Chapter 671: The Underground River of Mountain Forty-Nine

Xia Qing first returned to her territory, cancelled the disinfection supplies in the small hut beside the farmland, and took the chance to call her idol to explain the change in circumstances.

"... So the Broken-Waist Wolf got angry and won't let me give medicine or take samples from the three sick wolves."

Foodie Zhang San empathized, "They really do need a lesson! They should all have developed antibodies in their bodies by now, so even if they don't get medicine for a few days, this kind of evolved bacteria won't kill them. But they're probably weak, and other predators might catch them. Are you sure you can collect blood and saliva samples tomorrow?"

"I can." Xia Qing said with great certainty. "The Broken-Waist Wolf didn't chase those three wolves away, which means it still wants me to treat them. We don't have to wait until tomorrow morning—after I finish disinfecting Wolf Valley later, I can get the samples."

Xia Qing's understanding of evolved wolves has reached this level already?

Zhang San was silent for two seconds. "Alright, stay safe."

"Got it. You should rest early. Once I have the samples, I'll contact Brother Ji directly." After clearly explaining the whole story to her idol, Xia Qing contacted Hu Zifeng and asked him to send someone to pick up the medicine and disinfect the beast paths in District Six of Mountain Forty-Nine that the three sick wolves had traveled, to prevent the spread of high-grade evolved bacteria.

The disinfection work in District Three of Mountain Forty-Nine would be done by her.

District Three belonged to Xia Qing's territory. The valley contained five large wild boars, over twenty piglets, three ill-mannered evolved wolves, and one furious brain-domain evolved wolf. If anyone else entered the valley, they might have unnecessary conflicts with the wolf pack.

Evolved microorganisms on Blue Star were divided into four grades: ordinary evolution, intermediate evolution, high-grade evolution, and super evolution.

The higher the evolution grade of the same type of microorganism, the harder it was to control. Different types of microorganisms posed different levels of danger to humans, so even the ordinary and intermediate evolution grades of some microorganisms could cause extreme harm to humans.

For example, intermediate-evolution Staphylococcus aureus in the flesh-eating bacteria group could kill an ordinary-evolved adult within two or three hours. That was why, when Zhang San said last year that he wanted to synthesize super-evolved Staphylococcus aureus to wipe out Territory Nine, Li Si had reacted so strongly.

High-grade evolved Aspergillus was less dangerous than intermediate-evolved Staphylococcus aureus, and extermination drugs had already been developed and produced.

Therefore, after high-grade evolved Aspergillus was discovered on Mountain Forty-Nine, the emergency disaster-extermination procedure for this area would not be activated—as long as the relevant personnel carried out thorough disinfection, that would be enough.

Mountain Forty-Nine was not part of any territory, so this matter didn't need to be reported to the Investigation Team, and the Territory Management Department wouldn't be alarmed.

The reason the high-grade evolved Aspergillus in Hui Six's Evolution Forest had run rampant into a disaster was that this extermination drug was expensive, and the afflicted evolution forest was far from the Hui Six Safe Zone, making the cost of sending helicopters for disinfection too high. That was why the Hui Six management authorities hadn't taken action.

Once Zhang San developed a cheap and highly effective fungicide and brought the extermination costs down, Hui Six would definitely take action.

Hopefully they could exterminate this evolved bacteria before it evolved into the super grade. Otherwise, once that evolution forest got drenched by a few more damaging rains, multiple types of microorganisms would definitely evolve.

The most urgent thing now was to get the blood and saliva samples from the three wolves as soon as possible.

After disinfecting the key area in front of the wolf den, Xia Qing ignored the three wolves standing under the stone wall baring their teeth and glaring at her, and very formally knocked on the wooden door of the wolf den.

"Handsome Wolf Brother, are you in?"

The Broken-Waist Wolf pushed open the wooden door, first casting a stern glance at the three wolves cowering under the stone wall, before looking up at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing gestured as she discussed with it, "Handsome Wolf Brother, those three wolves are sick. You just touched them, so you need to take medicine to prevent infection. Take one pill now?"

