Chapter 446: Brimming with Life

Petting a wolf?

Heh. You think a carnivorous evolved wolf raised in the Evolution Forest is something just anyone can pet?

Let alone Tang Huai, even Beard Feng's squad, who wanders around her territory every day, still hasn't earned the wolf pack's trust and can't get anywhere near them.

"Squeak—"

The wooden door of the small room connected to the greenhouse creaked. Before long, Sick Wolf pushed through the door curtain on the greenhouse's earthen wall with a basket in its mouth, trotted in, wagged its tail happily at Xia Qing, and ran over.

"Lao Er's so happy—did you have a good haul today?" Xia Qing greeted Sick Wolf, took the basket, and casually scratched its forehead.

Sick Wolf's height was about the same as the Alpha Wolf's, with a shoulder height of 1.2 meters. Sitting down, it was even taller than when standing. Its vision was sharp, its front limbs had five sharp toes, its hind limbs had four hooked toes, and its fangs were razor-sharp—a truly worthy evolved beast of the Evolution Forest.

And right now, this powerful, fierce evolved wolf was crouching in front of Xia Qing, lifting its head, asking her to scratch its neck.

Xia Qing naturally reached out her hand and petted the wolf.

She got along so well with the wolf pack mainly because she lived in the same territory and the same house as Big Sheep, was a companion Big Sheep had acknowledged, and the wolf pack was also Big Sheep's companion.

The brain-domain evolved wolves knew humans could treat very serious injuries, so when the Broken-Waist Wolf and the Broken-Leg Wolf were hurt, the Alpha Wolf, unwilling to abandon important companions, took the risk of leading them out of the Evolution Forest into Big Sheep's territory, using yi stones and herbs to ask Big Sheep's companion—human Xia Qing—for help.

At first, Xia Qing and the wolf pack didn't trust each other. After more than four months of frequent contact, the two sides slowly built a relationship of trust.

The wolf in the pack that got along best with Xia Qing was the one right in front of her.

When it was being tortured almost to death by parasites and evolved grass seeds, the Alpha Wolf brought it to Xia Qing. It was Xia Qing who traded for medicine, hired someone to perform eye surgery on it, and patiently nursed it back from the brink of death.

From Sick Wolf's various behaviors, Xia Qing confirmed that Sick Wolf now regarded her as a companion whose importance was second only to the Alpha Wolf and the Broken-Waist Wolf, on par with Big Sheep.

After petting the wolf for a while, Xia Qing, brimming with happiness, saw clearly the bugs it had caught and was quite surprised.

The weather was freezing, and the vast majority of bugs had burrowed into the soil or piles of dead leaves, so catching bugs wasn't as easy as in warmer weather. So Xia Qing had already told her companions they didn't need to catch bugs anymore.

Big Sheep gladly accepted Xia Qing's suggestion, but Sick Wolf still caught bugs with a basket in its mouth every morning when patrolling the territory.

The past two days it had come up empty, but who would have thought today's catch was—evolved giant cockroaches.

No matter how Blue Star evolved, cockroaches, damn it, always survived just fine.

The evolved giant cockroach's body was longer than the middle finger a human raises when angry. Not only that, after evolving, the sharp incisor lobes and molar lobes on its upper and lower jaws could bite through a human finger.

In the early years of the Catastrophe, many humans died in the jaws of evolved cockroaches.

In every insect tide during the ten years of the Catastrophe, evolved cockroaches appeared in huge numbers.

Xia Qing, who before the Catastrophe would have shrieked and jumped at the sight of a giant cockroach, was now smiling as she admired the evolved cockroach, which was a stretch longer and two circles fatter than an ordinary one.

"Not bad, not bad—Lao Er actually found a cockroach this big. Our fish can eat half their fill."

Sick Wolf wagged its tail, skillfully picked up the basket in its mouth, ran to the fish tank, hung the basket on the tank, then used its paw to nudge a giant cockroach into the water.

The spring-water fish, long waiting, scrambled for it, and the water in the tank churned violently. Sick Wolf watched the scene with great interest, and only after they finished the first cockroach did it drop the second one in.

Raising fish was Sick Wolf's hobby.

Xia Qing didn't disturb it. After feeding the chickens and rabbits, she went to the planting greenhouse to check the temperature, humidity, and seed germination.

The planting greenhouse had a total of 25 vegetable beds. Xia Qing currently had six kinds of green-light vegetables planted—alfalfa, perilla, spinach, green onion, Chinese chives, and pumpkin—taking up 13 beds. Two kinds of yellow-light vegetables, 100 celery seeds and 100 oil-seed lettuce seeds she had recently traded for from the Lord Management Department, each took up one bed.

Another bed held 15 strawberry plants, two of which she had traded with Yang Jin for, and 13 were propagated from the runners of the two large strawberry plants. These strawberries were Xia Qing's treasures.

Besides the strawberries, there were also two green-light mint plants.

Although the strawberries and mint were kept in the greenhouse, they were still planted in pots and watered with pollution-free spring water.

The seeds and chive roots had only been planted yesterday, so no changes could be seen yet. But with the 63 green-light green onions, mint, and strawberry plants Xia Qing had transplanted from the terraced fields, the planting greenhouse was full of vibrant life, forming a sharp contrast with the bleakness outside.

Because the ground temperature inside the greenhouse was high, the pests that had been hibernating in the soil had woken up.

The soil insecticide traded from Territory Seven could kill most insect eggs, but it couldn't guarantee killing every pest. Territory Nine had a chemical insecticide that could quickly kill adult insects, but Xia Qing didn't dare use it.

She was afraid that using such an insecticide would have adverse effects on the plants in the ground.

Xia Qing squatted on a ridge and used her sharp hearing to search for pests in the soil that might gnaw the seeds.

"Gurgle, gurgle…"

Although she couldn't compare to the professional bug-digger Tang Huai, after a year of farming, Xia Qing could also judge the type of bug by the sound it made.

This gurgling sound came from the friction between a long earthworm's muscle contractions and its moist body wall as it moved.

The sound was extremely faint; Xia Qing, a level-seven hearing evolver, could only barely catch it. Earthworms were detritivores and wouldn't gnaw plant roots, so there was no need to catch them.

"Crunch—crunch—"

That was the sound of cutworms or grubs gnawing plant roots—they had to be removed.

After locking down the location, Xia Qing grabbed her small hoe, accurately dug out an evolved cutworm from under the chive roots, tossed it into the small basket beside her, and continued to listen carefully.

After digging for bugs for half an hour and confirming there were no mole crickets or other pests in the soil, Xia Qing clapped her hands, stood up, took the small basket to the neighboring greenhouse, and fed the few bugs she had dug up to the green-light chickens in the coop.

The chicken coop inside the greenhouse had mesh on all four sides and the top, which both kept the chickens from damaging the greenhouse plastic film and let them touch the ground to scratch up bugs and small grass seeds from the soil.

The fastest, the white-feather hen and the black-feather rooster, after snatching the treats, didn't swallow them right away. Instead, with great interest, they held the bugs in their beaks and ran quickly around the large coop, causing the other chickens to stop scratching for bugs and chase after them to steal the food. It was quite a lively scene.

"Lao Er, let's go find Big Sheep and head home for a meal together." Xia Qing called to Sick Wolf, who was still watching the fish, and left the greenhouse to find Big Sheep.

Big Sheep was easy to find—first, because its color was too conspicuous, and second, because there were only a few places with grass for it to graze that it liked to go.

Sure enough, Xia Qing found it under the big Chinese toon tree, enjoying a meal of fallen leaves.