Chapter 561: Sacrifice

After receiving Xia Qing's notification, the three people at the foot of the Third Peak quickly went up the mountain, tiptoed over to the iron-gated Xiong Dong, lifted the three corpses at the cave entrance, tiptoed back some distance, then sprinted down the mountain at full speed.

Watching the speed at which these three carried the corpses while running, Xia Qing knew they were all Evolvers.

Hui-3 Base had a total population of nearly two million, with only three thousand registered Evolvers. While in the Safe Zone, the people Xia Qing saw most were ordinary folk. But in the year since coming out to farm, she had discovered that aside from her own alliance members, most of the people she encountered here were Evolvers.

But this was only natural: ordinary folk didn't dare leave the territory; those who could operate out here were basically all Evolvers.

After thanking the plucked-fur weasel—who was hiding goodness knows where—Xia Qing patrolled the territory with the sick wolf and returned home. The sick wolf refused to go inside, leaped up in a single bound to the roof of the two-story rack building, and looked down with its head lowered.

Xia Qing looked up and asked, "Lao Er, are you on night watch outside tonight?"

The sick wolf on the roof grinned, the white fog of its breath covering its smiling face.

"Lao Er, having a companion like you makes me feel so safe! Hold on, I'll get you a straw mat." Although the sick wolf's fur had grown thick and it wouldn't freeze staying outdoors, Xia Qing had dried a lot of hay and woven many straw mats precisely so her two animal companions could live more comfortably.

After going upstairs to lay out the straw mat and giving Lao Er today's internal-organ damage repair potion, Xia Qing returned to her room and immediately received a message from Xin Yu:

I know all three of them. Please don't tell Captain Tan. I'll settle it with them privately. I'll explain the specific reasons to you in a couple of days.

Sometimes, settling things privately yields more benefits than going public. Xin Yu, as a major shareholder of the powerful Zhonglian Group at Hui-2 Base, didn't live inside the Hui-2 Safe Zone but had come hundreds of kilometers away to Hui-3 Base—whose overall strength was far inferior to Hui-2's—to farm. This made no sense at all.

Xin Yu must have her difficulties. Now she'd even used the word "please," which showed just how important those three corpses were to her.

Xia Qing simply replied with the two words "Okay," put down her phone, and massaged the acupoints by her ear to relieve the ringing in her ears.

At this moment, Xia Qing missed the Gao Yi elemental spinach terribly. If she had Gao Yi elemental spinach growing in her fields, she could pinch off a few leaves, juice them, drink the juice, and sleep—tomorrow she'd definitely come back at full strength.

Calculating by time, if the base leader had enough executive ability and planted the Gao Yi elemental spinach seeds in time, these few days should be the critical period when the new batch of spinach seeds was about to mature.

At this very moment, someone provoked the fierce beasts in the Evolution Forest and triggered a beast tide—the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

She yawned, drank the internal-organ damage recovery potion her idol had prepared for her, and prepared to rest. Guarding the spinach was the base leader's job; her mission was to recover her peak combat strength as quickly as possible and guard her own territory.

When Xia Qing closed her eyes and went to sleep, the sheep leader downstairs seemed to be having a nightmare, kicking its legs and humming twice; on the straw mat atop the rack building, the sick wolf, eyes closed, had its two tall furry ears turning from time to time; on the Gao Po of Territory Three, the rainproof cloth of the blown-up greenhouse flapped noisily in the wind.

In the neighboring Territory Four's greenhouse, Zhao's mother, carrying a machete, was checking the thermometer with a flashlight; in Territory Six, Zhao Ze, Qi Fu, Shi Du, and Yu Shou were clearing the burned warehouse together with Zhu Li, who had one arm in a sling; in Territory Seven's operating room, Zhang San was stitching up, bit by bit, the knife wounds on Li Kai's internal organs; in Territory Fifteen, Yue Haiying, Tan Junjie, and Luo Pei sat under a lamp, their expressions grave, all staring at the surveillance footage on the laptop.

On the screen, humans were locked in fierce battle with wolf packs and leopard packs in the eastern territory of the Safe Zone, with casualties on both sides.

"Tap, tap, tap—"

Lying in her warm bed, Xia Qing heard this familiar sound, immediately opened her eyes, scrambled up, turned on the light, and opened the bedroom door just before the sheep leader could kick it down.

