Chapter 262: Brain Domain Evolved Bear

Working for free?

"No need." Xia Qing refused outright, turned, and headed back to her territory. Tang Huai wasn't a bad person, but he was annoying, and the Sufeng Squad made Xia Qing wary. She had no intention of getting too close to the Tang family.

After Xia Qing entered the tall grass wall and walked off into the distance, Tang Huai, leaning against the road sign, started cursing. "Damn it, that stinky woman really won't take the bait either way!"

Beard Feng stepped out of the tall grass wall of Territory One, his face dark, and strode toward Tang Huai with killing intent. "Tango, you stay away from Xia Qing, or I'll kill you!"

On the surface, Beard Feng was one of Xia Qing's suitors, so of course he had to show anger at Tang Huai's designs on her.

Tang Huai immediately jumped back inside Territory Two, slapped his own chest, and taunted, "Come on then, if you've got the guts, shoot me right here."

He was the agent of Territory Two, so as long as he stayed inside it, he was protected by the Lord Law.

Beard Feng cursed with a dark face, "If you've got the guts, come out. Don't hide in your territory like a shrinking turtle."

"If you've got the guts, come in!"

"You come out!"

"You come in!"

The two started trading insults. Xia Qing had no patience to keep listening, so she returned to the wasteland village where the building materials were stored, and worked with Sheep Boss to load bricks and stone blocks onto the cart.

All of Xia Qing's building materials had been dug out from the ruins of houses in the three wasteland villages within her territory: hollow bricks, perforated bricks, and red bricks.

Although twenty years before the Catastrophe, Hua had strictly restricted the production and use of red bricks due to environmental and sustainable development concerns, most of the old houses in the three wasteland villages inside Xia Qing's territory had been built with red bricks. So the red bricks Xia Qing sorted out were the most numerous, and even those broken in half, Xia Qing kept.

There were also the stone blocks used for laying the foundations of the old houses. Xia Qing had dug them out and stacked them neatly. These were all polished and cut stone blocks, regular and flat, even more useful than bricks.

Early the next morning, when Xia Qing, Sheep Boss, and Wolfdog Lao Er were patrolling the territory, they discovered that the sweet potato leaves in the vegetable terraces had small holes chewed out by insects.

She immediately leaned in to inspect, and quickly found the culprit: newly hatched little grubs no longer than three millimeters.

Xia Qing checked the insect nets every day, regularly sprayed pesticides and insect repellents, and was extremely careful when entering and leaving the greenhouses, to avoid bringing in germs, insect eggs, and moths. Under the protection of these layered defenses, there were indeed far fewer insects inside the greenhouses than outside.

But no matter how careful, it was impossible to have zero insects. When insects appeared, you just killed them. Pest control, weeding, fertilizing, and watering were the daily routine of farming.

Xia Qing immediately contacted Territory Seven, had her idol confirm the species of the insects, then traded for the targeted pesticide, diluted it, and carefully sprayed every greenhouse from top to bottom.

After spraying and heading home, the sheep and the wolf disliked the smell on Xia Qing and each kept their distance.

After the great biological evolution of Blue Star, all pesticides were biological agents where each one targeted a specific pest. Pesticides effective against insects wouldn't have much effect on sheep, but the pungent smell of this pesticide still made Sheep Boss and the others dislike it.

Xia Qing actually thought the smell was quite pleasant; once diluted, it was very similar to the scent of mint.

Xia Qing mischievously chased Sheep Boss around, making Sheep Boss so angry it wanted to fight her. After rinsing and disinfecting her protective suit, Xia Qing finished breakfast and continued building the chicken coop.

After a busy day, Xia Qing had cleaned the floor of the chicken coop, dug and tamped down the foundation, and was laying the foundation with stone blocks, when Beard Feng delivered forty jin of pine cones. "We had more people today, so we knocked down all the pine cones we missed on the first tree too. That's why there's a bit more than yesterday."

The more they collected, the more Xia Qing got. Xia Qing thanked him and took them, then asked, "You didn't run into any evolved bears, did you?"

