Chapter 957: A New Model for Human Coexistence with Other Evolved Animals

After putting away the serums she had brought back, Xia Qing changed into the protective suit she wore inside the territory and set off with Does Daigua Monkey and the water tank to fetch water.

Xia Qing had studied monkey habits together with Broken-Waist Wolf and knew that grooming between members of the same species was a very common behavior.

This behavior not only helped clear parasites and dirt from a companion's body, but also helped monkeys find the salt crystals they needed. Beyond that, grooming served important social functions—it could strengthen bonds between individuals, ease internal conflicts, and build and maintain social relationships. However, nothing in the video materials mentioned monkeys grooming animals of other species.

But Does Daigua Monkey grooming Broken-Waist Wolf didn't strike Xia Qing as particularly strange, because this monkey had an extremely strong will to live. In the words of the expert Zhang Song: this monkey possessed excellent environmental adaptability and had demonstrated complex social behavioral abilities.

Does Daigua had previously tried to groom the important members of Territory Three. After Xia Qing refused and Eldest Brother butted it away, only Lao Er accepted its goodwill, so Does Daigua Monkey became even closer to Lao Er.

These past two days Lao Er wasn't in the territory, and Xia Qing had gone out to busy herself. With only Sheep Eldest Brother and Broken-Waist Wolf at home, this little monkey with its complex social abilities naturally tried to build a good relationship with Broken-Waist Wolf.

Xia Qing would bet that when it was with that unlucky little bear from Mountain Sixty, it would groom the bear too.

But Xia Qing had no intention of telling Zhang Song about this, because it involved Broken-Waist Wolf, and she didn't want Broken-Waist Wolf to become one of Zhang Song's observation targets.

Today when she came out to fetch water, she had also left Sheep Eldest Brother—her usual water-fetching partner—at home, for the same reason.

Allowing Zhang Song into Territory Three to observe the little monkey was partly because of Third Brother's reputation, and partly because Xia Qing didn't want to give people the impression that Territory Three had some big secret and didn't allow anyone in. But that didn't mean she would hold anything back from Zhang Song.

Xia Qing set Does Daigua down on the north side of the reservoir and handed it a small basket to look for bugs. After Lao Er returned to the wolf pack, the bugs the fish in the reservoir ate were caught by Eldest Brother and Does Daigua. The two of them weren't as capable as Lao Er, so Xia Qing added fermented chicken manure and grass leaves to the fish pond as feed.

Xia Qing learned to feed fish with fermented chicken manure from Territory Five. Whether the fish liked it or not wasn't Xia Qing's concern—if they didn't like it, they could starve; starve long enough and they'd eat it.

After filling the tanks, Xia Qing carried the two water tanks back home.

Does Daigua Monkey, who was looking for bugs in the grass beneath the low slope of the northern buffer forest, picked up its little basket and tried to chase after her. But it had only crawled one step when it heard Xia Qing say, "Does Daigua, keep catching bugs. I'll be back in a bit."

Sheep Eldest Brother, the main heavy-laborer of Territory Three, couldn't come help, so Xia Qing had to make two trips to fill the big water tank at home.

After double filtration, this water could be used for washing clothes and mopping floors—one full tank lasted about five days. The spring water she brought back from Mountain Fifty was filtered and used for bathing, while the unpolluted spring water within the territory was used for drinking and medicinal baths.

Hearing Xia Qing's order, Does Daigua Monkey ducked into the bushes and dug through the soil with its little black paws looking for bugs.

Zhang Song, standing in Shed 3, recorded the little monkey's behavior with his camera while scribbling his hypotheses about the causes of its various behaviors in his notebook.

These hypotheses would be confirmed or ruled out through subsequent observation. Zhang Song hoped the little monkey's recovery would be slow and that Xia Qing would spend more time in the territory, so he could have more time observing this extremely rare brain-evolved monk-faced monkey up close.

