Chapter 268: The Big Chinese Toon Tree Besieged by Bugs

Xin Yu explained, "It's not my tamed beast. Can you trade this evolved hawk to me? I want it alive."

If someone else had asked, Xia Qing would have first asked about the trade conditions. But Xin Yu—who lived in a three-story villa and grew roses—asked, so Xia Qing agreed right away.

She stomped on the evolved hawk's neck, pressed the button, and said, "How do I give it to you?"

Xin Yu's somewhat reserved voice turned joyful, "Thank you. The pesticide spraying is about to start—could you please take the evolved hawk back to your territory first, and hand it over to the inspection team after the spraying is done?"

"Sure." Xia Qing bound the evolved hawk's talons and beak, stuffed it into a cloth bag, and continued on toward the abandoned mountain cave.

On the lord channel, Tang Huai continued asking, "Xin Yu, what do you want a live evolved hawk for? Trying to tame it? Adult hawks are all terribly proud—there's no way they'd submit to a human."

As expected, Xin Yu ignored Tang Huai, and the lord channel fell silent.

Xia Qing walked another few dozen meters north and saw Broken-Leg Wolf had caught a loach and was having a grand time playing with it.

This fellow seemed to have inexhaustible energy.

Xia Qing asked, "Broken-Leg, are you the only wolf here? Where's the Queen?"

Broken-Leg Wolf, a thirty-plus-centimeter loach clamped in its jaws, darted over to Xia Qing and frolicked around her.

Xia Qing let it run wild. "The Queen isn't here? The pesticide spraying is about to start, and since this time it's pest extermination, the concentration won't be low—the helicopter will fly very low. You guys better hide in the cave and not come out. Especially you, you brainless thing—don't you dare leap up and provoke the helicopter."

Every year, the base sent helicopters into the airspace above the evolved forest under its jurisdiction to spray a herbicide that reduced the seed-setting rate of invasive grass—Invasive-Grass-Kill. So the animals in the evolved forest that had any intelligence or memory were all quite familiar with helicopters.

The reason Xia Qing made a special trip was that, unlike spraying Invasive-Grass-Kill, during precision pest extermination the helicopter would drop below ten meters. At that altitude, the helicopter's noise was deafening and the downwash from the rotors was fierce. Xia Qing was worried the wolf pack in the abandoned cave in Zone 3 of Mountain 49 would be startled into revealing themselves.

Why didn't the plane drop below ten meters when spraying Invasive-Grass-Kill over the evolved forest?

Because when a helicopter circled above the evolved forest at that altitude, the various evolved beasts inside would take it as a provocation.

In the eighth year of the Calamity, a helicopter spraying Invasive-Grass-Kill over the Mountain 32 zone crashed because the pilot was careless and flew below fifteen meters—a great python leapt up and coiled around it, destroying the aircraft and killing everyone aboard.

A wolf pack that could gather herbs, dig energy stones, and hunt green-light animals was a very important trading partner for Xia Qing; she didn't want them discovered by the helicopter. Besides, Mountain 49 belonged to the Azure Dragon Squad's training ground, and by the relevant agreement, no large carnivorous wild beasts were allowed there.

After giving Broken-Leg Wolf her instructions, Xia Qing hurried back to her own territory, went up the slope to find her companion Ram Boss, and discovered it pacing around the Chinese toon tree, its movements radiating obvious agitation.

Xia Qing stepped forward and asked, "Boss, what's wrong?"

"Baa!" Ram Boss, seeing Xia Qing arrive, immediately nudged her toward the trunk.

Xia Qing saw the large swarm of stinging-caterpillar larvae crawling up the trunk and got a fright herself.

This green-light Chinese toon tree was an important food source for Ram Boss, so finding it crawling with bugs—its panic and irritation were entirely understandable.

Xia Qing gently coaxed her companion not to worry. "It's fine. In a little while the spraying will start, and once it's done, all these bugs will be dead. Let's go home."

