Chapter 1550: Fire Phoenix Calling

If the invasion squad led by Huo Ting hadn't been stalled within the western wolf pack's territory, they should have already broken into the northern District One human territory by now. Someone calling him at this moment was probably because Huo Ting hadn't followed the plan and reported mission progress on schedule, so this person took the initiative to call and ask.

"Wolf King, my lord, Handsome Wolf, hurry and make the wolves back off—those two corpses are about to blow!"

Given the Fierce Fire Squad's style of operation, an unanswered call would very likely be judged a mission failure, detonating the bombs on the corpses!

The moment Handsome Giant Wolf's howl changed its tone, the western and northern wolf packs decisively retreated, but Xia Qing charged forward. The ammunition she'd used leaving her territory at two in the morning to enter the Evolution Forest and wipe out the invasion squad, plus the antidotes, anti-inflammatory drugs, and Berserk-Suppressing agents for the four western wolves—all of it had to be recouped from the protective suits and gear on these two corpses. She couldn't let these spoils of war be blown up.

Having fought Fierce Fire Squad members several times, Xia Qing knew exactly where on their bodies the explosives were strapped. Relying on the hand speed she'd honed over years as an unofficial logistics operative cleaning battlefields, she ripped the micro high-explosive bombs off both corpses within ten seconds and tossed them into a nearby snowdrift.

Then, with brisk efficiency, she pulled out the phone still vibrating in Huo Ting's protective pocket, glanced at the word "Captain" lit up on the screen, and threw that into the snowdrift too.

There was only one person the Fierce Fire members called Captain—Fire Phoenix Deng Yufeng.

Lao Si and Yang Jin hadn't made their move yet. Whether or not the caller was Fire Phoenix, if she answered now she might tip them off, and this phone might also contain a bomb!

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

The phone Xia Qing had just tossed exploded, and at the same time the two micro bombs she'd thrown into the snowdrift also blew. The blasts sent snow and rock fragments flying, and the wolf packs howled in unison.

Once the falling rocks stopped, Xia Qing, who had been lying flat on the ground, got up and glanced at the other corpse, letting out two breaths of relief.

First breath: Thank goodness she'd stuffed the plucked brat into her backpack earlier; otherwise, with that dive and crash, she'd have scared the little fellow, and once Yan Long came back he'd definitely kick her out of the special training squad with one stomp.

Second breath: The fact that she hadn't found a phone on that other corpse likely meant only squad leader Huo Ting had been issued one in this invasion squad, which was why that corpse hadn't detonated.

After her moment of relief, Xia Qing quickly stripped both corpses down to bare skin, packed all the supplies into specially made signal-isolating bags and sealed them for safekeeping—bring them back first, then sort through them carefully.

"Buzz—"

As Xia Qing was stowing the sealed bag into her backpack and getting ready to continue gathering supplies, the vibration of the phone in her own pocket startled her so badly she nearly pulled it out and threw it. She steadied herself, pulled out the phone, and saw it was a call from an unknown number.

The person calling her was very likely the same one who had just dialed Huo Ting—that is, Fierce Fire's brigade commander Deng Yufeng. With two packs of wolves howling around her, Xia Qing couldn't possibly answer the call right now.

After the phone rang a few times and hung up, that number quickly sent Xia Qing a text message:

I am Deng Yufeng I know Shi Jiaran is in your hands and I also know the little girl from Territory Fifteen is Shi Jiaran's child if you don't want Hui Three's Northern District One territory to become a target for all then answer the phone and let's talk

Sending text messages without punctuation was indeed one of Deng Yufeng's behavioral traits, but Xia Qing wasn't going to give her the chance to extract more information from a reply. She directly screenshot the number and message and sent it to her idol and Zhang Shi, then added:

I think Deng Yufeng is playing the same trick as Liao Wendong—they're only guessing, no proof. But one of the purposes of her sending people this time should be to snatch Eleven. As for how to arrange Eleven, Third Brother and Tenth Sister discuss it.

Then, Xia Qing also sent Yang Jin the screenshot, informing him of the situation at Mountain Forty-Eight and asking how his mission was progressing.

