Chapter 1536: The Wedding Witness

Zhang San glanced at the note Xia Qing handed over, then opened his laptop and clattered away at the keys. He picked up a pen and wrote a string of numbers beneath the string on the note, then turned the screen toward Xia Qing. "This coordinate points deep within the evolution forest in the western part of Hui-1 Safe Zone. The straight-line distance to us is 344.53 kilometers. There's a very good chance it's a trap."

Before Liao Wen died, he first led Yang Jin to suspect that Shi Jiaran was in Xia Qing's hands, then led Xia Qing to suspect that Yang Jin was with her in order to seize the unpolluted spring water within her territory.

Even though Xia Qing and Yang Jin both understood that Liao Wen was using a divide-and-conquer scheme, it could still create a psychological rift between them.

Because the recovery-type evolver Shi Jiaran and the unpolluted spring water are both precious, scarce resources. In this disaster year when people will fight to the death over a mouthful of food, trust between human beings has dropped to its lowest point. When fighting over precious, scarce resources, lovers may turn against each other, and even blood relatives may kill one another.

After using the divide-and-conquer scheme, the huge material reward Liao Wen offered was very likely the lethal bait he threw out. Because Xia Qing and Yang Jin were already targets Liehuo wanted to eliminate.

Xia Qing took the note with both hands, didn't ask how her idol had cracked it, and thanked him directly. "Thank you, Third Brother. Even if it's a trap, we still have to send people to check. If what Liao Wen said is true, your research funding for the year is settled."

Liao Wen said he had hidden 320 million in supplies. According to the pre-arranged split, Xia Qing could get a quarter of it — eighty million.

Eighty million is the annual research budget of the Number Seven Territory Research Institute. Besides the publicly funded research projects, Zhang San's team is also secretly researching the Yi Snake, evolution river moss grass, evolution Viola philippica, and the great Chinese toon tree of Number Three Territory — all extremely point-burning projects.

Last night, Xia Qing called over the big spender Broken-Waist Wolf, worth over ten million points, and tried to negotiate nicely for it to invest in the Number Seven Territory Yi Snake research project. She hadn't expected this stingy fellow, upon hearing it required an investment of ten million points, to refuse outright.

That shrewd fellow thought investing in Number Seven Territory wasn't worth it, because whenever it wanted to eat snake, it could just spend 100 points to hire Xia Qing to go catch one for it.

After hearing this, Xia Qing was so angry she nearly grabbed it and hurled it straight onto the top of Blue Star's stingy pyramid!

After Broken-Waist Wolf left, Xia Qing was running laps around her territory to vent her anger when Yang Jin came back to discuss with her the final plan for interrogating Liao Wen.

Yan Long tracked the scent of the collared macaque all the way, from the northern Xiong Qun's territory into the northern raptor's territory, and then into the western tiger group's territory. Based on this trajectory, a preliminary judgment can be made: whoever came looking for Liao Wen's squad is most likely a member of the Liehuo battle team hiding in the shadows.

And it's very likely Deng Yufeng's or Qu Fangzhou's squad.

For safety, Yang Jin decided to silence the three Liao Wens as soon as possible. The silencing location was chosen in the area where Liao Wen had been captured, and the people doing the silencing were Xia Qing and Yang Jin, who had captured him last time — all carefully planned by Yang Jin, Xie Yu, and Di Ming.

The black snake in the tree and Handsome Giant Wolf were both "guest actors" in this staging, meant to break through Liao Wen's psychological defense.

In the end, what made Liao Wen cry out in shock was not the "god-tier passerby" who ran over at the sound of gunfire — no, it was the god-tier passing bear.

After witnessing with his own eyes that the combat-power-off-the-charts giant bear also took orders from Xia Qing, although Liao Wen's purpose in revealing the supply cache location was unclear, being able to squeeze out this piece of intelligence before he died meant today's operation was a success.

As for whether it's a dragon's pool or a tiger's den, or a mountain of gold and silver, we'll know once we go take a look.

