspection of Territory Nine each month to ensure it would not again stockpile or produce dangerous chemicals. If dangerous chemicals were again found in Territory Nine, the punishment would be escalated, including pursuing criminal liability against those responsible.

If the first two measures were merely a slap on the wrist for Territory Nine, the last one truly struck at its very core.

After announcing the results, Tan Junjie reminded the other lords, "Please take this as a warning—do not collect prohibited items or engage in illegal activities within your territories."

Although everyone wanted to ask who the management department would send to inspect Territory Nine, none dared speak up, afraid of provoking Territory Nine's people at such a time.

Xia Qing felt that the state's tighter control over technical personnel and dangerous chemicals was truly well done, because if left to run wild, these people could wipe out a safe zone—or even a base—in minutes.

With that, the matter of Territory Nine stockpiling Class One dangerous chemicals was considered settled. As for how many people had been taken from Territory Nine or when the investigation would be finished and they could return, Xia Qing didn't pay much attention.

She closed the lord channel and began her daily routine training. Push-ups, frog jumps, eye-hand coordination drills, rebound shooting practice, and so on—after completing a standardized, high-intensity training set, Xia Qing went to sleep on time.

Tomorrow, she had a tough battle to fight.

The next morning, Xia Qing was once again woken before four by the rooster. After getting up and going downstairs, the wolf arrived with breakfast. Seeing the dead rabbit the wolf had brought, its legs still twitching, Xia Qing gave up on trying to communicate with the alpha wolf about live rabbits. When the two injured wolves came out to eat, she quickly tidied the sheep pen, then carried the rabbit back inside and processed it swiftly.

After both wolves had eaten, the one with the injured hind leg no longer needed its teammate's help—it could crawl back to the sheep pen on its own using its front legs. The one with the injured spine still couldn't.

After the alpha wolf carried the spine-injured wolf aside to relieve itself and was about to drag it back to the sheep pen, Xia Qing stopped it. She showed the alpha wolf the medicine bottle in her hand. "Now I need to change its dressing. It."

Xia Qing pointed at the spine-injured wolf. "The queen is watching your subordinate—don't let them attack me, or its wound won't heal."

The alpha wolf stared at the medicine bottle in Xia Qing's hand with its golden eyes for a while, then raised its nose to sniff, lowered its head to sniff the companion lying on the ground, and looked back up at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing nodded immediately. "Yes, I need to change its dressing."

The wolf king stepped back, indicating it understood. Xia Qing breathed a sigh of relief and called Sheep Boss over. "Boss, come with me and help me watch the board while I change the wolf's dressing."

The "board" Xia Qing referred to was a square thick wooden plank she had prepared in advance, with a semicircular notch on one edge that fit perfectly around the wolf's neck, then secured with a tripod.

Although the spine-injured brain-domain evolved wolf didn't bare its teeth at Xia Qing at all, she didn't dare underestimate its attacking power in the slightest. Without securing this board around its neck, she wouldn't dare change its dressing.

Actually, a safer method would be to give the wolf a calming capsule to immobilize it before changing the dressing. But calming capsules had side effects, and Xia Qing instinctively rejected that option.

Because she wanted this wolf to recover to its peak condition.

Under the calm gaze of the brain-domain evolved wolf, Xia Qing secured the neck board and changed its dressing.

The gazes of the other wolves? Xia Qing didn't care. As long as the alpha wolf made no move, the others wouldn't attack.

Following the steps taught by the assistant from Territory Seven, Xia Qing first supported the wolf's body to help it lie down properly, quickly untied the ropes holding the cylinder fixed to its spine. The cylinder split into two halves, and Xia Qing disinfected the wound on the brain-domain evolved wolf's spine, applied ointment, then closed the cylinder back up.

This cylinder wasn't made of plaster—it had a certain flexibility and was quite light. Xia Qing had never seen this kind of material before.

