Chapter 946: Xia Qing's Mission

"Song Ge, don't leave the shed."

"Does Daigua, stay put in the territory honestly, no sneaking food. I'm heading out."

Xia Qing first reminded Zhang Song, then warned the temporary worker in the territory again when she reached the northern buffer forest, leapt over it, and swiped her way out of the territory.

Chen Cheng hadn't arrived yet, but time was pressing, and Xia Qing couldn't wait.

Zhang Song, crouching inside shed number six, came back to himself from the shock of close contact with the alpha wolf, and stared tensely at the sky above territory number three, hoping Beard Feng's squad would hurry over.

His observation subject hadn't fully recovered its mobility and was now sprawled out in a very open spot — if some raptor suddenly swooped down and carried it off, that would be trouble.

After waiting two minutes, Zhang Song couldn't hold himself any longer. He had just stood up to go rescue the monkey when he heard the low, fierce roar of a beast.

"Wooo—"

The evolved wolf-hound called Lao Er in territory number three had already appeared soundlessly three meters in front of Zhang Song! Facing a beast up close with nothing between them was a completely different feeling from watching animals through a screen or tempered glass. In that instant, Zhang Song's hair stood on end, his muscles tensed, and a cold sweat broke out across his back.

Even though he knew the wolf wouldn't bite him to death, this kind of physiological reaction was completely beyond the brain's control.

Zhang Song slowly lowered his raised arms, letting them hang naturally at his sides to make himself look like no threat at all. In reality, tucked in the pocket of his protective suit near his right hand was a special wolf-repellent potion.

After confirming that the pungent-smelling human in the shed posed no threat, Lao Er hurried off toward the northern buffer forest. Does Daigua the monkey, who had long been waiting for it, immediately scrambled onto Lao Er's back, and the wolf and monkey vanished into the buffer forest together.

If Xia Qing hadn't forbidden the evolved wolf-hound from being filmed, the excited Zhang Song would really have wanted to record this scene — this kind of complex social behavior of the monk-faced monkey.

"The Queen told me to ride the big guy?"

Xia Qing greeted the brown-gray giant wolf she hadn't seen in a long time, and confirmed with the alpha wolf.

The alpha wolf nuzzled Xia Qing, signaling her not to dawdle and to set out at once.

"Got it." Xia Qing immediately pulled a padded mat from her backpack, placed it on the big guy's back, climbed up, and settled into place.

The brown-gray giant wolf shook its neck once, telling Xia Qing not to grip it too tightly, then bounded off. This wolf wasn't as burly as Handsome Giant Wolf, and its stamina wasn't as good either, but carrying Xia Qing for twenty or thirty li was absolutely no problem. The alpha wolf had brought two giant wolves along, which meant the destination this time was very far.

Xia Qing lay flat on the wolf's back, carefully observing the scenery around her. She wanted to seize this rare chance to train her ability to capture the surrounding scenery visually while moving at speed.

She was a level-nine-and-a-half advanced visual evolver; her visual-motor coordination and predictive adaptation were stronger than Yang Jin's. If Yang Jin could see clearly while moving at speed, then after training she would definitely be able to as well.

The three wolves carried Xia Qing away from Mountain Forty-Nine, heading north through bamboo groves, crocodile lake, and the wild-duck-and-monitor-lizard marsh, after which the brown-gray giant wolf stopped, tongue out, panting heavily.

Well prepared, Xia Qing pulled out three vials of her homemade advanced nutrient solution, fed them to the three wolves, then climbed onto the back of another brown giant wolf.

This wolf shook its body vigorously, clearly showing its disdain for Xia Qing as deadweight, but the alpha wolf had ordered it to carry her, so it could only obey.

The three wolves ran another thirty-plus li north, and after entering Mountain Fifty-Nine — a place Xia Qing had never set foot in — their pace noticeably slowed. And they began to weave under the big trees.

In terrain like this, at a pace like this, Xia Qing could have kept up on her own two legs. She followed behind the alpha wolf, still asking nothing, and pressed on with her head down.

After walking another half hour, the alpha wolf suddenly stopped and lay down on the ground. Xia Qing lay down beside the alpha wolf and carefully observed. Seeing that Xia Qing had actually lain down next to the alpha wolf, the giant wolf behind them let out an unhappy growl.