Seeing that Xia Qing already had a plan, Zhang San stopped asking and instead inquired about Yan Long's progress.

Xia Qing replied, "Sister Yan and Wu Lianmin should be inside the western tiger group's territory. She hasn't contacted Watching Huo Zhun for two days now, so I'm not sure how her mission is progressing."

Zhang San reminded Xia Qing, "No contact doesn't necessarily mean something happened — it could just be inconvenient to contact. Don't get hot-headed and invite Little Fourth to rush over for a rescue."

Xia Qing……

Third Brother, do you have some kind of misunderstanding about me? If Yan Long — captain of Hui City's ace Jiaolong Special Ops Team — ran into danger, she'd definitely find a way to send out a distress signal. The fact that she hasn't sent one means she's currently in silent mode while tailing the enemy. If Xia Qing went rushing over yelping, wouldn't that just be asking for a beating?

Besides, even if Yan Long did send a distress signal, when Xia Qing puts together a rescue team, she'd definitely be looking for the Western Wolf King, Handsome Giant Wolf, and Blind-Eye Tiger — not Old Fourth, who's had his fangs pulled and is in recovery.

Even if she did ask, Old Fourth definitely wouldn't go into battle. At most he'd just stand on the mountaintop howling a few times toward the tiger group's territory, passing along a message from Xia Qing to the tiger group……

Speaking of which, should she call Old Fourth now and have him give the tiger group a heads-up in advance?

Zhang San rolled his eyes at the new human clearly daydreaming across from him. Noticing her lips were a bit chapped, he poured her a glass of water and asked, "Yang Jin didn't say anything to you after he came back?"

Zhang San wanted to know how much of an impact Liao Wen's divide-and-conquer scheme had had on Yang Jin and Xia Qing.

After draining the water, Xia Qing answered, "He said that to prove he's not with me for my territory and supplies, when we get married he wants to invite you, the Base Commander, Old Fourth, the Northern Wolf King, and Broken-Waist Wolf to be our witnesses, and to do a pre-marital property notarization. If something happens to me after we're married and he's still alive, you can just kill him to avenge me."

Hearing this, the meticulous Zhang San's first reaction was that wolves aren't human, so the word "witness" wasn't being used rigorously; his second reaction was why Yang Jin didn't invite Xiong Wang……

He paused, then asked, "How did you feel after hearing that?"

Xia Qing's face was expressionless, her voice firm. "I won't let anything happen to me. Even if I encounter unavoidable danger and get injured or poisoned, I can use the medicine you gave me to preserve my life and get back to the territory."

Zhang San handed her a dragon fruit and instructed, "Try not to go to dangerous places. Never let your weapons or medicine leave your side. If you're injured or poisoned, find somewhere to hide and wait for me to send people to rescue you. Anyway, the food you carry on you is enough to last you ten days to half a month."

"Okay."

Xia Qing peeled the dragon fruit and ate it in two or three bites. Her throat, parched and aching from the intense exercise, felt much better after being soothed by the green-light fruit. She gathered up the peel and stood up. "Third Brother, I'm heading back?"

After Yan Long comes back, she'll definitely be checking Xia Qing's training results from this period. Xia Qing was afraid of getting beaten too badly, so over the past two days she'd ramped up her physical and combat training.

Besides that, she also had to complete the focus training Luo-ge arranged for her every day, and then look after the animals and crops in her territory. So Xia Qing was so busy every day her feet barely touched the ground, and the moment her head hit the pillow at night she was out like a light.

Zhang San nodded and gave one final instruction: "Your camera didn't capture Liao Wen's expression. Go back and watch Yang Jin's recording more carefully — observe Liao Wen's micro-expressions closely, figure out his psychological state in the final stage before acting."

"Okay." Seeing her idol was still in a decent mood, Xia Qing tentatively asked, "Third Brother, could you mix up some medicine suitable for a giant wolf to soak in? Handsome Giant Wolf helped us out today, and I promised to let it soak in a strength-boosting medicine."

Zhang San……