Chapter 498: Settling In

The little fellow was truly thirsty; seeing the pollution-free spring water, it forgot even its fear of Xia Qing, this human, and rushed right over to drink.

Xia Qing looked carefully for a while and found that the red squirrel wasn't injured—the blood on its body all belonged to the evolved field mice. However, the little fellow had grown much thinner, and the luster had gone out of its fur. That group of evolved field mice had probably discovered through droppings or some other means that the red squirrel's combat strength in this territory had declined, which gave them the nerve to team up and raid its food.

Once the red squirrel had drunk its fill, Xia Qing put away the bowl and turned to gather the food in Shi Dong. The moment she moved, the red squirrel was startled and bolted more than ten meters away, hiding up a big pine tree.

Seeing that this human had actually taken out tools and was digging into its stored food, the red squirrel was so anxious it leaped about, cursing and grumbling.

Still, the red squirrel didn't attack Xia Qing. Xia Qing wasn't afraid of it attacking either, because the red squirrel's claws and teeth couldn't possibly pierce the Level-3 field protective suit she was wearing.

The food stored in Shi Dong had been ravaged quite a bit by the evolved field mice. Xia Qing picked out what was still usable and packed it into a bag, collecting the evolved field mice's corpses along the way, then hoisted everything and headed toward the next tree hollow.

The red squirrel, clutching two peanuts, ran into Shi Dong and circled around once, then came back out still clutching the peanuts, chasing after Xia Qing while leaping about, cursing and grumbling.

Xia Qing quipped, "Relax, my food supply is more abundant than yours. I wouldn't stoop to your scraps that the field mice have already rummaged through."

Hoisting the bag to the next tree hollow, Xia Qing discovered that the food in this hollow had also been ravaged by the evolved field mice, and the same was true of every hollow that followed—none had been spared.

In other words, of all the winter provisions the red squirrel had worked hard to store over an entire autumn, only the less than ten jin of pine nuts, chestnuts, and grass seeds in the bag Xia Qing was carrying remained.

No wonder the red squirrel had fought the evolved field mice so fiercely inside Shi Dong. If the food in Shi Dong was gnawed clean by the field mice too, the red squirrel would have no choice but to dig through the qi snow everywhere in the dead of winter looking for food. Even if it could dodge the snow-jumping insects and predators, it would still lose control from the excess qi elements in its body.

This little fellow can't stay in Area Three of Mountain Forty-Nine this winter.

Xia Qing hoisted the bag and led her cursing, grumbling, weak little neighbor back to her own territory. She had no idea how much food an evolved squirrel needed to eat during its three-month half-hibernation, but she could share some of the food from her own storage room with it.

Without this red squirrel, Xia Qing would never have discovered the hot spring valley behind Xiong Dong on Mountain Fifty. She might as well consider this food her finder's fee paid to the squirrel.

Xia Qing found a big tree with a hollow in the West Buffer Forest, put some dry grass inside, then poured some of the red squirrel's food in as well. Turning her head, she spoke softly to the red squirrel hiding in a nearby big tree: "This hollow was probably your home before, right? Stay here for the winter. My territory has wolves in it, so evolved field mice and forest martens don't dare come in."

The red squirrel puffed up its tail and stared at Xia Qing from behind the tree with its round little eyes. The moment she left, it darted into the hollow to guard its food.

Xia Qing returned home and took out the emergency hypothermia blanket she kept in the tool shed.

The emergency blanket Yang Jin had wrapped around her had already been torn up by tree branches, but there was still enough to cut a few pieces for the tiny red squirrel.

Xia Qing returned to the buffer forest and heard the red squirrel busily rustling about inside the hollow, tidying up its home. In this little fellow, Xia Qing seemed to catch a glimpse of her own shadow.

She climbed the tree, stuffed the cut pieces of emergency blanket and three walnuts into the hollow, and told the red squirrel, which was so scared it didn't dare move: "Use that cloth as a blanket—wrapping up in it to sleep is very warm. Those three walnuts are a free gift from me; they're green-light, and eating them will be good for your body. Don't think the amount is too little—the reward the handsomest human in our base got for personally wrapping an emergency blanket around me was exactly this much."

After saying that, Xia Qing folded the remaining emergency blanket to the size of a palm and nailed it over the red squirrel's new home as a wind-blocking door curtain.

After climbing down from the tree, Xia Qing looked up to admire her handiwork. "Boss, Wolf Lao Er, what do you think? Pretty, huh?"

Yang the Boss squinted and chewed her cud, as if she hadn't heard.

The sick wolf bared its teeth and laughed "hahaha" at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing brushed the bark debris stuck to her gloves. "Wolf Lao Er, you're right—very pretty. Let's go, we're off to work in the greenhouse."

The little family of three had only walked a few unhurried steps when Xia Qing heard rustling sounds coming from the hollow again. The red squirrel was rummaging through the emergency blanket she'd stuffed in. Xia Qing's lips curved up.

Although the qi snow had already passed two days ago, the qi element content in the atmosphere was still at a high level, so Xia Qing hadn't taken the yi stones out of the greenhouse or the green-light wheat field. Under the combined effect of the yi stones, the greenhouse, and the supplemental lighting, all the plants and animals inside the greenhouse were doing fine—looking around, everything was thriving. So it wasn't just Yang the Boss and the sick wolf who liked staying in the greenhouse; Xia Qing liked it too.

She took a small hoe, squatted on the ridge, and loosened the soil around the vegetable seedlings, weeding as she went.

The little weeds she hoed up, after shaking the dirt from their roots, were split into two portions. The ones Yang the Boss liked were tossed outside the thorn hedge for her to eat; the ones she didn't like were put in a small basket for the sick wolf to carry to the neighboring greenhouse to feed the fish, the chickens, and the rabbits.

This work was very therapeutic. Xia Qing relaxed body and mind, chatting with Yang the Boss and the sick wolf off and on about the red squirrel's ordeal.

After finishing the weeding, Xia Qing went to the aquaculture greenhouse to check the peanuts on the rainproof cloth. The peanuts hadn't fully dried yet, but the outer husks had dried considerably. She picked out a few yellow-light ones and tucked them into her pocket.

If the red squirrel came to her windowsill tomorrow looking for water, Xia Qing would reward it with a few peanuts.

After the human, the wolf, and the sheep stepped home in the sunset, Yang the Boss couldn't wait to climb onto her toy power-generating cart, and the sick wolf flopped down by the fireplace to rest.

After enthusiastically praising Yang the Boss, Xia Qing took off her protective suit, added a few logs to the fireplace, then started making dinner while listening to the radio broadcast.

The smoke from the chimney on the roof was blown about every which way by the wind, but inside the house it was stinky and warm.

Amid the howling cold wind, rustling sounds came from the warm hollow in the buffer forest. A tiny squirrel head poked out from behind the emergency blanket door curtain, glanced left and right a few times, then shrank back from the cold. Before long, cracking sounds came from inside the hollow—the red squirrel skillfully bit through the hard shell of a walnut and ate the kernel inside, leaving not a scrap.

After night had fully fallen, Xia Qing sat at the dining table, eating dinner while listening to the news broadcast. Her table was covered entirely in green-light food: green-light rice, green-light chili stir-fried with green-light eggs, and green-light snake meat ball soup sprinkled with green-light scallion leaves.

The qi snow had just passed, so besides touching stories from the qi snow, the broadcast was full of news about the military and civilians of Hui City's various bases working together with one heart to actively respond to the beast tide.

The man-made super-evolution pathogenic microorganism disaster on Mountain Fifty had already been going on for six days, and it still hadn't made it into the base news.