Chapter 517: Xia Qing the Middleman

Broken-Waist Wolf understood Xia Qing's words, tilted its head slightly to the left, bared its cute little fang tips in a grin, and smiled.

Damn it all...

This wolf seemed to look even better when it smiled — what was going on?

"Understood." Xia Qing didn't agree right away; she stepped forward and opened the bag to inspect the goods.

The bag was a jumble, filled with hickory nuts and some plant roots and rhizomes.

The shape of this rhizome...

Xia Qing pulled out the picture Zhang San had given her and compared it carefully — well, look at that! The wolf pack had dug up one of the rhizome-type herbs the idol wanted!

After separating the hickory nuts from the herbs, Xia Qing didn't find a single Yi stone. Her gaze turned to the bulging side pocket on Broken-Waist Wolf's protective suit. "Handsome Wolf Bro, what I told you yesterday was this big mirror — to be exchanged with Yi stones."

Broken-Waist Wolf looked at Xia Qing thoughtfully for a few seconds, then walked over and stood sideways in front of her.

Xia Qing pulled out a pigeon-egg-sized, unbroken Yi stone from Broken-Waist Wolf's pocket, and immediately beamed. "Handsome Wolf Bro is too thoughtful — this one Yi stone is already enough to trade for the big mirror, and you even brought over so many supplies, how could I possibly accept this? Won't Handsome Wolf Bro stay and have breakfast before heading off?"

Broken-Waist Wolf moved over to the low table, placed its paw on it, and stared at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing...

Although she really didn't want to understand, Broken-Waist Wolf had made itself so clear that pretending not to understand any longer would be a bit inexcusable. Xia Qing took a deep breath. "Broken-Waist, you want to trade for the laptop you left here last night?"

Broken-Waist Wolf showed its signature snow-white, cute little fang tips and smiled at Xia Qing.

What do they mean by "plant flowers with care and they won't bloom, stick willows in by chance and they thrive"?

This is exactly it!

One had to admit, Broken-Waist Wolf was really too sharp-eyed and shrewd. Although it liked mirrors, in its eyes a mirror was only worth a few walnuts and a few roots, but the data in the laptop, in its view, was worth a Yi stone.

It was shrewd, and Xia Qing was no fool either — she quickly came up with an exchange plan that could satisfy both sides.

Taking the laptop from the bedroom cabinet, Xia Qing patiently demonstrated to Broken-Waist Wolf, letting it understand that this laptop thing — a single wolf simply couldn't operate it, no matter how much its brain domain had evolved.

"Handsome Wolf Bro, this thing is called a laptop, look. If you want to use the laptop to play videos, you first have to recognize human writing and pinyin, then you can use this — the keyboard, and this — the mouse..."

Xia Qing demonstrated over and over how to find yesterday's science video from among hard drives and folders, and click to play it.

Operating a laptop was already beyond the cognitive scope of a brain-domain-evolved wolf. Its amber eyes moved back and forth between the keyboard, the mouse, and the screen, its expression deadly serious.

Now, they could talk business.

"This laptop needs electricity, and it's very fragile — impacts, scratches, humidity, water, any of those will break it. Handsome Wolf Bro, how about this? From now on this laptop belongs to you, but you leave it here with me. When you want to watch videos, just come over and watch, and whatever you want to see, I'll play it for you. How does that sound?"

Xia Qing earnestly expressed herself three times with gestures and words, then, holding the Yi stone, patiently waited for this clever wolf to make its decision.

In fact, the price Xia Qing had traded this laptop and its data with Yang Jin for was lower than one Yi stone. But Xia Qing couldn't, just to get a Yi stone, let Broken-Waist Wolf take away supplies it had no way to use.

Doing that would be smashing her own reputation.

Besides, all her trades with the wolf pack came with after-sales service. If Broken-Waist Wolf took the laptop back and messed it up, it would definitely bring it back to her for repairs — Xia Qing didn't have that ability, and she couldn't bear to waste resources like that.

