Chapter 571: Red One Investigation Team

Hearing she didn't have to attend the meeting herself, Xin Yu visibly breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, I'll apply to join. If there's a meeting that requires Number Eight Territory's attendance, I'll have Uncle Ping go over."

Xin Yu trusted Xia Qing, had allied with her, and had joined the territory alliance that included her and Zhang San—but that didn't mean she trusted the other lords within the alliance. Unless necessary, she didn't want to interact with more people.

"Welcome." Xia Qing high-fived Xin Yu again. "To celebrate the two of us forming an alliance, and to celebrate the territory alliance gaining another new member, tonight we're eating toon sprouts scrambled with eggs, garlic butter prawns, roast rabbit, cold alfalfa salad, and snake meat ball soup!"

After forming the alliance, the two of them grew much closer. Xin Yu made the human food together with Xia Qing, then watched Xia Qing cook porridge for the sick wolf and mix feed for the evolved sheep. She didn't participate in those two tasks, because evolved animals had sensitive noses—if they caught an unfamiliar scent from the food, they might refuse to eat it.

After Xia Qing delivered the two animals' dinners to the greenhouse, she returned home and ate a lavish dinner with Xin Yu, then sat by the fireplace drinking tea and chatting.

This feeling of comfortable, relaxed companionship with someone her own age was something Xin Yu had never experienced in her eleven years. She hoped that over the next hundred years, she could feel this kind of comfort a few times each year.

Therefore, her alliance with Xia Qing had to be stable, and the territory alliance had to be strong.

Xin Yu held her teacup and asked her ally what she needed. "What kind of appliances or hardware do you want? I'll have the plane bring them along."

Xia Qing asked in return, "Are you sure that when the investigation team traces things back to Liehuo, Liehuo's people won't give up Yu Wenchuang to reduce their own punishment?"

Xin Yu was very certain. "They won't. Deng Yufeng is a very shrewd businessperson. Putting aside whether this incident can pin anything on Liehuo, even if it does lead back to Liehuo, Deng Yufeng can calculate clearly whether the punishment reduction from dragging Zhonglian down with them is greater than the losses from losing access to Zhonglian's machinery and equipment."

Xia Qing understood, and continued asking, "Yu Wenchuang has to compensate you with a lot of things, right?"

Xin Yu laughed coldly. "Of course. In everyone's eyes, he's the good cousin who dotes on me more than his own sister. My territory was bombed and suffered heavy losses—of course he has to send me a lot of things to calm my nerves."

Xin Yu said "everyone"—so her grandfather also thought Yu Wenchuang doted on his little cousin dearly? Fortunately, Xin Yu's evolution ability was very useful; otherwise she would have been in trouble long ago.

Xia Qing opened her mouth wide. "I want a double-door big refrigerator."

"Nothing else?" Xin Yu's expression and tone clearly suggested she thought Xia Qing was asking for too little.

Of course it wasn't just one refrigerator. Xia Qing grinned wickedly. "The refrigerator is for me. The rest is for our territory alliance. Can you get your 'good' cousin to build a sturdy wire-mesh fence around our territory, and install surveillance?"

Between Northern Sector One and the Evolution Forest, there were only various paths—no fence separating them, and there were many hidden dangers. On the night of the beast tide, the external invaders had breached multiple points, making it impossible for the inspection team with limited manpower to defend everywhere.

Getting Zhonglian to provide materials, equipment, and personnel to build a reinforced concrete and steel-plate wall like the Safe Zone's around the territory was obviously impossible. But getting them to build a wire-mesh fence like the ones around Territories Three and Eight to enclose the territory first was entirely feasible.

This fence would both let "good cousin" Yu Wenchuang show off how much he cared for and protected his little cousin, and block any people he sent in the future to harm Xin Yu—it would absolutely make Yu Wenchuang grit his teeth in hatred.

Xia Qing, who had proposed this idea, felt that her shrewdness was now on par with Yang Jin and the Waist-Broken Wolf.

Xin Yu's eyes lit up. "Great idea, let's do it that way."

After finishing the serious talk, Xia Qing asked, "What was the cause of death of those three people you took away?"

Speaking of this, Xin Yu's expression was like someone suffering from constipation. "They inhaled a large amount of ethanethiol poison gas and passed out, then froze to death. That poison is nasty—Uncle Ping and the others are still dizzy, nauseous, and can't eat. They can only get by on nutrient solution. How many days until their poisoning eases?"

Xia Qing……

"If they didn't come into direct contact with high concentrations of the poison gas, they should be able to eat again in less than a week."

Yang Jin had said that after close contact with a weasel's sprayed venom, he couldn't eat for a week. Zhou Zhaoping and the others only had indirect contact, so their condition should be a bit better than Yang Jin's.

Hearing that it would ease in a few days, Xin Yu breathed a sigh of relief and seriously asked Xia Qing about deodorizing methods. The protective suit she often wore had also been contaminated with ethanethiol and couldn't be worn anymore.

Xia Qing gave her ally a pack of deodorizing agent and incense, specialties of Territory Seven. "Take these and use them. I've tested them myself—they're guaranteed to work. Those three were all wearing protective masks—how did they get gassed? Were their masks damaged?"

A good-quality protective mask can filter out most toxic gases. If their masks weren't broken, even facing a direct weasel poison gas attack, they shouldn't have passed out.

"Their protective masks and suits were hit by debris from the explosion and were damaged." After Xin Yu explained, she asked curiously, "That weasel that released the poison gas—is it also a member of the evolved wolf pack?"

"Yes, it's an important member of the pack." However, it seemed that after the Waist-Broken Wolf discovered its own plucking technique was superior to the weasel's, the plucking weasel's importance had declined.

Xin Yu nodded and praised, "This kind of evolution ability can change the course of battle at a critical moment. The members of this evolved wolf pack actually cross species boundaries—they're even more impressive than I expected."

Xia Qing didn't mention that she was also considered a member of the wolf pack. After telling Xin Yu that the Red One investigation team would arrive soon, she saw her out of the territory.

What Xia Qing thought was "soon" was two or three days later, but unexpectedly, the next day when she took alliance members to Mount Fifty to install surveillance and prepare seedling beds, a large helicopter roared overhead and landed steadily inside Northern Sector One's territory.

"Wow! Such a big helicopter—I barely saw a few of them even when I was in the Safe Zone." Shi Du, carrying surveillance equipment, asked Yue Haiying for guidance. "Brother Yue, how many people can this kind of helicopter carry?"

Yue Haiying was also excited. "This is a special military transport helicopter—it can carry over a hundred soldiers."

"Over a hundred people?!" Qi Fu was also thrilled. "With this many people coming, they're really planning to seriously investigate the intrusion incident. Neither Sufeng nor Liehuo is getting away."

While everyone was enthusiastically discussing and installing cameras, Xia Qing received a call from Tan Junjie, informing her that a six-person investigation team had applied to conduct an on-site survey at the blast site below the second peak of Mount Fifty.

The danger inspection team stationed at the territory had already surveyed the site and taken away two bags of remains and debris. But now that Red One's investigation team had arrived and requested to survey the scene, it was a very proper and reasonable request.

"I'm at the foot of the second peak right now, let them come over." After hanging up, Xia Qing notified the alliance members: "Red One's investigation team will be here in a bit. Until they've finished their survey and left, we'll all stay here installing cameras and won't go into the valley."