The sheep leader, one hoof raised, slowly lifted its big head with the spiral horn, squinted its eyes, and stared at Xia Qing with a thoroughly displeased look—its expression made it clear it wanted a fight.

Xia Qing immediately squatted down, took hold of the sheep leader's raised hoof, and launched an impassioned accusation: "Leader! Last night humans invaded our territory. The Gao Po greenhouse and the cameras were blown up, and your big Chinese toon tree lost a lot of branches too. Go take a look, quick!"

The sheep leader might not understand anything else, but it understood "big Chinese toon tree," and it understood Xia Qing's tone. So the sheep leader, which had been spoiling for a fight, immediately turned around, clip-clopped down the stairs, pried open the security door with its hooves, and ran out.

Whoo—

Having averted a nasty fight, Xia Qing breathed a sigh of relief, rushed back inside to get dressed, and was about to begin another busy day—when she heard movement outside the window. The red squirrel, her good neighbor recuperating in her territory, had arrived right on time to drink water and beg for food.

"Freeloader, you got a scare last night too, didn't you?" Xia Qing stood by the window, chatting casually with the red squirrel as it drank warm water.

The red squirrel had been recuperating in Xia Qing's territory—plenty of food, quality drinking water, no safety worries—and was visibly plumping up.

After drinking its fill, the little fellow squatted eagerly in front of Xia Qing, rubbing its little paws and waving its big furry tail.

"Hold on."

Xia Qing took a few kernels of corn from the fridge, set them on the windowsill, and said, "Eat up—let's call it a celebration of our victory last night."

"Bang!"

Before the red squirrel could come over to pick up the corn, it was scared off by a tremendous crash.

Xia Qing looked up and saw the sheep leader on the Gao Po, fighting with Guan Tong, who was patrolling the territory.

Xia Qing immediately shut the window, plucked a small handful of Chinese toon sprouts from the seedling tray by the fireplace, mixed them with dried hay, added a small piece of crumbled ration and stirred it all together, then pushed open the window and shouted, "Leader, come home and eat—"

The sheep leader, which had been chasing Guan Tong all over the place, immediately stopped and turned to run home.

The red squirrel, which had been hiding on the roof, jumped back onto the windowsill, grabbed a corn kernel and stuffed it in its mouth, then went sprinting north.

While the sheep leader ate at home, Xia Qing carried the animals out of the underground storage room and brought them back to the breeding greenhouse. On the way, she greeted the sick wolf, which was carrying a basket and looking for bugs, and took it along to the breeding greenhouse to settle the spring-water fish and yellow mealworms.

The sick wolf stayed in the greenhouse to feed the fish. Xia Qing was about to go home and move the chickens and rabbits back to the greenhouse as well when she saw Guan Tong rubbing his belly, so she stopped and asked, "Got kicked in the stomach by the sheep leader?"

In a straight contest of strength, Guan Tong couldn't match the sheep leader, but in a real fight the sheep leader was no match for Guan Tong. Yet Guan Tong's gesture suggested he was actually hurt.

Guan Tong grimaced and said, "The sheep leader's gotten capable. When I was wrestling it for strength, it actually leaped up and kicked me hard in the belly twice with its hind legs."

Xia Qing……

……

……

The sheep leader, which pedaled its bicycle furiously every day, had extraordinary agility and power in its hind legs. Next time she fought it, she'd have to watch out for that sneaky move too.

When Xia Qing went home to fetch the rabbits and chickens, she also took a small bottle of topical medicine from the medicine box and gave it to Guan Tong, whom the sheep leader had kicked. The sheep leader was her companion; the mess the sheep leader made, Xia Qing had to clean up.

After settling the animals in the breeding greenhouse and checking on the strawberries' growth in the planting greenhouse, Xia Qing went home, had a hearty breakfast with the sick wolf, then timed it perfectly to arrive at the south gate of the territory, waiting for the inspection team to come and verify Territory Three's losses from the night before.

When she saw Su Ming and Cao Xianyun step out of the patrol vehicle, Xia Qing's heart gave a sudden lurch.

Su Ming, his eyes bloodshot, said in a hoarse voice, "Qing-jie, Hu Zi-ge made the ultimate sacrifice."