Chapter 643: Losing Her Temper

In spring the vegetation grew lush and insects bred rapidly, so Wolf Boss soon gathered a small basketful of insects and carried it in his mouth to the breeding greenhouse.

He had of course seen how Wolf Lao Er fed the fish, but copying him—holding insects in his mouth and dropping them one by one into the tank—was absolutely out of the question. Wolf Boss raised a foreleg and hooked it over the tank's rim, then let go, only to find that instead of falling into the tank, every insect in the little basket spilled out onto the ground beside it.

"Slap!"

The fish in the tank, watching eagerly for their meal, grew impatient and leapt clear of the water before slamming back down hard.

"Cluck-cluck—"

The chickens penned in the coop saw the bugs but couldn't reach them and shrieked in their frustration.

Wolf Boss, his face splattered with fishy water, squinted at the dead insects still kicking their legs on the ground for a few seconds, then turned and bolted out of the breeding greenhouse, charging toward Xia Qing, who was inspecting the fields.

"Bang!"

Neither human nor sheep could send the other flying, so they locked up—her butting him, him gripping her horns—as they wrestled. After holding out for more than ten seconds, Xia Qing, whose strength was no match for the sheep, gave a mighty heave and sent Wolf Boss flying.

"Bang!"

Wolf Boss hit the ground, rolled over once, sprang back up, and bleated as he charged at Xia Qing; the two of them fought on with no end in sight.

"Xia Qing, what's going on? Why are you two fighting again?" Tang Huai, who was digging for worms inside Territory Two, asked over the walkie-talkie.

Realizing Wolf Boss was truly angry, Xia Qing had no time to bother with Tang Huai. She obediently let Wolf Boss butt her flying twice, then kept sparring with him until they were both exhausted before asking, "Boss, why are you in such a foul temper? What happened?"

Wolf Boss, a mud-ball sheep, lay on the ground without a sound. Xia Qing could only climb up, pat the dirt off herself, and go take a look inside the breeding greenhouse—at which point she knew exactly what had put Wolf Boss in such a mood.

She gathered up the ants along with the insect corpses, tossed half into the tank for the fish and half into the coop for the chickens, then cut some Green-Light vegetables from the planting greenhouse to feed the chickens, rabbits, and insects. Only then did she take a handful of the tenderest Green-Light perilla and walk over to Wolf Boss, who was still lying in his dirt pit sulking.

"I saw the bugs Boss caught—a whole basketful! Boss is amazing."

Wolf Boss stayed put in the crater he'd smashed into the ground, not moving a muscle.

"It's all the basket's fault for not working right, wasting the bugs Boss worked so hard to catch all morning. Next time I'll make Boss a new basket, guaranteed to work—how about it?" Xia Qing cooed in a soft, gentle voice, soothing her hot-tempered companion as she held the grass out to his mouth. Wolf Boss unconsciously opened his mouth and took a bite.

After the first bite, Wolf Boss forgot all about being angry and ate bite after bite. Fighting was exhausting—he urgently needed to refuel.

After feeding him a handful of grass, Xia Qing rubbed the little curls of wool on her companion's head and said softly, "Boss, you rest. We're out of water at home—I'll go grab a bucket, and the two of us will haul a few buckets from the reservoir."

Xia Qing now drank the unpolluted spring water from within the territory, used the hot spring water fetched from Mountain Fifty for washing up, and relied on filtered river water for everything else. So she had to regularly haul water from the river back home and filter it.

By the time Xia Qing had hauled four large water tanks out of the house, Wolf Boss had followed her without being called, and together they went to the reservoir to fetch water and carry it home on his back. The strength-evolved Wolf Boss loved this kind of heavy labor.

After fetching water and finishing breakfast, Xia Qing drove out the tiller and had Dajiang and Xiaojiang, who had come to guard the territory, use it to dig out the fish pond in the area she'd marked. Today she was going to Mountain Fifty to check on the handling of the high-danger zone, and on the way back she'd dig up two Green-Light chestnut saplings to trade with Territory Five for Green-Light orange saplings.

Less than half a month had passed since the first Harmful Rain, and the Evolution Forest was fraught with danger. This time last year, Xia Qing hadn't dared go anywhere near the Evolution Forest. But now her combat strength and equipment had risen by more than two tiers compared to the same period last year, so even alone she dared to enter the outer reaches of the Evolution Forest.

