Chapter 1010: Sting of the Evolved Wasp

With her advanced vision evolution and experience dealing with these evolved hornets, Xia Qing instantly recognized the palm-sized hornet darting towards her. It was a worker, not the queen. She made up her mind right away—she had to capture it.

Nothing in the chestnut grove seemed out of the ordinary, yet the hornets that preyed on insects trapped here had clearly evolved. It was so unusual that Xia Qing decided to bring this hornet back and have Idol study what was going on.

But just as she pulled out her insect net, a strange magnetic field lashed at her forehead. Xia Qing froze for a second.

At the same time, the hornet swarm went wild, as if they’d been injected with adrenaline. The stings from her repellent no longer held them back—they dove at her in a frenzied rush!

“Awoo—wooo—”

“Ahhh—!”

“Shrimp! Shrimp!”

“Squeak, squeak—”

As the swarm wrapped around Xia Qing, her companions cried out in panic, their voices all jumbled together.

“Goofball, Number Four, Little Fei Mao, Gua Gua, don’t worry! I’m fine, just stay back!” Xia Qing shouted from within the hornet vortex. Even as she dodged the giant hornet, she tried to calm her companions, making sure they didn’t rush in and trigger a dangerous clash.

It wouldn’t be like Xia Qing to show up at the hornet’s turf unprepared to pick chestnuts.

Her insect repellent and battered outdoor-grade protective suit couldn’t keep the hornets at bay. But what the hornets couldn’t see was another layer beneath—her own protective suit made from evolved python skin.

Except for that massive evolved hornet, the rest barely posed a threat. After a close encounter with the giant, Xia Qing veered away from it and darted past the thorn fence, tossing her weapons and backpack into a large bag before plunging straight into the stream.

Hornets could release pheromones to summon the swarm for a coordinated assault. When the giant hornet appeared, their aggression went through the roof. There was no doubt—this big one had released a powerful pheromone that made the hornets ignore Xia Qing’s repellent and go all out.

With the scent of that giant’s pheromone on her, Xia Qing had become the swarm’s top target. From the combat team’s experience, the best way to dodge a hornet swarm was to take a dive into water.

No matter how much they’d evolved, hornets couldn’t dive.

Goofball and Elder Wolf had both watched Xia Qing swim and hide underwater in the reservoir back at their territory. So when they saw her lying in the stream, the two brain-evolved animals finally calmed down. With them settling down, Little Fei Mao fell in line too.

Big and small, the freeloading red squirrels had already vanished without a trace.

Jasmine, the brain-evolved raven, took off and disappeared as well.

Xia Qing could hold her breath for over ten minutes, savoring the coolness of the stream. Glancing up past her facemask at the frenzied hornet swarm above, she lifted her arm and couldn’t help but twitch the corners of her mouth.

Her outdoor-grade protective suit, patched so many times and brought all the way from the Safe Zone, was now pierced and shredded by hornet stingers. It was trashed.

When hornets inject venom with their stingers, they also leave behind a stubborn scent that clings to anything it touches. Anyone marked with that scent becomes prey. The swarm would chase them down, tear them apart, and devour them, stopping only when the job was done.

So right now, Xia Qing was covered in both the giant’s pheromone and a stench of hornet venom. There was no chance she could pick chestnuts today.

But still, her loot for today was… immense!

“Bzzzz—”

Hidden under the water, Xia Qing felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She swam forward more than twenty meters before surfacing, shaking water from her hand. Digging out her phone from her waterproof suit, she saw it was a call from Xin Yu.

Xin Yu sounded anxious. “Xia Qing, Gua Gua told me something went wrong over there. Do you need help?”

Gua Gua really was a good bird—spotting trouble, he immediately ran off to get help.

Xia Qing replied, “There was an evolved giant hornet in the swarm, but I can handle it. Tell Gua Gua thanks for me. No chestnuts today, but I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”

“No rush. Just be safe.”

After hanging up, Xia Qing grabbed a medium-sized heavy-duty bag, quickly stripped off the stinger-riddled suit and stuffed it in tight. As the giant hornet closed in, she dove back underwater.

Dressed in her sleek black python skin protective suit and facemask, Xia Qing slipped along the bottom, sprang nimbly off a rock, then pulled her arms and legs in arrow-straight as she shot out of the water and back to the edge of the chestnut grove. Seen from above, she looked just like a pure black evolved salamander.

Grabbing some water plants for cover, Xia Qing ignored the aquatic evolved creatures nipping at her or wrapping around her. She watched the palm-long giant hornet flying low overhead, wings vibrating.

Orange-yellow head, long dark brown antennae, two pairs of translucent wings, a dark brown abdomen and dangerously black micro-stingers all in one. Honestly, it looked pretty striking. More importantly, its magnetic field felt inexplicably pleasant to Xia Qing.

It wasn’t until today Xia Qing realized her magnetic sense worked underwater too. Makes sense—magnetic sense picks up on the electromagnetic waves from the bio-electricity within living things, and water can’t block those signals.

After fifteen minutes underwater, Xia Qing surfaced to breathe. As the hornet swarm buzzed down after her, she dunked right back in, rubbing her python suit constantly with water.

Half an hour later, the evolved giant hornet retreated to the chestnut grove and the rest of the swarm dispersed. Xia Qing shot out of the water, sprayed insect repellent on the two bags and herself, then gathered up Goofball and Little Fei Mao who waited on the tree branch. Climbing up the steep beast trail out of the valley, she called to Elder Wolf who perched on a tall rock. “Number Four! Let’s go—time to pick torreya nuts.”

The torreya nuts wouldn’t fully ripen till October, and there weren’t many to be had now. Still, not wanting to show up empty-handed to see Idol, Xia Qing secured her climbing rope to a sturdy tree at the top of the slope and told Number Four to keep a close eye so the local flock of nosy birds didn’t peck through it and send her tumbling.

The torreya fruit in Section Three’s valley was highly toxic—any creature that touched the flesh would be paralyzed. So, as a wolf and a girl lingered near the torreya tree, birds started to gather around, ready for a feast.

Xia Qing brought Elder Wolf along for backup, letting him watch the climbing rope to keep any birds or beasts from messing things up.

Elder Wolf didn’t say a word, but he was rock solid—standing guard at the base of the tree and staring down every bird up there.

Holding tight to the rope, Xia Qing dodged the grasping purple-leaved vines that could snare prey. She rappelled down to the torreya tree, picked the deep brown fruit from the branches, tucked them in the pouch at her waist, and kept an eye out to avoid squashing any evolved ants on the tree or ground.

The flesh of torreya fruit could quickly disrupt an animal’s nervous system and is one of the plant sources for making anesthetic after the cataclysm. The evolved ants here could neutralize that paralytic toxin.

Last autumn, Idol had collected evolved ants here for study. Their antidote effect was amazing, so now the lab in Territory Seven bred them on a large scale to extract their active compounds and make a specialized antidote.

When Monkey was injected with massive amounts of sedative by the poachers from Hui Six, he still managed to recover—thanks to this special antidote.

That means the evolved ants here are the original population, the ancestors of the lab colony in Territory Seven, and the very ones who saved Monkey’s life. They deserve protection.