Chapter 62: The Boss Sheep Who Wants to Take on Wolves

She absolutely could not let Boss Sheep make any noise that would alert them. Xia Qing slipped through the fine-mesh protective net covering the vegetable garden, picked a yellow lantern cucumber, washed it with spring water, and gave it to Boss Sheep to gnaw on the hillside and calm its nerves. Xia Qing, meanwhile, pushed her abilities to full and gripped her gun to guard the territory.

Soon, Xia Qing received a call from Hu Zifeng.

"Miss Xia, you heard the wild boar cries, didn't you? Has any evolved animal broken into your territory?"

Xia Qing replied, "I heard the bloodcurdling cries from the Wild Boar Breeding Center. No intruders have been spotted in Territory Three so far. Does Captain Hu know what's going on?"

On the surface, Xia Qing was only a Strength Evolver, so of course she couldn't tell Hu Zifeng that she had climbed a tree and both heard and seen what was happening inside the Wild Boar Breeding Center.

Hu Zifeng answered, "It's still unclear. Miss Xia should try not to leave her territory. Six of us have already reached the northern sector of Territory One. If any wild boars run into Territory Three or any other dangerous situation arises, contact us immediately and we can be there within two minutes."

Xia Qing thanked him and hung up. Seeing Boss Sheep had finished gnawing its cucumber and was nudging its head against her, she picked another cucumber, broke it in half—half for herself to eat, half to lure Boss Sheep down the slope.

Wolves had appeared at the neighboring breeding center, so Boss Sheep was better off staying out of the buffer forest. Xia Qing used the cucumber to keep Boss Sheep settled, hauled out the water bicycle and sent it to add water to the fish pond, while she herself grabbed a submachine gun, slingshot, and machete and went on patrol with killing intent. Though she was armed, Xia Qing did not dare underestimate the wolves attacking the Wild Boar Breeding Center in the slightest.

After the Great Biological Evolution of Blue Star, not only did Brain Domain Evolvers with higher intelligence appear among humans, but Brain Domain Evolvers also appeared among animals. This was one of the main reasons why, in nearly ten years of humans fighting evolved creatures, the vast majority of people could still only huddle inside the safe zones.

In those ten years, the strongest-attack Brain Domain Evolved animal Xia Qing had ever seen was the wolf.

The process of Hui-Three Base clearing the evolved forests around the safe zone and expanding human activity range was a process of contesting territory with evolved creatures. In this process, humans encountered dangers from evolved fungi, highly toxic evolved insects, and corrupted aggressive flora, but the fiercest opposition came from evolved wolf packs.

In the ninth year of the Catastrophe, during a mission to clear an evolved forest fifty kilometers north of the safe zone, Xia Qing's squad ran head-on into more than twenty wolves. The squad leader mistook the wolf pack's withdrawal for fear of humans, and—ignoring Xia Qing's desperate objections—treated the evolved wolves as hunting targets, enraging the pack.

Over the next six hours, Xia Qing watched with her own eyes how the wolf pack, under the Alpha Wolf's command, split up the human squad and picked them off one by one, until only she and one core squad member were left.

As an auxiliary logistics staffer, Xia Qing naturally wouldn't have taken part in a wolf-hunting mission. When the clash broke out, she climbed a big tree to hide.

Evolved wolves couldn't climb trees, but the bite force and strength evolvers in the pack felled the tree—over a meter in diameter—that the core squad member had climbed within ten minutes. The tree fell toward the one Xia Qing was hiding in. That core squad member fled to Xia Qing's tree and tried to throw her down to feed the wolves, buying himself a chance to survive.

The result, of course, was that the man was the one Xia Qing threw from the tree.

After the wolf pack killed the last squad member, the Alpha Wolf stood on a boulder not far away, staring at Xia Qing, while the pack stood beneath the tree, quietly waiting for the Alpha Wolf to give the order to attack.

Xia Qing gripped her weapon, stared hard at the Alpha Wolf, and rapidly ran through four escape plans and over a dozen ways to die in her head. To her surprise, the Alpha Wolf did not order the pack to continue attacking her.

After thoroughly destroying the weapons carried on the human corpses, the wolf pack withdrew. From the Alpha Wolf's gaze and command ability alone, Xia Qing confirmed it was a Brain Domain Evolver.

Xia Qing stayed in the tree for nearly ten hours before the search-and-rescue team from the safe zone arrived.

After that, Xia Qing never went on missions with any squad other than the Azure Dragon Squad, specifically to avoid fighting evolved wolf packs. Because she didn't want to be bitten to death by wolves and then have them stand on her head and pee on her for good measure.

Xia Qing did fear the combat power of evolved wolf packs, but last time, facing a whole pack alone, she hadn't despaired or given up fighting—and she certainly wouldn't now. Because this was her territory.