"Miss Xia, heading out?"

Deng Yuhui, captain of the Chonlian Construction Team Six, who was directing the pouring of the wire-mesh wall's foundation, greeted Xia Qing warmly.

Last year, when Deng Yuhui led her team in building Territory Three's wire-mesh wall, she'd already become well acquainted with Xia Qing. It was precisely for this reason that Zhou Zhaoping assigned her squad to handle the construction of Territory Three's outer wire-mesh wall.

To get the perimeter wall up as quickly as possible, Chonlian had sent a total of four construction crews. After Xin Yu personally tested them, two crew leaders with ulterior motives were assigned by Zhou Zhaoping to work on the East and South Isolation Belts, far away from both Territory Eight and the Lord Alliance zone.

It had to be said—when dealing with people who didn't know the score, Xin Yu's magnetic-sense evolution ability was incredibly useful.

Xia Qing paused to chat with Deng Yuhui for a moment, then headed straight into Mountain Forty-Nine.

A worker standing beside Deng Yuhui muttered under his breath, "Didn't they say even if you trample a single blade of grass north of the Isolation Belt, you have to pay two thousand credits? So how come she can just walk in whenever she wants?"

The moment Xia Qing heard the man speak, she knew he hadn't been part of the crew that came to build Territory Three's wire-mesh wall last year—he'd joined later.

Before Deng Yuhui could even open her mouth, the worker running the cement mixer spoke up. "Territory Three is the girlfriend of the captain of Qinglong's main combat squad—of course she can come and go freely in Qinglong's training base."

"Pfft, another evolver who lives off a man. Nowhere near as good as our captain."

Deng Yuhui said slowly, "Anyone who still wants their project performance score, shut your mouth and get back to work."

Xia Qing pretended not to hear the talk behind her, followed the familiar route into Zone Three, took the winding path to the area near the wolf den, and saw wolf tracks on the ground along with drag marks left by something heavy.

The tracks left on the North Isolation Belt last night by the Broken-Waist Wolf and Wolf Lao Er had already been cleaned up in time by Beard-Feng's squad. No outsiders had come in here, so there was no need to clean.

Wolf Lao Er had jumped down into the valley from here, hunted a wild boar weighing over a hundred jin, and dragged it back up.

The fact that Wolf Lao Er had taken down such a large wild boar without letting it so much as squeal, and had then hauled it up out of the valley, showed that his killing ability, bite force, and carrying capacity were all very strong.

In the past, she had underestimated Wolf Lao Er.

There was one more thing: Wolf Lao Er hunting the wild boar in the valley last night must have had the Broken-Waist Wolf's permission. Xia Qing had come here with Wolf Lao Er plenty of times before, the two of them drooling over the wild boar in the valley, but Wolf Lao Er had never gone down to catch one. Last night, going down with the Broken-Waist Wolf was the first time he'd ever hunted a boar in the valley.

This once again showed Xia Qing the Broken-Waist Wolf's status within the pack: this clever wolf was second only to the alpha.

Xia Qing stepped over the thin layer of new grass as she walked, casually cutting the Harmful Grass seed heads around her and stuffing them into the pouch at her waist.

Within three kilometers of Mountains Forty-Nine and Fifty near the farmland, helicopters couldn't be used to spray the Harmful Grass herbicide that reduced the seed-setting rate of Harmful Grass spikes, so the Harmful Grass here had all grown spikes and set seed.

If the seed heads weren't cut and collected, once the Harmful Grass seeds matured and fell to the ground or were carried on the wind, they would sprout rapidly during the next Harmful Rain and seize the growing space of normal plants.

A red squirrel perched on a nearby pine tree, nibbling tender leaves, watched Xia Qing walk farther and farther away, then let go of the branch and raced toward Territory Three to rummage through any plant seeds Xia Qing might have dropped outside the greenhouse insect netting.

When she passed the tree hole where the red squirrel lived, Xia Qing paused to listen carefully.

Confirming the red squirrel was neither home nor nearby, she quickly climbed the tree, shone a flashlight into the squirrel's nest, made sure there were no new varieties of dried nuts inside, then climbed back down and continued on her way.