"We almost bumped into them on the way there. Luckily we had evolvers with enhanced smell and hearing, so we dodged them in time." Beard Feng sighed. "Hopefully those two bears were just passing through."

Can't kill them? Xia Qing asked, "Are there Brain Domain Evolved Bears around here?"

Bears were solitary animals. No matter how powerful an evolved bear was, with the weapons and equipment of the Azure Dragon Squad, one or two main squads could take a bear down.

But if there were Brain Domain Evolved Bears, things wouldn't be that simple.

Bears were already among the more intelligent wild animals, and the intelligence of a Brain Domain Evolved Bear was no lower than that of a Brain Domain Evolved Wolf. What was even more terrifying was that a Brain Domain Evolved Bear could gather solitary bears together and, under its command, coordinate them in combat.

A dozen or so evolved brown bears, under the command of a Brain Domain Evolved Bear, possessed enough terrifying power to wipe out a small human settlement.

This wasn't scaremongering; it was a real vicious incident that had actually happened.

In the fourth year of the Catastrophe, the humans who had gathered to survive the disasters had not yet formed the current pattern of one large safe zone within a single base. Many felt they were powerful and refused to abandon the small homes they had spent years building.

That year, in a settlement of over ten thousand people within Base White Four, someone went out foraging, killed an adult female bear, and captured two brown bear cubs.

The mother bear was skinned and eaten by humans, while the two cubs were kept and tamed, in the hope they could become helpers for humans in fighting evolved creatures.

Half a month later, on a cold, rainy night, sixteen evolved brown bears suddenly appeared outside the settlement, knocked down the walls, rescued the two cubs, and smashed all the houses inside the settlement.

The cold rain combined with the evolved bear attack caused over three thousand deaths in the safe zone. The survivors who braved the cold rain to flee toward the safe zone were attacked by evolved bears several more times along the way. By the time they reached the safe zone, only a few hundred people remained.

This incident shocked the entire nation.

After the cold rain, Hua sent out bombers and only then managed to kill those two Brain Domain Evolved Bears.

Xia Qing had heard of several more such incidents. Although humans ultimately killed the evolved animals each time, they paid a tremendous price.

The pride of humans, who saw themselves as superior to wild animals, had been ground down over the ten years since the Catastrophe. Unless necessary, humans would not actively provoke high-level evolved beasts, especially Brain Domain Evolved Beasts.

Beard Feng nodded. "Two Brain Domain Evolved Bears live on Mountain Sixty-One. Our territory doesn't have the kind of solid walls a safe zone does, so it's best not to get into a conflict with evolved bears. If those two bears happen to be connected to the Brain Domain Evolved Bears, that would be trouble."

Xia Qing fully agreed. "Did Captain Hu report the evolved bear situation to Captain Tan?"

"Reported. Captain Tan has already escalated it. The military will closely monitor the evolved bears' range of activity, and if they pose a threat to the territory, they'll immediately find a way to drive them off."

The military didn't want a conflict with Brain Domain Evolved Bears either. If they could be driven off, they wouldn't choose to kill them.

After Beard Feng left, Xia Qing carried the bag home, spread the pine cones out to dry on the roof, and continued building the chicken coop.

Broken-Waist Wolf walked over and squatted nearby, watching.

Xia Qing told it about the evolved bears. "Broken-Waist, were the evolved bears roaring yesterday your rivals or your allies?"

"Yesterday, the Queen went to Mountain Fifty to watch two bears roar at each other and came back. Did she tell you anything? Once your waist heals, are you guys going to fight the bears?" Xia Qing shoveled a wooden bucket of high-strength concrete, straightened up, and gave a serious warning.

"Broken-Waist, I don't care who you guys fight, but you can't fight near my territory, or Sheep Boss and I will definitely suffer for it."

After a few seconds of eye contact with the calm-faced Broken-Waist Wolf, Xia Qing sighed. This wolf had a look that said it knew everything. But Xia Qing always felt it wasn't on the same wavelength as her.

If they could spend a few more months together, her communication with the wolf would be much smoother, but this wolf would soon finish its treatment and return to the Evolution Forest.

Xia Qing gave up trying to communicate, picked up the wooden bucket, and went to build the wall.