"Handsome Wolf Bro, you think about it for a while, I'll go make breakfast." Xia Qing left the laptop on the table, took more food out of the fridge, and started preparing breakfast.

Sick Wolf squatted at the kitchen door, watching Xia Qing cook; Sheep Boss lay by the fireplace, chewing its cud. Broken-Waist Wolf squatted by the low table, stared at the laptop for over ten minutes, and finally raised its paw and carefully nudged the mouse on the table. After one nudge, it looked up at the screen, pondering the relationship between the screen and the mouse.

Seeing this scene, Xia Qing suddenly felt that if she were willing to teach seriously, this wolf might really be able to learn to use a laptop.

After breakfast, Xia Qing contacted Ji Li, gave him the herbs the wolf pack had gathered, and shouldered her hoe to go weed the harmful grass in the greenhouse.

The influence of the Harmful Snow was gradually weakening, so Xia Qing had collected all the Yi stones from the green-light wheat field and the planting and breeding greenhouses, leaving only the White Feather hen and Black Feather rooster still wearing a small Yi stone each.

After the Yi stones were collected, the harmful grass and weeds sprouting in these areas needed to be cleared regularly.

Xia Qing hadn't even finished clearing one vegetable bed when she heard the greenhouse door open. Broken-Waist Wolf walked in carrying a basket in its mouth, and inside the basket was its laptop.

This basket was one Xia Qing had made for Broken-Waist Wolf after breakfast, specially for carrying the laptop. The edges and interior of the basket were lined with EPS foam, so the laptop wouldn't be damaged by impact inside.

"Handsome Wolf Bro finished another episode?" Xia Qing took off her protective gloves, walked over, took the basket, pulled out the laptop, set it on the wooden stump, opened it, and queued up the next episode for Broken-Waist Wolf.

This episode introduced super-evolution bacteria. After the opening, the video image zoomed in, and in, and in again, presenting the microscopic world before this brain-domain-evolved wolf's eyes.

"The most dangerous things in the Evolution Forest aren't the large beasts, but the hundreds of thousands of species of evolving microorganisms — among them, the super-evolution pathogenic microorganism groups..."

Broken-Waist Wolf squatted in front of the computer, watching with great seriousness the video it had already seen the night before.

Xia Qing didn't disturb it either, and went back to weeding.

Half an hour later, playback stopped again. Without waiting for Broken-Waist Wolf to call, Xia Qing went over to open the next episode for it. But when Xia Qing opened the folder, Broken-Waist Wolf raised its paw and accurately pointed at the frame on the screen it had just watched — the one introducing super-evolution bacteria.

Although the laptop folder's view was set to extra-large icons, the fact that Broken-Waist Wolf could grasp the connection between videos and files so quickly still surprised Xia Qing.

"Still watching this episode?"

Broken-Waist Wolf bared its lips, showing its little fang tips, but it didn't smile all that happily — clearly its attention was entirely on the video.

Xia Qing didn't disturb it further either, clicked the video to play again for it, and went back to weeding.

By the time Broken-Waist Wolf had Xia Qing play it a third time, Xia Qing already understood why Broken-Waist Wolf was taking this video so seriously.

Because it showed the miserable state of humans and animals in the Evolution Forest after being infected with several common super-evolution bacteria. Broken-Waist Wolf had realized this information was extremely important for the wolf pack's survival — it was studying hard.

Xia Qing stopped weeding, sat down beside Broken-Waist Wolf, and watched with it.

"... This is a common variant of the evolution blood fluke. It parasitizes the portal vein system of humans or other mammals; the adults mate and lay eggs inside the blood vessels. A single female can lay around 1,000 eggs per day, most of which lodge in the host's liver and intestinal walls... causing the host to develop fatigue, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and other symptoms."

Xia Qing pressed pause, and only when Broken-Waist Wolf's gaze turned to her did she point at the wild boar on the screen that had died from the parasite and explain, "Lao Er got infected with this kind of parasite — that's why he had diarrhea, got sick, and almost died."

Pathogenic evolving microorganisms were one of the main reasons the average lifespan of animals living in the Evolution Forest was shortened.