Chapter 162: Xia Qing's Wound

The evolved birds Xia Qing killed herself — one had smashed the compost shed, and another had smeared a layer of blood across her attic and roof, damaging over twenty roof tiles and shattering two panes of the attic window glass.

The damage wasn't huge, but cleaning it up was a real hassle.

Xia Qing first shoveled the soil stained with bird blood into one pile, laid branches on top and set it alight to sterilize the earth, then patched up the broken shed frame and insect netting, and sprayed disinfectant, pesticide, and deodorizer.

The three crop seedlings knocked over by the evolved bird carcasses — Xia Qing had no time to deal with them now; she had to fix the house and get it cleaned up first.

Back home, Xia Qing saw Ram Boss lying in his special spot, looking listless, while the two wolves were still lying motionless. All three evolved animals watched her with their eyes as she came in, clearly still not recovered from the fright — even the wolf with the broken leg looked pitifully woebegone.

"I'm back. I'll put the chickens and geese in the pen first, then clean the attic." Xia Qing, bearing a headache and chest tightness, called out a greeting, then carried the chicken coop, goose coop, and back-basket outside.

Of the green-light chickens, four hens and two roosters had died; of the little geese, one green and one yellow were dead, and the survivors were all limp and listless.

Ultrasonic attacks really do terrible damage to poultry, especially young birds. Xia Qing guessed Zhao Ze and Qi Fu's chicks were in bad shape too, but right now her head was pounding so badly she didn't want to turn on the walkie-talkie and hear how the other territories were faring.

Xia Qing put the survivors in the pen, added water and bran mixed with grass, then boiled water and plucked the chicks and goslings. Edible food must never be wasted.

But at this moment, Xia Qing was really missing that plucking weasel. She wondered where the wolves and the weasel had been during the battle between humans and the birds, and how the little squirrel hiding in its tree-hole was doing.

She hoped they had all endured the ultrasonic attack and survived.

After cleaning the chicks and goslings, Xia Qing simply put mountain spring water and seasonings into the big pot and started stewing them. Although, apart from one yellow-light gosling, the rest of the poultry were all green-light, Xia Qing had no time for careful processing, nor could she take them to trade with other territories.

Why couldn't she trade? Because her green-light chickens had come from a trade with Zhang San, and now she'd let the chickens die on her — Xia Qing felt too embarrassed to ask Territory Seven if they wanted the meat.

Not asking Territory Seven, the only nearby buyers who could afford green-light chickens were the Tang father and son and Territory One; Territory Eight, with the gold watch, should also be able to afford them.

But right now the inspection teams were busy dealing with bird carcasses in their jurisdictions and had no time to pass messages or transport goods for her; the lord of Territory Eight was probably busy tending to her territory's injured evolved sea eagle and had no mind for trading.

Territory One's people had just helped her defend her territory, and some of their team members were injured — trading with them wouldn't be appropriate. As for the Tang father and son, Xia Qing didn't want to trade with them, so she simply stewed the whole lot in one pot.

After the meat was stewing, Xia Qing divided the chickens' and geese's offal into three portions: one for the edible snakes in the snake box, one tossed into the fish pond for the fish, and one saved for the two injured wolves.

When she went to feed the snakes, Xia Qing found the snakes in the box quite lively, seemingly unaffected. It looked like the ultrasonic attack's frequency range fell outside the hearing range of the snakes she kept.

The snakes were fine; the fish were not.

In the fish pond, three yellow-light fish and two green-light fish were belly-up, along with plenty of small fish. It was lucky that the ultrasonic blast had scared off the nearby birds — otherwise these fish floating on the surface would have been snapped up by waterfowl long ago.

The small fish were already dead through and through; the big fish still had heartbeats — it looked like they'd been stunned by the ultrasound. Xia Qing didn't know if they'd pull through. She scooped the big fish out and soaked them in a spring-water bucket to bring home.

If the fish recovered, she'd keep raising them; if not, she'd kill them for meat.

Back home, Xia Qing greeted the two pitiful wolves and the ram, then without a moment's rest took her tools and went to clean the attic.

The small building Xia Qing lived in had a pointed roof, with a long, narrow storage attic at the top of the second floor. Because the building had plenty of rooms and Xia Qing had few supplies, she hadn't stored anything in the attic except the solar storage battery.

It was also fortunate she hadn't stored supplies in the attic — otherwise her losses this time would have been far greater.

A large swath of the resin roof tiles had been torn up by the evolved bird, the attic window glass was shattered, the window frame was warped, and the floor had been cracked in five or six places by Ram Boss ramming it with his head. Luckily the floorboards were thick enough that the bird blood hadn't seeped down through the cracks to the floor below.

Although she was wearing a protective mask, Xia Qing knew the smell inside the attic must be awful. During the ultrasonic attack, all three evolved animals had vomited. Xia Qing strongly suspected the ultrasound-emitting device had been set up near her territory — otherwise how could it have had such power, causing such severe harm to three evolved animals wearing protective masks?

Pushing through, Xia Qing first repaired the outside of the building, hosed the bird blood off the roof and outer walls, then dug resin tiles, a new window frame, and glass out of the storeroom and replaced them.

Once the outside was tidied up, Xia Qing began cleaning the inside — she scraped off the bloodstained wall plaster and threw it away, swept the filth off the floor, then mopped as thoroughly as she could with a wet mop and sprayed on insecticide and deodorizer.

As for the cracked floorboards and the walls with the plaster scraped off, she'd deal with them when she had time later.

Xia Qing had worked on a construction crew for several years, and repairing battle-damaged buildings was something she'd done more than anything else — it was second nature. Even so, after patching up and cleaning the house, Xia Qing was so tired she couldn't be bothered to move a muscle.

She went to the first-floor bathroom and enjoyed a thorough shower, changed her clothes, and collapsed into a chair. Xia Qing took a deep breath and pulled off the glove on her right hand. When she'd wrestled with the evolved bird charging down at her, the Hukou of her right hand had been split open by the impact; after removing the glove, her whole palm was covered in blood, and through the torn opening Xia Qing could even see the soft tissue connecting to the bone inside.

Fortunately her glove was good quality, so the wound hadn't come into direct contact with the evolved bird's blood — otherwise she'd be lying down just like Qi Fu right now.

She'd had this kind of injury many times before and knew how to handle it: clean and disinfect first, then apply a hemostatic agent, and finally wrap it with bandages — done.

While Xia Qing was treating the wound, the two wolves and the ram all stared at her; Ram Boss even dragged his uncomfortable body over, clip-clop.

"It's nothing, just a small wound." Xia Qing's words weren't only meant to comfort Ram Boss — she was an advanced evolved human with powerful bodily functions, and an injury like this, as long as it wasn't infected with evolved bacteria, would heal in about a week. So after getting hurt, Xia Qing hadn't treated it right away either, because after treating it she'd still have to keep busy, and the medicine would just be wasted.

After treating the wound, Xia Qing noticed the two wolves could already move their forelegs and heads, and knew the anesthetic had worn off.

These two were wild wolves raised in the evolved forest; even though they were injured, having them inside the house still made Xia Qing uneasy.

So Xia Qing discussed it with Ram Boss: "Boss, could you take your friends out to the yard? I'm really out of energy, I don't want to move."