Chapter 726: The Use of Claws

Now it seemed the alpha wolf had no fondness for the giant eagle either, which was why it had gnawed so savagely.

Looking at the fierce-faced alpha wolf, Xia Qing felt no fear at all. She tentatively asked, "My lord, do you have a grudge against this giant eagle?"

The alpha wolf twitched its ears.

Xia Qing's gaze fell on the missing chunk from its left ear, and a thought suddenly struck her.

She pinched her own ear, then pointed at the notch in the alpha wolf's ear. "My lord, your ear was injured by this giant eagle?"

"Aoo—"

The alpha wolf growled low, very angry.

It seemed the alpha wolf's ear had been clawed by the giant eagle, and very likely by this very one.

It must have happened when the alpha wolf had just emerged from its den and was learning survival skills in the Evolution Forest. If it hadn't been a speed evolver, the giant eagle would likely have slaughtered it. No wonder it was so furious.

If the alpha wolf had been slaughtered, the northern wolf pack wouldn't be what it was now, Sheep Boss might not have lived this long, and Xia Qing would never have had the chance to trade with the pack.

The more Xia Qing thought about it, the more hateful the claws on the ground seemed. "I'll burn this thing and avenge you!"

The alpha wolf stopped Xia Qing and scraped the giant eagle's claws to her feet.

Xia Qing didn't understand. "My lord, why are you keeping these two claws?"

Seeing that Xia Qing didn't grasp its meaning, the alpha wolf pressed its sharp big claw down on Xia Qing's shoed foot, the disdain in its eyes almost tangible.

Xia Qing understood, then fell silent. She picked up the bird claws and held them against her shoe. "You want me to attach these bird claws to my feet?"

The things were sharp enough, but even if she attached them, she couldn't use them…

The alpha wolf turned and went straight upstairs.

Xia Qing followed and saw the alpha wolf open the storage room door, walk straight to the box containing the personal flight unit, then turn back and gaze at her calmly with its gilded eyes.

That expression said: if Xia Qing still didn't understand, the alpha wolf would use its claws to teach her how to behave.

Xia Qing was done for. Too lazy to ask how the alpha wolf knew she'd stored the flight unit here, she opened the box, took out the unit, and held the giant eagle's claws against it. "My lord, you mean attach the bird claws to the flight unit?"

The alpha wolf didn't move again, and Xia Qing knew she'd guessed right.

The alpha wolf and Broken-Back Wolf had always looked down on the personal flight unit. Xia Qing had assumed they disliked it because it was noisy and couldn't fly far. She hadn't expected the alpha wolf to also dislike that, though it could fly, it lacked the sharp claws of a bird.

So after it hunted the giant eagle, it brought the claws to Xia Qing, for her to arm the flight unit.

Xia Qing was moved. "My lord discovered sharp claws that can arm the flight unit and brought them right to me—I'm so touched. How is your brain so brilliant? You're the most perfectly evolved wolf on Blue Star, you're the wolf standing at the very top of Jin Zita…"

The alpha wolf quietly listened to Xia Qing finish, then turned and went downstairs, pushing the door open to return to its territory.

"My lord!"

Xia Qing called the alpha wolf back, tucked a pack of dog food into the side pocket of its protective suit, then discussed important business with it. "Give this to Wolf Lao Er. We should continue the medicinal bath—the kind that really hurts but really works."

Xia Qing pointed at its belly, round from eating two big bird legs. "Once your pups grow up and stop nursing, bring Wolf Lao Er and Broken-Back over, and we'll do the medicinal bath."

The alpha wolf circled Xia Qing once to show it understood, then opened the door and left.

Xia Qing watched it go quietly, then muttered softly, "Boss, do you think if I discuss with my lord letting Wolf Lao Er come live in our territory, she'll agree?"

"Baa." Sheep Boss, sleeping comfortably in the hanging chair, gave a bleat.

