Chapter 365: Install a Door

The shape was right, but the feel and weight were all wrong. What the Waist-Break Wolf had carried over in its pouch wasn't yi stone, but three walnuts.

The green husks of the walnuts were already wrinkled, not freshly picked from the tree—they must have been the fruits hidden by leaves on the green-husk walnut tree on Mountain Sixty, which Xia Qing hadn't spotted.

Walnuts were nice, but compared to yi stone they fell far short…

Xia Qing quickly adjusted her mindset and thanked it with a smile. "Waist-Break, thank you for the gift you brought me."

Three walnuts could only count as a gift; they were far from enough for a trade.

Seeing Xia Qing accept the walnuts, the Waist-Break Wolf walked over to the wooden door set under the eaves, raised one paw and pressed it against the door, then turned its head to look at Xia Qing.

Looking through her night-vision goggles at this wolf with such a clever look on its face, Xia Qing asked, "Waist-Break, are you planning to take the wooden door back? Sure. But how are you going to carry it yourself? And do you really think installing a wooden door on Mountain Sixty would look good?"

Seeing that Xia Qing wasn't coming over, the Waist-Break Wolf stepped forward, circled around her once, then went back and placed its paw on the wooden door again.

Xia Qing was stunned. She raised a hand, pointed at her own nose, then at the wooden door. "You want me to… carry the wooden door over for you?"

The Waist-Break Wolf bared its lips, revealing two little fang tips, and grinned at Xia Qing.

Oh heavens, oh earth…

A wolf uses three walnuts to get me to haul a wooden door over three meters wide across sixty li of mountains to deliver it right to its doorstep. That calculating streak is sharper than Iron Rooster Yang Jin's!

Xia Qing shook her head firmly. "I'm not going. It's too far. If you want the door hauled over, get the giant wolf to come carry it."

The Waist-Break Wolf's smile faded, and it seemed lost in thought. The well-fed head wolf, having cleaned the blood from the fur around its mouth, also fixed its tawny-gold eyes on Xia Qing. The Waist-Break Wolf's sister dragged herself out of the sheep pen by her two hind legs, and the sound of her tearing at prey made one's scalp crawl.

Xia Qing once again stated her position firmly. "This wooden door, I won't deliver it. I'm building the territory wall and will start work at daybreak. No time."

The Waist-Break Wolf seemed to have figured something out, turned and walked a few steps outward, then stopped and looked back at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing understood the gesture—it wanted her to follow it. "Where to? I have to start working at daybreak. I really don't have time."

The Waist-Break Wolf walked a few more steps ahead, then looked back again.

Xia Qing still stood without moving. Sheep Boss grew impatient, stepped forward and nudged Xia Qing in the waist, telling her to go with the Waist-Break Wolf.

Sheep Boss communicated with the wolf pack far more smoothly than Xia Qing did. Xia Qing chose to trust her companion and followed the Waist-Break Wolf out of the territory and into the valley.

It wasn't until the Waist-Break Wolf stopped at the mouth of an abandoned mountain cave and pressed its large paw against the rock that Xia Qing finally understood what it meant. "You want the traded wooden door installed on this cave?"

Seeing that Xia Qing finally understood, the Waist-Break Wolf bared its lips, revealing its cute little fang tips, and grinned very adorably.

The size and shape of this cave mouth were indeed about the same as the security door of Xia Qing's house. So the Waist-Break Wolf had never planned to haul the door all the way back to Mountain Sixty in the first place—it wanted it installed right here.

Although she didn't understand why a door needed to be installed here, Xia Qing nodded very crisply. "Sure. I'll go carry the door over and have it installed for you before dawn."

Xia Qing was a woman of action—she never put off till the next hour what she could finish immediately. She went home, packed up her tool bag, hoisted the wooden door onto her shoulder, and headed out.

The head wolf followed behind Xia Qing. The Waist-Break Wolf carried its broken-legged sister on its back and followed behind the head wolf. The sick wolf and Sheep Boss brought up the rear.

