Chapter 521: Snowfall

After returning to her territory, Xia Qing pulled a live wild rabbit from her backpack — its hind leg was broken by her, and the skin on its neck had been bitten through by the Sick Wolf — her heart racing with excitement.

This was the first live rabbit she had ever caught. The Sick Wolf had helped her grab it and carried it back. Fearing the rabbit would bleed out, Xia Qing had already given it emergency treatment and wrapped it in a hypothermia emergency blanket before tucking it into her backpack.

Now came the moment to test her luck. Xia Qing took out the Harmful Element Detector, and when the red light on the device lit up, her excitement turned to disappointment.

This rabbit was red-light — inedible.

Over the past half year, thanks to the wolf pack, she had eaten more rabbits than in the previous ten years combined, but for her, catching a live, edible rabbit was genuinely difficult. First, because the evolved rabbits ran far too fast; second, because among the rabbits in the Evolution Forest, the proportion of edible ones was relatively low.

Now that she'd confirmed it was red-light, Xia Qing still didn't want to give up. She drew a few drops of the rabbit's blood and used the Nourishing Element Detector to check the specific levels of both Harmful and Nourishing Elements. If the Harmful Element wasn't too high, Xia Qing decided to feed it one or two drops of Harm-Reduction Drops to bring its internal Harmful Element level down.

This investment was well worth it, because this was a female rabbit — she could pair it perfectly with the male rabbit in the greenhouse. Rabbits bred quickly; if she could make a pair, she'd have an endless supply of rabbit meat.

While using the Nourishing Element Detector to test the blood, Xia Qing also checked the Harmful Element levels of the remaining six rabbits, two pheasants, one wild boar, and one deer.

Of the two rabbits she had hunted, one dead and one alive, both were red-light; of the deer, two rabbits, and one pheasant caught by the Broken-Leg Wolf, only one pheasant was yellow-light; of the one wild boar, one pheasant, and two rabbits caught by the Broken-Waist Wolf, they were either yellow-light or green-light.

What did this prove? It proved the Broken-Leg Wolf had brought back all of its kills, while the Broken-Waist Wolf had brought back only the edible ones from its catches.

The deer hide, pig hide, and rabbit hides were all skinned and processed, to be kept for future use. The inedible red-light meat was placed outside by Xia Qing to freeze into solid ice blocks, then stored in the rack-building storage room, to be traded away when Zhong Tao came by next time.

The edible ones were laid out in front of the Broken-Waist Wolf, and Xia Qing asked, "Broken-Waist, what would you like for dinner tonight? Pick for yourself."

The Broken-Waist Wolf walked over and pressed one yellow-light pheasant and one green-light pheasant down with its paw.

"Alright." The prey had been caught by the Broken-Waist Wolf, so Xia Qing had no objections and began processing it. The two chickens belonged to the Broken-Waist Wolf; she and the Sick Wolf would improve their own dinner tonight too — besides the snake-meat meatballs, they'd eat green-light pork!

After placing the pheasants in a basin and scalding them with hot water, Xia Qing rolled up her sleeves and started plucking.

The Sick Wolf, exhausted from its run to Mountain Sixty, lay down on the straw mat by the fireplace to sleep. Ram Boss was resting too, since it had chased Chen Zheng and Chen Cheng around for a long time that afternoon and was also tired. The Broken-Waist Wolf rested its two front paws on the kitchen windowsill, studying the frost patterns on the glass.

"Broken-Waist, shouldn't the plucking weasel also take some dewormer?" While plucking, Xia Qing suddenly thought of her colleague — the evolved wolves of Mountain Sixty had all taken medicine, but the plucking weasel hadn't yet.

The Broken-Waist Wolf, who had been curiously studying the frost patterns rapidly forming on the kitchen window, turned its head to look at Xia Qing.

Thinking it hadn't understood, Xia Qing repeated herself: "There are still some pills left. Don't we need to give medicine to our plucking-weasel companion? It might have parasites in its belly too, right?"