Before Xia Qing had even finished editing the message to send to Yang Jin, Zhang Shi, who was at Hui Three's Mountain Twenty-Two, sent her a message: Sister Qing, can we kill Deng Yufeng today?

After Xia Qing replied to Zhang Shi with a single word "Yes," she received a message from her idol: Don't worry about Eleven. Return to the territory as fast as you can. The wolves' injuries are too serious for you to handle blindly—bring them straight back.

After Xia Qing replied to her idol and returned to the chat screen with Yang Jin, she found the picture hadn't gone through. Deng Yufeng could get online, but Yang Jin couldn't—this meant Yang Jin might have turned off his phone on purpose to avoid being detected by Deng Yufeng, or he was currently in a state where he couldn't connect directly to the communications satellite.

Xia Qing put her phone away, pulled insecticide from her backpack, and killed all the insects that were gnawing on the two wolf corpses and the human corpses. Then she gathered some dry pine branches and dead leaves, laid the corpses on top, and set them alight.

The two wolves had died of poisoning, and the Fierce Fire squad members' bodies might contain toxins—both needed to be burned to prevent the toxins from spreading. Of course, the human corpses and the wolf corpses were burned separately.

Unless food was extremely scarce, wolves wouldn't gnaw on a companion's corpse to fill their bellies. Instead, after a companion died, they'd drag the body into a crevice between rocks and bury it, to keep other animals from gnawing on it. So Xia Qing's actions of killing the insects and burning the corpses didn't arouse the western wolf pack's anger.

However, watching the fire consume their companions' bodies, the wolf pack's howling turned mournful and long-drawn-out.

Xia Qing stood quietly beside the pyres, watching the color of the two flames shift from orange-yellow to bright yellow, then slowly to dark red.

As an unofficial logistics operative, Xia Qing had burned many corpses—human and animal alike. She could tell from the color of the flames whether what was burning was clothing, fur, fat, or organs, and her mind would recall the smells given off by the different parts of a corpse.

It wasn't her first time burning human and animal corpses at the same time, but this time, listening to the wolves' howling up close, Xia Qing truly felt that on Blue Star, animals with feelings who could grieve over a companion's death weren't only human.

When burning human corpses, their family and friends would weep; when burning a wolf's corpse, its companions would howl in mourning.

After the flames gradually died out, Xia Qing briskly raked the remaining bones into a pit she'd dug nearby, then covered them with soil. This invasion squad hadn't used high-risk chemical weapons or toxins, so after burning the bodies and cleaning up the blood at the scene, the battlefield-clearing task was done.

Xia Qing looked toward the top of Shanfeng. After killing Huo Ting and the machine gunner to avenge their companions, although the Western Wolf King had been chewed up terribly by Handsome Giant Wolf, his condition was still fairly stable. His mate was carrying the next generation of the western wolf pack, so at this moment the Western Wolf King wouldn't launch a beast tide to fight the humans to the death.

In other words, this invasion incident could be considered wrapped up here.

As for the follow-up issues—whether the Western Wolf King killing the two invaders and the western pack members carrying the two invaders' bodies around for so long had led to toxin infection, whether they needed treatment—Xia Qing decided to leave to Broken-Waist Wolf to handle. The follow-up examinations of those four poisoned wolves were also left to Broken-Waist Wolf.

As for the fees, that depended on how Broken-Waist Wolf negotiated with the Western Wolf King, the Southern Wolf King, or the former Wolf King.

Why did the Southern Wolf Pack come into it? Because the western pack hated humans to the bone—they definitely wouldn't go to human territory for medical checkups or to trade for medicine. If follow-up treatment was needed, Xia Qing decided to have Broken-Waist Wolf take them to the southern wolf pack's territory, to find Territory Three's Employee 004, Zhang Shi, who had moved into the southern wolf pack's territory carrying medical equipment.

As for the fees, what to charge, and how much of a cut to give Broken-Waist Wolf—Xia Qing would discuss it in detail with him after he finished his mission with the western tiger group and returned.

Now, the human Xia Qing decided to head back to her own territory.

But when she turned to gather the thermal sleeping bag and insulated blanket she'd left in the windbreak, she discovered… her thermal sleeping bag and insulated blanket were gone!