The Broken-Waist Wolf understood. It used its tongue to roll the small pill from the plastic tray Xia Qing had taken out into its mouth, then drank several mouthfuls of water from the small basin Xia Qing was holding.

After giving the medicine, Xia Qing discussed with it again, "Those three wolves need samples taken and medicine."

The Broken-Waist Wolf neither spoke nor moved, clearly still angry.

Xia Qing softened her tone and complained, "Handsome Wolf Brother, I've been busy all day. I'm very tired and want to go home to rest."

After saying this, Xia Qing even let out an exaggerated yawn, using her actions to show that she really was tired and sleepy.

The Broken-Waist Wolf understood Xia Qing's tone and yawn, gave a stern "Aowu!", and called over one of the sick wolves that had been punished to stand.

"Thank you, Handsome Wolf Brother!"

Xia Qing immediately poured more pollution-free spring water into the basin, letting the three wolves take turns eating medicine and drinking water.

They had just eaten wild boar, so there were too many impurities in their mouths. They needed to drink water to rinse their mouths for half an hour before saliva could be collected, and blood samples would be taken at the same time.

During the half-hour wait, Xia Qing communicated with the Broken-Waist Wolf in detail and patiently about the three wolves' condition, explaining that they needed to take medicine for three days, but didn't have to stay here the whole time—taking the medicine on schedule would be enough.

Besides this, Xia Qing also told it very seriously that if the northern wolf pack came into contact with these three wolves, they would need to take medicine to prevent infection—especially nursing mother wolves and Wolf Lao Er.

Wolf pups? After the incident of the western wolf pack's pups being tortured and killed, the northern wolf pack would definitely hide their pups well. Xia Qing judged that before the pups could hunt independently, she wouldn't be able to see them.

By the time she could see them, the pups would already be half-grown evolved wolves. Not to mention the wolf pups far away on Mountain Sixty—even the weasel babies in the sheep pen, she still hadn't been able to get her hands on them yet.

After collecting the samples, Xia Qing left Wolf Valley and handed the samples to Ji Li. The Broken-Waist Wolf didn't return to Territory Three with her—it was staying in the wolf den to watch over those three unruly wolves.

At six o'clock the next morning, Xia Qing arrived at Wolf Valley with the last of her freeze-dried food, only to find that the Broken-Waist Wolf had already left with the three sick wolves.

Their departure was only temporary; they would very likely be back by the afternoon, because Xia Qing had communicated with the Broken-Waist Wolf that the three sick wolves still needed to take medicine in the evening. So Xia Qing had no choice but to cancel her plan to dig bamboo shoots today, and stayed in the territory and Mountain Forty-Nine's District Three to wait.

It was still early, so Xia Qing burned the three wolves' excrement, disinfecting while patrolling District Three of Mountain Forty-Nine, using her magnetic sense to search for damaging snakes.

After confirming there were no damaging snakes in any area, Xia Qing went to the spot in Valley Two of District Three where she had previously discovered damaging snakes, carefully looking for differences between this place and others.

The stone crevice where the damaging snake had been found had been pried open for a thorough search and sampling, and had now become a pit. Xia Qing stood at the edge of the pit, closed her eyes, and used her magnetic sense to carefully feel whether anything unusual remained nearby.

This feeling actually let her discover something different. But it wasn't discovered with magnetic sense—it was with hearing.

Xia Qing opened her eyes and stared at the dry bottom of the pit. Beneath this pit—or rather, no more than three meters deep beneath this rock—there was the sound of flowing water.

The locations where damaging snakes had been discovered on Mountain Forty-Nine and Mountain Fifty shared one more commonality: they were all places with water.

This discovery made Xia Qing's hair stand on end, as if the very next second the mountain rock beneath her feet would burst open and an incomparably huge black python would emerge.

No, she had to tell her idol about this quickly!