"Then I'll ask her next time." Xia Qing went over and gave the hanging chair a push to make Sheep Boss more comfortable, then cleaned up the bird blood and feathers on the floor and disinfected everything before climbing upstairs to continue sleeping.

The next day, when Xia Qing went to feed the chickens, she found three hens and a rooster dead in the coop!

There were no tracks left by snakes, rats, or weasels in the coop, yet the chicks had died. Xia Qing couldn't figure out what had happened and immediately contacted Zhang Song.

After getting Zhang Song's reply, Xia Qing said goodbye to Sheep Boss, brought the chicks' bodies to Territory Seven, and asked Zhang Song to determine the cause of death.

After examining the chicks' bodies, Zhang Song gave his judgment—two of the four chicks had died from being trampled, and two had died of fright.

"It was probably during the bird tide, when the hens were startled by the cries of the giant eagle and the evolved hawk, and trampled the chicks. These are premium breeds I carefully selected—fast breeding, early maturity, high egg production. They're just a bit timid."

Seeing Xia Qing's expression, Zhang Song knew what she was thinking and explained on his own, "Bold ones grow slowly, are aggressive, and easily get hurt and infected during fights."

"Then timid ones are better after all." Xia Qing took the chance to ask about her doe rabbit eating its young.

"Could be poor maternal instinct, or insufficient nutrition." Zhang Song offered his hypothesis, then asked, "Where did you catch the rabbit?"

Xia Qing replied, "On Mountain Fifty."

Zhang Song suggested a workable method. "The evolution direction and method of Blue Star organisms are closely tied to environment. The doe you caught might need to take in some evolved plant, some water source, or some nutrient from the soil on Mountain Fifty-One. Keep the doe on Mountain Fifty-One. If her next litter shows reduced or absent cannibalism, that confirms it's a nutrition issue."

Xia Qing was enlightened. "Last year our base's breeding center built a wild boar breeding facility on Mountain Forty-Nine—was that also for this kind of reason?"

Clever indeed, no wonder Third Brother values this Miss.

Zhang Song smiled and nodded. "There was indeed that consideration, but unfortunately the breeding research was interrupted by the wolf pack. The day we searched for the Qiang Snake, I saw the piglets in the valley were all strong and sturdy, which shows the place is suitable for raising pigs. Yang Jin made another profit on this one."

No, no, no.

Those pigs weren't Yang Jin's—they were ones Broken-Back Wolf had offered a piece of Yi Stone in trade, asking her to help raise them. But Xia Qing didn't correct Zhang Song, tacitly going along with it.

After returning home, Xia Qing immediately moved the hens from the chick pen to the big chicken pen, separating the big chickens from the chicks to prevent the flock from being startled and causing another trampling accident.

After arranging the chickens, Xia Qing got busy with the fields.

Of the rapeseed planted last winter, 265 plants remained, scattered sparsely. To make good use of the farmland, Xia Qing planted mung beans in the empty spaces.

She had come to this shed today to pollinate the rapeseed flowers.

Because none of the territories had much rapeseed left, and Kuang Qingwei was injured, the beekeeping plan had been shelved. This year, the insect-pollinated plants in the territory were still being hand-pollinated.

Xia Qing used a stick to tap each flowering rapeseed plant, letting the pollen from the male flowers fall onto the female flowers to complete pollination. Whenever she came to a rapeseed plant tied with a red string, she would stop and carefully pollinate every flower on that plant.

Of the one mu of rapeseed she planted last year, 265 plants remained. Among them, 55 had rising Qiang element levels and become red-light rapeseed, no longer safe to eat directly. Of the remaining 210 yellow-light rapeseed plants, 7 had Qiang element content around 6‰, making them breedable optimization candidates.

These 7 plants were to be kept for seed, and Xia Qing carefully brushed every flower on them with a small wool brush to ensure thorough pollination.

After every mission ended, Xia Qing especially enjoyed doing these meticulous farm tasks—they made her feel calm, relaxed, and gave her a great sense of fulfillment and accomplishment.