Chapter 388: Lord No. 14

Seeing Xia Qing and Kuang Qingwei and Shi Zhong all nod, Qi Fu then replied, "Alright. Captain Tan, please have Brother Yue come over now. We'll wait for him under the road sign."

After hanging up the phone, Zhao's mother was surprised. "I'd say Captain Tan's daughter is only about ten years old. Can someone so young also be a lord? Doesn't one have to be an adult?"

"It should be a preferential policy for military families. Captain Tan and his wife were both soldiers, and his wife was killed in the line of duty," Kuang Qingwei answered. "Territory No. 15 rented a threshing machine. Yue Haiying is missing a section of his right arm. I assumed he was the lord, but it turns out he's just an agent."

Xia Qing speculated, "The refugees from Territory No. 2 are going to the Evolution Forest to look for supplies, and the first place would be Mountain No. 50, which is closest to our territory. Mountain No. 50 is right on the east side of Territory No. 15. I figure they also want to haul timber from that patch of Evolution Forest we picked out, to wall off the east side of their territory. Uncle Shi, have you had any dealings with the lord of Territory No. 14?"

Territory No. 10's east side borders Territory No. 14, and Territory No. 14's east side borders Territory No. 15. If both Territory No. 10 and Territory No. 15 wall themselves in, Territory No. 14 only needs to wall off its north and south sides to be fully enclosed.

Logically speaking, if Shi Zhong wants to build a wall between his territory and Territory No. 14, he should have given the lord of Territory No. 14 advance notice. If that lord knows what's proper, the two sides should each wall half.

Shi Zhong shook his head. "Earlier I shouted toward the east side of my territory, but no one over there paid me any attention. Later I asked Captain Tan to pass along a message, and there's still been no response from that side to this day. So for now I'm building the north and west walls first; the east wall hasn't been started. In the past half year I've only heard any activity from Territory No. 14 once — when they were using a machine to shell corn kernels."

The moment shelled corn kernels was mentioned, everyone's gaze immediately focused on Kuang Qingwei.

"Right, the threshing machine from Territory No. 14 was rented from me." The pits and craters on Kuang Qingwei's face, burned out by the acid rain, were pulled by his smile, making him look very fierce.

He rarely smiled like that in front of strangers; now that he'd gotten familiar with everyone, he'd let his guard down.

"The lord of Territory No. 14, like Xin Yu, doesn't like dealing with people, and he didn't attend the July agricultural trade fair either. Renting the threshing machine was the first time he ever contacted me. He looked to be around forty, with big eyes, a square face, and a beard. There's a blue cross-shaped scar over three centimeters long on his left cheek, and he's about 1.9 meters tall. He should be an Evolver. But he's especially thin, and his voice is very quiet — I don't know if he's injured or what."

When the two elements of Qiang and Yi suddenly appeared on Blue Star and the First Great Evolution occurred, if a human Evolver was under 25 years old, their body would develop again, with the obvious sign being a marked increase in height.

That was why Kuang Qingwei had inferred, based on height, that the lord of Territory No. 14 was an Evolver.

A tall man with a beard, a blue cross-shaped scar on his left cheek, and very thin?

Xia Qing's face was calm. "Based on Brother Qing's description, this person should be a former member of the Fengyun Squad — a Level 4 Olfactory Evolver named Yan Meng. Last August he took poison on a mission, his Yi evolution ability was damaged, he lost combat power, and he left the squad. I have a grudge against him. Everyone try not to associate with him too much, so you don't get dragged into it and suffer his underhanded retaliation."

Everyone was shocked and hurriedly asked Xia Qing what had happened.

Plenty of people knew about this incident, so there was nothing to hide. Xia Qing briefly explained, "Last May, the Fengyun Squad took on a mission to clear the Evolution Forest and recruited Strength Evolvers. I signed up and joined. During that mission we ran into a pack of Evolution Wolves. The Fengyun Squad's main force went to hunt the wolves, but they were wiped out by the pack. I hid up in a tree and barely escaped."