Beard Feng in the northern buffer forest watched this strange procession, dumbfounded. He finally knew what the wolf pack had traded with Xia Qing last time.

Do proper wolves need doors?

Or rather, is a wolf that needs a door still a wolf?

After entering the valley, the Waist-Break Wolf set its broken-legged sister down inside the cave, then lay down outside the entrance side by side with the head wolf, watching Xia Qing install the door.

Sheep Boss hadn't left Territory Three to enter this valley in a long time. She wandered around, unsure what she was looking for. The sick wolf stayed by Xia Qing's side, clearly eager to help.

But it was obvious that installing a door was something it really couldn't help with.

Xia Qing first used a tape measure to take the precise dimensions of the cave mouth, then went at it with a hammer and electric drill in a clanging flurry, and had the wooden door installed in no time. The gaps between the wooden door and the cave walls were also sealed up tight with stones or wooden boards.

Then Xia Qing invited the buyer overseeing the construction nearby to inspect the work. "Waist-Break, how does this look?"

The Waist-Break Wolf walked over, used its paw to pull down the door handle and went into the cave. The head wolf followed it in. After a while, they opened the wooden door and walked back out, grinning broadly.

This one really has become enlightened.

Xia Qing, who didn't have to haul a wooden door sixty li, was also very pleased. "This area is my territory too. As long as you don't howl loudly, you won't be threatened by other humans here. Living here is safer for you than in Territory Three."

When Xia Qing left the valley with the sick wolf and Sheep Boss, it was already light. She took out her phone, ready to check on her "good neighbor," the red squirrel.

This diligent little fellow wasn't in its nest again—it had gone out of Zone Three to gather food.

Having such a hardworking neighbor doubled Xia Qing's own motivation, as she also liked to hoard food. The first stop on the food search: the red squirrel's granary!

Xia Qing climbed up the big tree and shone a flashlight around carefully. She found the red squirrel's stockpile had grown again. But the new addition wasn't the black-skinned peanuts Xia Qing had been hoping for—just a small handful of corn kernels.

Xia Qing climbed down and asked, "Wolf Lao Er, did you give the red squirrel corn kernels?"

The sick wolf's eyes were perfectly clear; Xia Qing couldn't read anything from them. She turned to Sheep Boss, who was foraging nearby, and asked, "Boss, did you give the red squirrel corn kernels?"

Sheep Boss twitched her ears and pretended not to hear.

"Neither of you gave it any, so where did the corn kernels in its hole come from? Could it be from another territory?" Xia Qing headed back to the territory with her two companions, muttering as she walked. "An evolved sea eagle doesn't pose much of a threat to a speed-evolved squirrel, but Third Brother's Cat Princess is a feline predator. What do you think the red squirrel's chances of survival are if it runs into Cat Princess?"

Xia Qing didn't know what evolutionary abilities Cat Princess had, nor would she interfere in struggles between animals. If the red squirrel entered someone else's territory to look for food and was caught or killed by that territory's guardian, that was on it for lacking ability and vigilance.

Xia Qing had already saved it once from Xin Yu's hands; there wouldn't be a second time. Unless it fled back wounded and, like the wolf pack, brought supplies that could tempt Xia Qing, asking her for help.

Obviously, this little thing didn't have that kind of brains.

Xia Qing went home, ate breakfast first, spread out the corn and had the sick wolf guard it on the roof, then discussed with Deng Yuhui speeding up the construction progress as much as possible.

Because at three o'clock this afternoon, the second batch of refugees would arrive.

Deng Yuhui split the twenty-person construction team into two squads. One squad continued yesterday's work—surveying terrain, marking lines, digging foundation trenches, and pouring cement mortar. The second squad welded wire mesh and anti-climb, anti-theft spikes onto the wall frames that had already been erected yesterday.

Beard Feng sent four team members to protect the construction squads. Xia Qing continued tidying the farmland, preparing for autumn plowing and sowing.