When Xia Qing returned to the reservoir with the empty bucket and continued filling it from the area enclosed by the fine-mesh water filter net, Does Daigua Monkey crawled out of the bushes and went into the relatively dangerous but bug-rich thick grass to catch bugs.

After it bit a half-meter-long vegetable snake to death, it turned and gazed longingly at Xia Qing by the reservoir, opening its mouth to make a sound, "Ah—"

Xia Qing, who was fetching water, looked up and asked gently, "Does Daigua caught a bug?"

Does Daigua Monkey immediately held up the big bug, which was longer than its arm, to show Xia Qing.

Xia Qing praised it sincerely, "Does Daigua's amazing—you actually caught a big snake! Tonight I'll give you mealworms dipped in honey water."

Visibly, the little monkey became happy. It stuffed the snake into its little basket and looked for bugs even more eagerly. Zhang Song used his recorder to capture this especially precious moment and wrote in his notebook:

5:15, San-1 completed the human's bug-catching request and proactively showed its harvest to the human. After receiving verbal praise and a promise of food, it displayed a pleased mood and a more positive work attitude.

San-1 was Does Daigua Monkey's designation, indicating it was the first brain-evolved white-faced monk-faced monkey Zhang Song had discovered within Hui-Three Territory.

As Xia Qing was about to stand up with the water bucket, a half-meter-long unidentified soft-bodied aquatic creature suddenly leapt out of the water and lunged at her eyes.

No testing needed to know this brainless thing had to be a Red-Light evolved predatory animal.

Prepared in advance, Xia Qing scooped it up with a small fishing net and tossed it into the fish pond to feed the fish. After filling the water tank, Xia Qing started catching fish.

The net she used had large mesh, so it could only scoop out the spring-water fish that had already grown large. Fish like these were past their rapid growth period—they ate a lot but didn't grow, so Xia Qing decided to get rid of them.

Seeing Xia Qing catching fish, a few magpies and egrets immediately flew over and landed beside her to wait.

The Red-Light and Yellow-Light fish she caught were placed in net cages inside the fish pond, waiting to be sold to Zheng Kui when he came in exchange for points. The Yellow-Light fish went into another net cage to be sold to the Ninth Center cafeteria tomorrow. Of the Green-Light fish, she kept three for herself and put the rest into the fish-rearing net cage in the reservoir.

The reservoir had richer natural feed, so these grown spring-water fish could stay healthy there without needing to be fed.

After briskly sorting and placing over a hundred fish from one big net, Xia Qing went to the Gao Po greenhouse to pick vegetables for dinner. The magpies and egrets, finding they couldn't get any food, flew off again.

Seeing Xia Qing go up the slope, San-1 hurried to the fish pond, poured the various bugs from its little basket into the pond, then picked up the empty basket and chased after Xia Qing.

A few minutes later, Xia Qing and San-1 appeared again in Zhang Song's field of view. Xia Qing carried San-1, who was eating pumpkin flowers, in one hand and the vegetable basket in the other.

Just as Zhang Song was focusing on observing San-1—being casually carried by Xia Qing yet clearly enjoying it—a little red squirrel with a large pinecone in its mouth suddenly jumped down from a tree and landed on Xia Qing's shoulder.

Zhang Song recognized this little squirrel, because he had performed its intestinal anastomosis surgery himself. Clearly it trusted Xia Qing just as San-1 did, but unfortunately Zhang Song couldn't record this moment with his camera.

At that moment, he deeply understood why Zhang San valued Xia Qing so highly. Because the scene before him was exactly the new model of coexistence between humans and other evolved animals after Blue Star's evolution that he had proposed in his Year Nine of the Catastrophe research report:

Trust. Symbiosis.

The other animals in Territory Three probably got along with Xia Qing in a similar way.

Why had Xia Qing chosen this model?

When did the human-animal symbiosis model in Territory Three begin, and where was it headed?