The Broken-Waist Wolf stopped looking at the frost patterns, ran upstairs to the cabinet that belonged exclusively to it, took its laptop in its mouth, and brought it to Xia Qing.

Xia Qing had no idea what it was thinking, but she still wiped her hands dry, opened the laptop for it, plugged in the power, and — at the Sick Wolf's request — continued playing the popular-science video on evolved microorganisms that it had already watched several times.

When Xia Qing finished making dinner, she called the Broken-Waist Wolf and Ram Boss — who had watched the video two more times — to eat.

The Sick Wolf? No need to call it. Once it had rested, it had been following Xia Qing around the whole time.

Xia Qing took out the roasted pheasants and was about to tear them apart and put them in the food basin when she saw the Broken-Waist Wolf carrying over a packaged bag and placing it in front of her.

Xia Qing's first reaction was: "Broken-Waist, you even found where the packaging bags are kept?"

Her second reaction was: "You want me to pack these two chickens up so you can take them back for the Queen to eat?"

The Broken-Waist Wolf tilted its head slightly, revealing two small white tips of its fangs, and smiled in a way that was both handsome and adorable.

Xia Qing……

……

……

"Fine, I'll pack them up for you. Want me to wrap them in insulated film? That way, after you bring them back, the Queen can still eat them warm."

While Xia Qing was packing the chickens, this clever brain-evolved wolf actually put its laptop away, stored it in the cabinet in the second-floor storage room that belonged solely to it, then, carrying the takeout for the pack leader, set off into the night.

Xia Qing watched it leave, thinking tonight's cold wind must be well below negative twenty-five degrees — damn, it was freezing. The longer you lived, the more bizarre things you'd encounter.

Today, damn it, she'd been force-fed a mouthful of wolf PDA by an actual wolf!

She closed the door to shut out the cold wind, carried the food to the fireplace, and ate a warm, hearty meal with her two companions. Green-light pork belly stewed with potatoes, green-light rice paired with green-light snake-meat and scallion soup, and green-light wild walnuts for dessert — Xia Qing ate with complete satisfaction.

But the weather forecast after the news broadcast pulled her back to reality: "From tonight until the day after tomorrow, Hui Three Base will see a snowfall, with normal Harmful Element content. Some areas will experience heavy snow…"

After hearing the forecast, Territory Six Lord Kuang Qingwei asked on the lord channel: "At a time like this, is a normal snowfall a good thing or a bad thing?"

After a few seconds of silence, no one spoke, and everyone simultaneously thought of Li Si. If she were here, she'd definitely give a very professional answer, covering both the good and the bad aspects.

Although after she answered, everyone would still be unclear whether a normal snowfall at this time was good or bad, they would at least get a lot of professional information.

Zhang San?

He certainly knew too, but he might be in a bad mood right now — something to do with his mood.

His silence now meant he was in a bad mood, and being in a bad mood was definitely related to not having eaten well. Xia Qing sent her idol a message, asking if he wanted some green-light wild boar meat, then pressed the walkie-talkie and asked: "Brother Zhao, will the snow affect construction on the Mountain Fifty quarantine belt much?"

Zhao Ze replied: "It depends on how thick the snow is. If it exceeds fifteen centimeters, we'd better add two more people to clear the snow, otherwise it'll delay the project and we won't finish on time."

Xia Qing, who had just taken a sip of snake-meatball soup, pressed the walkie-talkie: "If the snow exceeds fifteen centimeters, I'll join the snow-clearing team tomorrow. My combat ability has recovered seventy percent — clearing snow won't be a problem."

Hearing that Xia Qing was going too, her allies were all thrilled. Although working with the Inspection Team and the Azure Dragon Squad on missions meant they wouldn't run into danger either, following Xia Qing made them feel more at ease.

This wasn't only about Xia Qing's combat ability — the main reason was that Xia Qing belonged to the same alliance as them. She was "one of us."