After patrolling for over an hour without spotting anything unusual, Xia Qing didn't relax in the slightest, because wolves were best at psychological warfare and ambushes—they would launch a lethal attack the moment their enemy let down their guard.

Just then, Xia Qing heard another despairing howl from a wild boar at the breeding center, followed by another a few seconds later. She gripped her gun and had just charged up the Gao Po of the northern buffer forest when she heard a long wolf howl.

"Awoo—ooo—"

That sound...

Xia Qing, a Hearing Evolver, was all too familiar with that howl. It was the howl of the Alpha Wolf from the pack that had wiped out a squad of over twenty in front of her eyes in the ninth year of the Catastrophe! This was a pack she couldn't handle alone. Xia Qing was about to call Hu Zifeng when she heard Boss Sheep's urgent bleating.

"Baa—baa—"

Boss Sheep, who had been treading the water wheel at the bottom of the slope, charged up at a speed Xia Qing had never seen before.

Xia Qing immediately charged downhill, desperate to clamp Boss Sheep's mouth shut. Wolves are here and you're still bleating your head off—aren't you just asking to die?

"Boss, don't be scared, I'll protect—"

Xia Qing rushed to meet Boss Sheep, but she didn't even manage to touch a single strand of wool, let alone cover its mouth. Because Boss Sheep actually dodged around her and charged bleating toward the Wild Boar Breeding Center.

"Boss, stop! Stop right now!" Xia Qing chased after it with everything she had and finally, just before it slammed into the breeding center's wire-mesh wall, grabbed its spiral horn and hissed, "You stop right now!"

Boss Sheep shook its head trying to break free, but Xia Qing had long since figured out its tricks and gave it no chance. She pulled out a rope, tied it up tight, hoisted it onto her shoulders, and ran back.

Once home, Xia Qing dumped the still-struggling Boss Sheep on the ground and sat beside it, panting.

Afraid Boss Sheep would hold its breath, the moment Xia Qing loosened the rope around its mouth, it actually started to howl again at the top of its lungs.

Xia Qing clamped its mouth with one hand and slapped it with the other, cursing, "Are you tired of living? You just have to invite wolves in to tear you apart? Do you even know who that is? That's the Wolf King! One of them can take on a whole bunch like the two of us!"

Boss Sheep wouldn't listen at all, struggling desperately.

Xia Qing had no choice but to play her trump card. She pulled a pack of compressed rations from her protective suit pocket, tore open the sealed wrapper, broke off a small piece, and stuffed it into Boss Sheep's mouth, crooning softly, "You're the boss of our territory, sure, but you can't go charging wolves. No matter how tough you are, you're still a herbivore. Wolves eat meat. You've got flat teeth, they've got fangs. You've got flat hooves, they've got sharp claws—they're built to counter you. Wild boars are tougher than you, right? Three of them have already been killed in this short time. Be good, boss. Be good and there's good food—tonight I'll make something nice for myself."

Boss Sheep quickly swallowed the compressed ration in its mouth, stretched out its neck, opened its mouth, and started to howl again.

Xia Qing stuffed its mouth with another ration and gave it a slap. "You bark one more time, I dare you. One more sound and I'll throw you straight out to the Wolf King as feed!"

"Buzz—buzz—"

The phone vibrated. Xia Qing pinched Boss Sheep's mouth shut and answered, "Captain Hu."

"The evolved wolf attacked the breeding center's wild boars and then fled into the evolved forest. Captain Yang has already taken people to pursue and kill it. I'm leading a team with Captain Tan and the others to hold the perimeter outside the Wild Boar Breeding Center. If anything happens in Miss Xia's territory, contact me anytime."

"Understood, thanks for your hard work, Captain Hu." Xia pressed for information on the wolf pack. "How many wolves came this time?"

Hu Zifeng answered, "It's still unclear how many are hiding in the evolved forest. We can only confirm that the one that broke into the breeding center was alone."

It couldn't have been just one. Xia Qing offered a very valuable lead: "From the howl, it sounds a lot like the Alpha of the pack that wiped out the main squad of the Fengyun Squad last May. It's a Brain Domain Evolved wolf—extremely hard to deal with."

Hu Zifeng naturally knew about the Hui-Three Base's twenty-fifth-ranked Fengyun Squad being wiped out by a wolf pack. "Thank you for the heads-up, Miss Xia. I'll report it to the boss right away."

After hanging up with Hu Zifeng, Xia Qing took another call—Tan Junjie's inquiry—before finally letting go of Boss Sheep's mouth and stuffing it with a bit more ration. "Hear that? If you want to take on wolves, you need skills like Boss Yang's. The likes of you can't cut it."