Chapter 1108: Evening in Section Three: Wolfish Negotiations and Unspoken Scars

Inside a plain, unremarkable two-story building on the edge of Section Three territory.

In the southeast corner of the first floor, two ducks glistened with oil, roasting in the oven in the kitchen. Out in the living room, a human, a sheep, and two wolves lounged on the couch watching TV. A little monkey perched on the couch back, using its tiny black paws to groom the human’s hair, while snowfield squirrels in the wooden nest against the wall and in the cage at the corner hungrily eyed a plate of nuts on the table.

When humans leave the Safe Zone to carry out missions, unless it’s a secret or illegal job, the team leader usually records the whole process with a camera.

Xia Qing’s reasons for filming were pretty similar—so she could go over what happened, analyze the mission, and learn from mistakes. But she had other motives, too. She wanted her idol to understand the Evolved Forest’s ecosystem. She liked to show her friends all the strange creatures she ran into. Later on, she added another goal: letting a certain clever and endlessly curious wolf know exactly what she got up to.

Since she and the Crippled Wolf couldn’t speak the same language, using video along with a map saved everyone’s time and made things easier to understand.

“That’s the One-eyed Tiger. The Queen and the Western Wolf King fought it at Hill Thirty-Seven…right here.” When the Crippled Wolf hit pause and glanced her way, Xia Qing pulled up the electronic map on her laptop, zooming in on the valley at Hill Thirty-Seven so it could see exactly where the battle went down.

The Crippled Wolf had already seen that mission video and understood the situation.

When the video reached the part where Xia Qing was gathering herbs, the Crippled Wolf paused again. But its focus wasn’t on the medicine. It zeroed in on the moment Xia Qing looked up—and there, some 300 meters away on a boulder, crouched the One-eyed Tiger.

Xia Qing had no idea what it was looking at, so she silently kept wiping down Er’s python skin protective suit.

The Crippled Wolf stared at the One-eyed Tiger for a good five minutes before resuming the video. Once Xia Qing clipped locking carabiners to the wolves’ gear, the Crippled Wolf paused and turned to look at her.

Xia Qing caught on and smiled bright as spring, “These are locking carabiners—they fasten to the straps on your protective suit, so even if you’re hanging in the air nothing falls off. Handsome Wolf, you want some? It’s 300 credits for a full set—straps and carabiner.”

The Crippled Wolf shifted sideways, motioning for Xia Qing to grab something from the pocket on its protective suit.

Without missing a beat, Xia Qing fished out a points card. “How many sets do you want, Handsome Wolf?”

The Crippled Wolf stretched out its big paw, spreading its toes wide.

“Five sets? No problem. You really are sharp, Handsome Wolf! That’ll be 1,500 credits. There’s 3,000 credits on this card, so I’ll swap it out and give you one with 1,500 left.” Xia Qing handed back a new card and slipped it into the pocket on its suit.

The protective suits for the two adolescent wolves hadn’t arrived yet, so in total, only six wolves in the Northern Wolf Pack had suits. Er already had straps and a carabiner, so only five wolves needed this gear.

Somehow, this wolf had climbed to the very top of Blue Star’s cleverness pyramid—tricking it was getting harder every day.

Once the deal was done, the Crippled Wolf kept watching the video. When two tigers came charging in, both it and Er bared their fangs. Goofball monkey panicked, clinging to Xia Qing’s neck, while Little Fei Mao, who’d been nibbling on walnuts, dove straight into her pocket for cover. Qiang Zai curled up tight in its bed, shaking with fright.

Old Goat only paused for a second before chewing its cud like nothing had happened.

As Xia Qing stitched up an adolescent wolf’s facial wound for the Elder Wolf, the Crippled Wolf stopped the video and turned, fixing her with an unusually serious stare.

Rewinding the footage, Xia Qing realized what had gone wrong. She admitted her mistake without hesitation. “I messed up those two stitches back there. I’ll pay closer attention next time.”

In the midst of self-studying medical ethics, the Crippled Wolf lifted a big paw and pointed at the screen, its gaze even more severe: the bleeding adolescent wolf—what about this surgical error? What are you going to do about it?