"Baa!" Ram Boss got stubborn and insisted Xia Qing do something.

Xia Qing didn't argue with it. "Boss, wait right here. I'll go get the sprayer and give the toon tree a round of pesticide."

This green-light edible Chinese toon tree wasn't only Ram Boss's treasure—it was Xia Qing's too. Whether she'd get to eat fragrant toon sprouts in the spring depended entirely on this tree. The last hailstorm had smashed to death all the toon saplings she'd moved over by the spring.

Xia Qing sprinted down the slope, left the evolved hawk in the small hut by the farm field, mixed pesticide with water by the river in her sprayer, charged back up the slope, pointed at the upwind side, and told Ram Boss, "Boss, go wait over there. I'm going to spray the toon tree."

Ram Boss obediently trotted to where Xia Qing pointed, raised its head, and watched her set up a ladder, climb the big toon tree, and spray pesticide to kill the bugs. Xia Qing quickly sprayed the entire tree, didn't even spare the open ground nearby, and only after making sure everything was fine did she call Ram Boss and head down the mountain together.

Ram Boss didn't fuss this time and followed Xia Qing down the mountain. The moment the two of them reached the bottom, they heard the roar of an aircraft. Xia Qing glanced up at a helicopter appearing to the south and shouted, "Boss, run for home!"

"Baa!"

Ram Boss bleated once and ran faster than Xia Qing.

Passing the small hut, Xia Qing put the sprayer inside, then picked up the bag holding the evolved hawk, shut the hut door tight, and sprinted after Ram Boss. One person and one ram finally burst into the courtyard just before the aircraft reached the airspace over their territory.

Xia Qing casually shut the door of the empty sheep pen, dashed into the house, and found two wolves and one ram lying on the tatami, all staring at her in unison.

Ram Boss's posture and expression made it look as though it had been with the two wolves the whole time and had never gone out at all…

Xia Qing laughed and greeted them, didn't bother washing the insecticide off her protective suit, climbed straight up to the loft, and looked out through the window.

She saw a helicopter fly over the territory of plots 1 through 28, then begin spraying the twenty-plus plots to the south, and felt a little easier in her heart.

Xia Qing's territory was at the very northern edge of this stretch of land; the people on the helicopter probably hadn't seen Ram Boss's mad dash.

Xia Qing closed the curtains, went to the bathroom to wash the insecticide off herself, and when she went downstairs to check the evolved hawk in the bag, she found the two wolves circling the bag.

"The evolved hawk in here is my prey—I've already traded it to someone else, so you can't eat it." Xia Qing lifted the bag. This evolved hawk weighed more than double the red-light goose she'd just sold—it had to be twenty jin at least, and with its wings spread, the wingspan exceeded four meters; it was a big one. Although Xia Qing had broken one of its wings, it was still fierce—its sharp hooked beak poked out of the bag, trying to peck at Xia Qing's eyes.

Prepared in advance, Xia Qing grabbed the hawk's neck in one hand and quickly squirted an oral anesthetic into its beak with a syringe. A few minutes later, the evolved hawk lost all ability to fight back and collapsed into a heap.

Xia Qing examined the hawk closely, confirmed that its feathered face showed only fear and no glimmer of intelligence, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. If this had been a brain-evolved hawk, Xia Qing would genuinely have feared that after Xin Yu nursed it back to health, it would come after her for revenge.

While checking the hawk's injuries, Xia Qing told the one ram and two wolves standing by the table watching, "This evolved hawk tried to steal the plucking-yellow weasel's prey. The weasel asked me for help, so I shot this hawk down."

The hawk's stomach was completely empty—it must have been starving for two or three days. No wonder it had risked venturing to the edge of human territory to rob the weasel of its prey.

In the end, it forgot this was human territory, failed to keep watch on Xia Qing's movements, and got its right wing's radius shattered by a single shot.