Xia Qing had no time to guess what the two wolves behind her were cursing about; her full attention was on searching for the target. Here the mountains were high and the forest dense, below them a stream babbled, and everywhere there were birdsong and insect calls — where was the target?

Underwater? Luckily she'd brought her diving suit.

After lying there a while, the alpha wolf's eyes stopped fixing on the water's surface and instead looked up above. Only after confirming it was safe did it press on. From the look of it, the target wasn't in the water but up above.

Xia Qing had a vague premonition in her heart.

The farther they went, the denser the forest became. Even though it was still a little past ten in the morning, the surroundings were already pitch black.

The ground was everywhere crisscrossed with tree roots and damp moss; the only light came from glowing insects flying through the forest and from moss, mushrooms, or unknown evolved plants on the ground giving off fluorescence.

For a human to travel in an environment like this, one would first need to pitch a tent and climb inside, disinfect and confirm safety, then remove the protective mask and put on night-vision goggles, then put the protective mask back on, take down the tent, and continue on.

Why bother pitching a tent just to put on goggles? Because this was deep in the evolved forest — if Xia Qing simply took off her protective mask, she'd be gambling on whether her life was tough enough.

The alpha wolf was in a great hurry and had no intention of stopping at all. Xia Qing couldn't waste time either, so she could only follow behind the alpha wolf, pressing on by the light of the fluorescence.

After she stumbled and fell twice, the alpha wolf let out two low aows. The giant wolf protecting her from behind grabbed her backpack in its jaws and flung her onto the back of the other giant wolf.

Xia Qing immediately threw her arms around the giant wolf's neck, and decided that once she got back she would find Uncle Huo right away to help her modify her protective mask — installing a low-light night-vision goggle inside the mask so that with the press of a button, the goggles would drop onto the bridge of her nose when needed.

Wandering around in a scene like this, even a person with the best sense of direction would lose their bearings; Xia Qing had already completely lost track of east, south, west, and north. She simply closed her eyes and used her magnetic sense to perceive the trees around her. After a long while, the alpha wolf finally stopped, and the giant wolf shook Xia Qing off onto the ground. The alpha wolf patted the cased sniper rifle on Xia Qing's back with a big paw, then signaled her to climb up the tree.

Xia Qing nodded, quickly switched to cat-claw shoes, and climbed up over twenty meters before she could see where she was.

Trees — everywhere, trees of every color, unknown species and names. The leaves of the tree Xia Qing was climbing were a color similar to her special protective suit; the alpha wolf must have deliberately picked this sniping spot for her.

Where was the sniping target?

Xia Qing hid among the big trees and looked around. Soon, she spotted a huge bird's nest at the top of a giant tree over sixty meters tall, two thousand meters to the northwest.

How did she know it was northwest? Obviously! The sun was hanging bright and high in the sky; Xia Qing could easily judge direction from the sun and the time.

It was already past one in the afternoon now.

Judging by the size of the nest, the sniping target had to be an eagle or a vulture. And it was very likely the giant eagle that had angrily screeched at Xia Qing over the Shi Zhu forest on Mountain Seven the day before yesterday.

Because the nest up in that tree was big enough, and many of its branches had been freshly laid.

So it had run into the northern wolves' territory — no wonder the task squad and the helicopter squad Hui San had sent out hadn't found any trace of it.

Xia Qing pulled out her phone and compass, took a look, and found that the magnetic field here was chaotic, her phone had no signal either, so she stuffed them back. Last time, the eagle-killing squad had been made up of six human master snipers; this time, the eagle-killing squad was only her.

The giant bird knew how to pick a nest — that giant tree stood alone, with only a few "small trees" of thirty-plus meters below it, and they were still a dozen or so meters away from it.

This giant bird occupied the most easily defended and hardest to attack position here, looking down from on high.

The sniping spot the alpha wolf had picked for Xia Qing was over twenty meters shorter than the giant tree two thousand meters away, and the view wasn't great either, but it was hidden enough — it was already the best sniping point in the area.

Xia Qing, a top-tier human sniper, raised her sniper rifle and waited for the target to appear.

"Aow~~ aow..."

The sniping target hadn't appeared yet, but from inside the bird's nest came the wailing of a wolf cub. Xia Qing's heart clenched at once.