"Ah!" Zhao's mother exclaimed. "I've heard about this! I heard the main-force members of the Fengyun Squad were all hollowed out by the Evolution Wolves — their hearts, livers, and lungs were all eaten."

Kuang Qingwei and Qi Fu also nodded. This had been a major safety incident last year, and everyone in the Safe Zone had heard of it. They just hadn't expected Xia Qing to have taken part in that hunt as well.

Kuang Qingwei asked, "Did the wolves really eat them? I thought it was said that Evolution Wolves don't like the taste of human flesh and only drink human blood?"

Has it really gotten that distorted in the telling?

The person involved, Xia Qing, corrected them. "After that pack of Evolution Wolves killed them, they destroyed the Fengyun Squad's weapons. They didn't eat the flesh or drink the blood."

"Then maybe the pack had just eaten and wasn't hungry," Shi Zhong asked. "I heard Xiao Du mention this before. Yan Meng picked on you because you survived?"

Xia Qing nodded.

Actually, Yan Meng had picked the right person to come after. Because his sister — the Fengyun Squad's Level 4 Olfactory Evolver, Yan Pan — really had been pushed out of the tree by Xia Qing, and then killed by the wolf pack.

On that mission, the Fengyun Squad deployed a total of 12 members, with 8 in the main force. Although Yan Pan wasn't part of the main force chasing the wolves, she was the first to shoot at the wolves with her gun after the main-force members proposed hunting the pack. Her marksmanship was decent, and she wounded one wolf.

In the Evolution Forest, a wild animal that takes a bullet wound is as good as dead.

So, after the alpha wolf led the pack in killing the other Fengyun Squad members, it began to attack Yan Pan up in the tree.

After Yan Pan ran out of bullets, she climbed along the branches to the tree where Xia Qing was hiding, intending to throw Xia Qing down to buy time and wait for rescue. But she underestimated Xia Qing's hidden strength, and instead was thrown from the tree by Xia Qing, dying under the wolves' claws.

After the rescue team arrived, Xia Qing truthfully recounted how the conflict between the Fengyun Squad and the wolf pack had unfolded, only concealing her own struggle with Yan Pan. But Yan Meng, who had come with the rescue team, smelled Yan Pan's scent on Xia Qing and wanted to kill Xia Qing to avenge his sister.

But the captain of that rescue team wasn't from the Fengyun Squad, and he still needed to keep Xia Qing alive to bring her back to base to report what had happened, so he didn't let Yan Meng act.

Later, Yan Meng's gaze at Xia Qing always carried killing intent, but Xia Qing was very cautious and never gave him a chance to strike. Not long after that, Yan Meng was seriously injured and disappeared somewhere; Xia Qing wanted to kill him but never found the chance either.

She hadn't expected him to have come out here to farm too, and in a place so close to her.

Although they weren't on the same lord communication channel, because Xia Qing often spoke in the lord channel, Yan Meng must have already known she was inside Territory No. 3.

Once this busy stretch was over, Xia Qing decided to find a chance to test Yan Meng's intentions. If he really was here to farm, Xia Qing had no objections; if he was here to avenge his sister, then Xia Qing wouldn't mind sending him on his way either.

Zhao's mother frowned. "This person is completely unreasonable. We don't even know if he has a gun. Xia Qing, you've got to be careful."

"Yan Meng isn't unreasonable — he's a coward. If he weren't a coward, he'd have gone after the wolf pack for revenge long ago." Qi Fu cautioned Shi Zhong, "Brother Shi, having a neighbor like that, you've really got to be careful."

Why wasn't Qi Fu worried about Xia Qing?

Isn't that obvious?

Let alone the fact that Yan Meng's evolution ability is already ruined — even if it weren't, he's only an Olfactory Evolver with weak combat power. He's no match for Xia Qing, the Strength-Evolution sniper.