Chapter 458: Discovering the Hidden Valley

Xia Qing tested and found the rabbit caught by Broken-Waist Wolf was a red-light one, but she still swiftly put it into a sealed packaging bag and stuffed it into her backpack to carry along.

A green-light rabbit can be used to trade supplies with Zhong Tao.

Half an hour later, the team smoothly arrived outside the rock crevice where the red squirrel had been injured. Xia Qing asked, "Queen, Broken-Waist, Wolf Lao Er, can you smell any traces of bears, wolves, or other large beasts or birds of prey in here?"

The head wolf didn't step forward; Broken-Waist Wolf sniffed, looking thoughtful. The sick wolf also sniffed, showing no particular reaction.

It seemed there was nothing inside dangerous enough to put the wolf pack on alert, but something had piqued Broken-Waist Wolf's interest.

Xia Qing looked up at this nearly vertical giant boulder, over thirty meters tall, split open. "Let's climb up and see where we can enter the place where the peanuts grow."

When it came to climbing, the evolved wolves with their sharp claws were far more capable than humans without sharp claws.

After Xia Qing climbed over thirty meters up with her climbing rope, she realized this boulder was more than thirty meters tall—the upper portion was slanted, and the crack width was about the same as below, so she could only keep climbing.

After another hundred-plus meters upward, Xia Qing finally reached the top of the crevice. This was already the slope of the Third Peak. The crevice ran east-west, at least four or five hundred meters long. In wide places it was over a meter across; in narrow places it wasn't even ten centimeters. The varying width was because some sections of the mountain rock had cracked and fallen into the bottomless fissure.

Such fissures in mountain rock had appeared in considerable numbers after the great crustal movements of the early years of the Catastrophe, and some mountain fissures were still slowly shifting to this day.

Most of the crevice walls were covered in moss-like plants. Looking down, there was no visible bottom.

In Xia Qing's view, this was a completely unremarkable crevice that wouldn't spark any desire to explore in a squad tasked with gathering edible plants.

Using the sunlight to peer down, Xia Qing noticed some tenacious weeds growing at the bottom of the crevice, and her heart began to sink.

Peanuts are sun-loving plants. Although their light requirements aren't particularly strict, insufficient sunlight affects their growth and development. By rights, green-light peanuts shouldn't grow in a place like this—unless this was an evolved variety with lower light requirements.

Could it be that the green-light peanuts don't grow here, and the red squirrel was just using this mountain crevice as a shortcut when gathering peanuts?

Xia Qing shook her head. No.

This kind of rock crevice was the kind of habitat favored by shade- and cool-loving animals like snakes and bats. Red squirrels were very timid; if the peanuts didn't grow inside the crevice, it definitely wouldn't have gone in. Xia Qing picked up a fist-sized rock and tossed it down. In just over four seconds but less than five, she heard the echo of the stone landing, indicating the crevice was actually a hundred meters deep.

And...

Xia Qing changed positions and tossed a few more stones, listening carefully before reaching a conclusion: "The bottom isn't a crevice—it's a very spacious space, otherwise it wouldn't produce this kind of echo. Let's go, we'll keep following the crevice to find an entry point. Going down from here is too dangerous."

Seeing that Xia Qing wanted to enter the crevice but didn't dare, the head wolf stretched lazily and sped off ahead. Broken-Waist Wolf chose a different direction from the head wolf and went to scout as well. The sick wolf nuzzled Xia Qing's leg with its protective-suit-clad body, then lay down on the rock to sun itself.

While the two brain-evolved wolves went scouting, Xia Qing didn't stay idle either. She kept walking along the crevice, tossing stones every few steps to gauge the depth, and listening carefully for any movement inside.

It seemed there were no sounds of large animals flying or moving around inside the cave.

The head wolf quickly returned and signaled for Xia Qing to follow it.