The atmosphere on site was stretched to the breaking point. Only Sheep Boss, lying beside Xia Qing with its thick nerves, was still half-closing its eyes and chewing its cud.

While disinfecting and applying the ointment, Xia Qing clearly felt the brain-domain evolved wolf's muscles tense up, and its hind leg twitched twice. Without waiting for the people from Territory Seven to come check, Xia Qing knew this wolf's spinal nerves weren't severed—it would definitely be able to stand again.

This was wonderful! Once this wolf stood up, the alpha wolf would surely reward her with two pieces of yi-stone, right? Xia Qing cheerfully removed the board and called to the alpha wolf, "The dressing's changed—drag it into the sheep pen to rest."

After saying that, Xia Qing gave the yard back to the wolf pack and returned indoors, closing the door behind her.

Sheep Boss? The silly thing hadn't followed her.

While cleaning the rabbit in the kitchen to make breakfast, Xia Qing looked up and saw three uninjured wolves approach the spine-injured wolf and sniff its wound.

The alpha wolf didn't just sniff—it also licked the injured wolf's head, then licked Sheep Boss's head too. The scene looked like a worldview-challenging movie being filmed; however Xia Qing looked at it, she found it cringeworthy.

She simply decided out of sight, out of mind, and focused downward on processing the rabbit meat.

After eating stewed rabbit for breakfast two days in a row, Xia Qing wanted to change things up today. She used a sharp dagger to cut the large pieces of meat from the rabbit for marinating and roasting, chopped the small pieces, and mixed them with chives, ginger, salt, Sichuan pepper oil, and soy sauce to make a filling for dumplings.

The rabbit dumplings smelled wonderful. After eating, Xia Qing was full of energy. She shouldered a shovel and went to prepare the terraced fields for planting green-light spinach.

To save the wolves, she owed Zhang San two thousand green-light spinach seeds. Today was the day the dormancy period ended for the spinach seeds harvested during the second Devastation Rain, so they could be sown.

Xia Qing placed great importance on green-light spinach, which had a yi-element content as high as six ten-thousandths, because once it grew leaves and was juiced, then mixed with the additive Zhang San had given her, it could become a premium nutrient solution sold at two thousand points per fifteen milliliters.

With the boost from the premium nutrient solution, Xia Qing could go explore the two valleys in Section Three of Mountain Forty-Nine. The valleys had dense vegetation and abundant species—sure to hide plenty of good things.

To grow the green-light spinach well, Xia Qing used all her top-grade fertilizer. This included leaf fertilizer fermented from the first crop of green-light wheat and green-light mung bean plants, ash from burned green-light Chinese toon branches, and fermented green-light sheep manure.

For soaking the seeds, of course she used pollution-free spring water. Because she was afraid this crop might fail, Xia Qing only soaked half the spinach seeds. If this crop failed, she could still plant again next year.

After soaking the seeds, Xia Qing planted twelve hundred spinach seeds in the terraced fields on the low slope, and casually planted some cabbage as well.

She had a hundred green-light cabbage seeds, obtained through trade with Zhang San; and a hundred fifty yellow-light cabbage seeds, bought at the agricultural products trade fair. She planted all the green-light cabbage in the terraced fields, and split the yellow-light ones—half in the terraced fields, half in the greenhouse.

After planting the cabbage seeds, Xia Qing stood up, took off her gloves, and wiped the sweat from her forehead. All the vegetables for the second crop were now planted.

The radishes, sunflowers, eggplants, cucumbers, and other vegetables, along with the corn planted seven days ago, had all sprouted. Now her terraced fields and the cultivated land at the foot of the mountain were a scene of thriving growth.

In just over a month, she'd be able to eat fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, and scallions again. In three months, she'd harvest her second crop.

As for how much she'd harvest, that depended on the weather and luck. With four pieces of yi-stone in hand, Xia Qing was confident this crop's yield would definitely be higher than the first.

Next, Xia Qing was going to begin forging the yi-stone protective shell.