Chapter 1754: The Little Wild Boar Bitten by a Venomous Snake

At nine in the evening, Xia Qing, who had just fired sixty-eight sniper rounds at the Mount Forty-Nine shooting range, was carrying her rifle back to her territory when she received a message from Yang Jin:

The dragon fruit was delicious, thank you so much, Sister Qing.

Xia Qing stared at the message for a few seconds, until more than a dozen tiny flying insects landed on her phone screen, before she typed back a few words:

I'll bring you another one tomorrow. Get some rest early.

Then, Xia Qing quickly received a sleeping sticker from Yang Jin. She smiled, tucked her phone back into her protective suit pocket, and kept walking.

Yang Jin, inside Territory Seven, stared at the chat screen for a while, confirmed Xia Qing wouldn't reply again, then put down his phone, picked up his notebook, and went back to work.

The New Year was almost here. Of the top ten combatants on the Azure Dragon Squad, three were injured, five had gone to the Ruins Continent, and only two remained in the safe zone to handle squad affairs.

If their opponents discovered the squad's core combat strength was missing, they would surely seize the chance to chip away at the Azure Dragon Squad's power. So Yang Jin decided to find something to do, to draw those people's attention elsewhere.

It was time to put that cave he'd set up long ago in the evolution forest north of Hui Base Eight to use.

After entering Section Three of Mount Forty-Nine, Xia Qing tied a rope to a large tree, then grabbed the rope and lowered herself into the Wild Boar Valley. She carefully pulled aside the thorny fence blocking the boars, entered the chestnut grove, and walked toward the rock crevice where the hornets lived.

After the ice and snow thawed, all things came back to life. The chestnut trees sprouted tender buds, and the activity level of the evolved hornet colony in the rock crevice at the edge of the chestnut grove had risen as well. Although hornets are diurnal insects that rely on light to fly and forage, Xia Qing didn't dare underestimate this group of evolved creatures in the slightest.

When she was still five meters from the crevice, her brow center sensed the warm, comfortable Yi-element magnetic field.

Thank heavens, that giant hornet with an 18-centimeter body length and a Yi-element content as high as 9.1? had made it through the winter safely, and its Yi-element magnetic field had recovered to last autumn's level of activity.

Xia Qing happily calculated how many grams of giant hornet droppings she could harvest this year, then quietly backed out of the chestnut grove. Just as she was about to grab the rope and leave Wild Boar Valley, she heard the faint grunting of a piglet.

There were no boar dens here, so where was the piglet's cry coming from?

Having collected the Yi-stone and bearing the responsibility of raising pigs, Xia Qing didn't dare delay. She immediately drew her black long blade, followed the sound forward for more than sixty meters, and found the faintly grunting little wild boar in a thorny thicket.

She used her blade to cut through the thorns, pinched the little boar's snout, and lifted it up to examine it. She quickly discovered on its swollen hind leg the reason it was so weak.

This wild boar piglet, only a few days old, had been bitten by a venomous snake.

By all rights, a newborn piglet wouldn't leave the den. How had this little one ended up so far away, and gotten bitten by a venomous snake?

Xia Qing scanned the piglet's quality, confirmed it was green-light, then immediately gave it an injection of anesthetic. After that, she carried the little creature and hurried forward.

When winter set in last year, the northern wolf pack drove nine adult wild boars and sixteen half-grown wild boars into the valley. Combined with the boars already living in the valley, there were thirty-one wild boars of all sizes when winter began.

After eating all winter, only nine remained now—five yellow-light and four green-light.

This was the wild boars' breeding season. She absolutely couldn't let venomous snakes wreak havoc on the boars!

Carrying the piglet and aided by her night-vision goggles, Xia Qing moved forward another hundred-plus meters and caught four snakes, two of which were venomous.

That was indeed a few too many.

When she was still fifty meters from the first boar den, Xia Qing stopped and listened carefully. After confirming the breathing and grunting of the adult boars and piglets inside were normal, she caught snakes as she walked toward the second boar den, then the third.