If this had been before, Xia Qing would’ve responded boldly: it was the pack leader’s fault for not letting her bring the injured back for treatment—so anything that happened because of surgical mistakes was obviously the Wolf King’s problem.

But after a lecture from Third Brother, Xia Qing understood her actions set the standard for this wolf, whom Third Brother had confirmed was a high-level brain evolution mutant. If she slacked off, it would too.

So, Xia Qing didn’t dodge the blame. “The mistake was mine. I’ll handle the consequences. Next time I see that poor, scar-faced wolf, I’ll check how it healed. If it’s not okay, I’ll patch it up for free.”

Satisfied, the Crippled Wolf rewound and rewatched Xia Qing treating the wolves’ wounds.

Not wanting to get scolded a second time, Xia Qing pried Goofball monkey off herself and plopped it down next to Er, then went to the kitchen to flip over the roast duck. When she returned, the Crippled Wolf had paused again, now staring at the messy wounds on another wolf’s body.

“Crippled, what kind of animal did this to that wolf?” Xia Qing checked their injuries—some were clawed, some bitten or smashed, others sliced by sharp branches or rocks—but she couldn’t tell exactly what creature had caused them. The Crippled Wolf ought to know.

But the Crippled Wolf didn’t answer. Instead, it carefully examined all seven wolves’ wounds again and again.

As the alpha wolf with bright green eyes stepped aside to reveal the injury along its flank, Xia Qing perked up. She found a photo from after the Western Wolf Pack’s big battle with the monkey troop, zoomed in on a wound, and asked, “Crippled, look—this wound on the Green-eyed Wolf must’ve been left by those monkeys, right?”

The Crippled Wolf never looked away from the TV, just flashed a toothy grin—she’d guessed right.

So, Number Four’s pack had tangled with the monkey troop. But why did they fight in the first place?

Xia Qing pieced together events from this year, trying to connect the dots.

Back in late January—before the Northern Wolf Pack’s alpha gave birth to Little Wolf and his sister—evolution bacteria appeared in the Hui Six Monkey Troop’s territory, making food scarce in the Hui Six Evolved Forest. The monkeys seized the chaos between the Hui Three Western Wolf Pack and the Hui Three Base humans, trying to claim the wolves’ land. But they were driven back by the Handsome Huge Wolf and the Western Wolf King leading their packs.

After that, the fleeing monkeys likely turned southwest, invading Number Four’s territory.

Number Four was tough. It probably fought off the monkey troop, but the wolves caught the pathogenic fungi carried by monkeys, weakening their bodies and fighting strength.

The blue-skinned scavengers from Hui One likely took advantage of this, launching a sneak attack and abducting some wolves, further hurting the pack.

Later, Hui Three Pharmaceutical started mass producing a cure for the evolution bacteria. Hui Six, Hui One, and Hui Three joined forces, spraying pesticide by helicopter over the Evolved Forests to wipe out the spreading bacteria. The Elder Wolf’s pack survived because of this.

But because the Elder Wolf struggled during this crisis—maybe due to age and slow recovery after infection—it lost its position in a challenge to the Green-eyed Female Wolf and left the pack.

Whether the challenge came before or after the humans sprayed the pesticide, Xia Qing couldn’t be sure.

After that, things were clearer. Number Four lost its throne, wandered from the Hui Three Western Evolved Forest up to the north, met Wolfdog Number Two by chance, and got led to Section Three.

Next, the Elder Wolf happened to hear its packmates’ screams in a video. It returned to Mount Twenty-Six for revenge, found others who’d been captured, and came looking for Xia Qing’s help. With her aid, the Elder Wolf led three rescued wolves back to its pack—now four wolves stronger, giving the group a boost.

Then, the wolves ended up fighting the monkey troop.

That’s why the wolves had so many different kinds of injuries—the monkeys had even learned to use weapons.

But what really started the war between the wolves and monkeys? Was it just the monkeys clinging to old territory, or had their alliance with the scavengers brought more hurt to the wolves?

And where had those monkeys gone now? Were there still blue-skinned scavengers lurking in the forest?

Xia Qing grew steadily more serious as she pondered all this. The Goofball monkey, who’d crept back to her side without her noticing, shrank away and huddled next to Er, nervously grooming its fur.