Xia Qing wanted to ask, "Shouldn't we wait for Broken-Waist Wolf, who went scouting the other way?" but decided it was unnecessary. Obediently, she and the sick wolf followed behind the head wolf, winding and twisting, up and down, for a full twenty minutes, until they arrived at the remarkably well-hidden bear cave entrance halfway up the mountain.

Xia Qing fell silent. "Queen, Broken-Waist, you mean... that crevice connects to the bear cave?"

Broken-Waist Wolf grinned, revealing its cute little fang tips.

The head wolf took the lead and went inside. Xia Qing took out her headlamp, strapped it on, and illuminated the interior of the bear cave.

This bear cave slanted downward and looked only about a dozen meters deep. The interior was fully visible at a glance—there were no other openings or passages whatsoever.

Broken-Waist Wolf and the head wolf both stopped in front of a person-high rock on the inner side of the cave. Broken-Waist Wolf went over and sniffed it, then turned to look back at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing stepped forward and examined it carefully for a moment, then her eyes lit up. After clearing the loose stones from the ground, she rolled up her sleeves and struck a pose, brimming with confidence: "This kind of heavy labor, leave it to me!"

This rock weighed at least three tons—she couldn't hug it up, but pushing it, Xia Qing, a Level-6 strength evolver, could still manage.

Moving the stone and seeing the half-person-high opening behind it, Xia Qing couldn't help exclaiming, "Was this stone placed here by an evolved bear? Clever!"

The head wolf swept its tawny-gold eyes over Xia Qing.

Almost instinctively—her mouth faster than her brain—Xia Qing immediately began praising: "Queen, it's amazing you could find your way here from the crevice on the mountaintop. The Queen is the king of wolves, countless times smarter than any evolved bear!"

The head wolf entered the mountain cave first. Broken-Waist Wolf glanced at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing understood, and followed the head wolf inside, then the sick wolf, and finally Broken-Waist Wolf. At first, Xia Qing still had to duck her head, but after walking a dozen meters in, she couldn't reach the ceiling even with her hand raised.

After walking another twenty-plus meters out of the cave and seeing the scene before her, Xia Qing was stunned. She suspected she had just passed through a time tunnel—a few steps had taken her from Blue Star's Evolution Forest into a dream planet.

This was a valley over twenty meters wide, stretching out of sight, running east-west. A beam of light fell from a slit in the sky at the top of the valley, illuminating the lush vegetation within.

That's right.

Unlike the Evolution Forest outside, which had been ravaged by the cold wind, this place remained lush and green. Xia Qing glanced at the equally shocked wolf pack, then checked the air toxin detector on her arm. Confirming the air was non-toxic, she removed her protective mask.

Moist, warm air rushed in. Outside it was already harsh winter; here it was warm as spring.

This... normal?

Ten years into the Catastrophe, this was the first time Xia Qing had discovered such a dreamlike scene. She fell in love with it at first sight.

"Handsome Wolf Bro."

Broken-Waist Wolf, who had been looking around, turned its head to look at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing's eyes sparkled. "Handsome Wolf Bro, you're so clever—you definitely have a way to make sure the two bears living here never come back, right? This place is already ours, right?"

Wrong!

"You guys rest here first. I'll go spray odor neutralizer and block the cave entrance—we can't let people from Territory Nine discover this place." Xia Qing turned and went back to the bear cave, sprayed odor neutralizer both inside and outside the cave entrance, then crawled back in and pushed the giant rock that led to the secret valley back into place. Only after returning to the valley did she see the sick wolf running toward her, tail wagging, with a big rabbit in its mouth.

A rabbit! Alive!

Xia Qing was overjoyed. "Wolf Lao Er, you're amazing!"

Xia Qing immediately took the rabbit, which was kicking its legs vigorously, and examined the bite wound the sick wolf had left on its neck.

Yellow-light! Female! Perfect to pair with the rabbit back home! Xia Qing cheered, immediately took out anesthetic and special hemostatic medicine, stopped the bleeding and anesthetized the rabbit, then stuffed it into a bag.

Next came today's main objective: finding the green-light peanuts growing here.