After confirming the boars in the dens hadn't been attacked by the snake swarm, Xia Qing climbed out of the valley and tossed the flat-headed little fellow, who was baring his tiny teeth and coming over to rob her, into the valley.

Flat-head was the bane of snakes. It was precisely because he often roamed Section Three catching snakes that the snakes had all been driven into Wild Boar Valley and hurt Xia Qing's pigs. So of course, the task of clearing out the snakes had to be handed to Flat-head.

What is Xia Qing doing?

She quickly set up her tent and turned on the light, cleaned the wound on the tender, fragrant little melon-rind piglet, tested its blood to confirm the type of venom in its body, and then gave it an injection of antivenom serum.

One green-light piglet was worth far more than a dose of antivenom serum, so of course Xia Qing wasn't going to begrudge the medicine.

After bandaging the piglet's wound, Xia Qing cleaned the areas scratched by the thorns and sprayed on some scent-isolating agent.

This little pig's scent had changed, and its melon-rind patterned skin now had scratches running every which way. When it woke up and was returned to the boar den, whether the sow would still want it was a question.

If the boar herd rejected it, Xia Qing would take it back and raise it in her territory. Because this little one was green-light, raising it would yield green-light pig manure, and once it grew up, green-light pork as well.

The prerequisite was that the Queen allowed her to keep it. The wild boars in the valley belonged to the northern wolf pack. Even though Xia Qing was the Number Four combatant of the northern wolf pack, to catch a wild boar she still needed the Queen's permission.

The Queen had just given birth to cubs, so Xia Qing contacted the Number Two leader of the northern wolf pack directly—Broken-Waist Wolf.

"Broken-Waist, out patrolling the territory?" After the call connected, Xia Qing first showed the pair of green wolf-eyes on the screen the little melon-rind piglet beside her, then explained the situation and asked, "I'll take this little piglet back to my territory and slaughter it for meat?"

Broken-Waist Wolf pressed his mouth shut, his face solemn.

"Not allowed? Okay." Only then did Xia Qing state her real intention. "Then once this little piglet wakes up, I'll send it back to the boar den. If the sow doesn't want it, I'll take it back to my territory and raise it?"

Broken-Waist Wolf bared his lips, flashed a little tip of fang, then solemnly extended a big paw and gestured a "6."

Xia Qing nodded. "No problem, I'll be there at six tomorrow morning on time for the special training."

Broken-Waist Wolf flashed a little tip of fang, ended the call with his big nose, then immediately stuffed his phone back into his protective suit pocket, threw back his head to howl for the pack members, and began patrolling the surrounding territory, making sure not a single snake got the chance to approach the den where the wolf cubs were being raised.

Inside her tent on Mount Forty-Nine, Xia Qing opened her chat window with Yang Jin, looked at the sticker he'd sent an hour and a half ago, figured he should be asleep by now, and began taking photos of the little melon-rind piglet on the antibacterial pad.

This little wild boar reminded her of the two piglets she'd caught two years ago when she first entered Territory Three and was patrolling Wild Boar Valley.

Those two piglets were a bit bigger than this one, and their fur was thicker, so they weren't as cute as this little boar.

Xia Qing took a few photos of the little piglet, and only when it was about to wake up did she stuff it into a beast-hide bag, pack up her tent, and head back to Wild Boar Valley, arriving near the boar den closest to the chestnut grove.

The wild boars in the valley lived in three dens, but currently only one den had boars that had given birth to piglets, so Xia Qing confirmed this little pig had run out from that den.

When the anesthetic gradually wore off and the little pig began struggling inside the beast-hide bag, Xia Qing put on her antibacterial rubber gloves, pulled it out, grabbed a handful of dirt and rubbed it on the little creature, then let go.

After breaking free of Xia Qing's grip, the little wild boar limped and stumbled toward the den.