Chapter 1140: Hunting at the Wolf Pack’s Lake

“Bzzz—”

“Bzzz—”

Feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket, Xia Qing raised a hand to signal the squad to halt. She pulled out her phone, saw ‘Big Boss’ on the screen, and quickly turned so no one could glimpse her display before answering. As she did, she caught sight of a vast, clear blue sky overhead, where a tidy row of black specks glided across.

High above, thousands of meters in the air, migratory birds were flying south. The birds looked a bit like an ellipsis in the sky, perfectly mirroring Xia Qing’s mood in that moment.

Then, a furry wolf head popped onto the screen, and the ellipsis in Xia Qing’s mind stretched out twice as long.

She should never have put a SIM card in that wolf’s phone.

She shut off her walkie-talkie and, lowering her voice through her Bluetooth headset, asked, “What’s up, Brother Duan?”

Though Xia Qing kept her voice low, the place was so quiet that everyone still caught her words.

Xin Yu, following close behind, didn’t find it strange at all—Gua Gua often called her as well. But behind her, three squad members’ magnetic fields suddenly spiked, two of them rather violently.

Xin Yu narrowed her magnetic sense and identified the fluctuating sources. Tang Huai’s field was the most agitated, then Huo Zhun, then Zhu Li.

Zhu Li’s reaction was probably just curiosity. Tang Huai and Huo Zhun, though, seemed to know exactly who was calling Xia Qing.

Yuan Yan, Shi Du, Zhang Hongda, Yu Shou, Wang Man, and Wu Lianmin didn’t react at all. That meant they either hadn’t really heard or thought nothing of it.

After all, ‘Duan’ was a fairly common surname.

“Yeah, I just passed Second Peak on Hill Fifty-Two, and I caught sight of those scarred ones. I’m leading a ten-person team to Hill Fifty-Three to hunt wild ducks. If we don’t grab them now, they’ll all be gone soon.”

Xia Qing, mask covering her face, kept her tone serious as she peered at the wolf’s lowered head against a perfect blue-sky background. “Anything else, Brother Duan? Otherwise I’ll hang up now… I know, I know, I still have to handle the lab inspection.”

Once the call ended, Xia Qing resumed leading the group, her composure unwavering.

They were now on Wolf Pack territory. Xia Qing stuck to the beast trail, so blazing a path wasn’t much trouble.

She led the team around patrolling wolves and hunting leopards, slipping past the territories of giant lizards and crocodiles, dodging over a dozen aggressive Devastation Evolution plants and gas-filled forests, before finally reaching today’s destination.

Between the Hill Fifty-Two and Hill Fifty-Three regions lay a sprawling wetland, covering more than four thousand acres.

This area was a shallow, clear lake, formed by rain and melted snow off the mountain peaks. Even at its deepest, the center was only six to seven meters deep, its edges rimmed with thick reeds and bulrushes, the shallow water and marshland lush with aquatic plants.

Besides the dense vegetation, the lake teemed with small fish, snakes, insects, and algae—a veritable paradise for birds, home to well over a hundred thousand of all shapes and sizes.

Within Wolf Pack territory, this was one of the few places humans could freely enter and hunt.

So the greatest threat to the birds living here wasn’t crocodiles from Crocodile Lake, snakes, or raptors soaring above—but people.

There were twenty-four bird havens like this in the Evolved Forest controlled by Hui Three, and they were the main locations for the combat squads’ hunting missions. Hunting birds was a lot less dangerous than chasing wild boar or other big game.

To keep these bird habitats balanced, Hui Three Base set strict rules for any squad coming to these twenty-four areas to hunt:

First, squads had to submit applications three days ahead and get approval before hunting. Second, they could only use guns, crossbows, small bird nets, and slingshots—no heavy weapons, no poisoned food or water, nets couldn’t be longer than thirty meters, and electrofishing was forbidden. Third, no team could catch more than 300 birds per hunt.

So what happened if you broke the rules?

If ground patrols or helicopter teams spotted any violations, they’d report it, and the offending squad would be docked credits and contribution points. All squad members would also be banned from hunting in the area for the next three years.

In general, fewer teams picked the northern Hill Fifty-Two wetland for bird hunting, because it lay more than 250 li from the Safe Zone. Unless you had a helicopter and a training base—like the Azure Dragon Squad—most teams preferred easier, closer hunting grounds.

For the Section One territory lords, they only needed to file with the Inspection Team and follow all the rules. Then, according to policy, the Inspection Team would notify the Azure Dragon Squad members stationed on Hill Forty-Nine, who would supervise the lords’ squads from the air each time they hunted. If any lords broke the rules, they’d still face punishment.

Of course, this bird sanctuary was buried deep in the Evolved Forest. Without high-level fighters like Xia Qing, Huo Zhun, or Zhang Hongda leading the way, few from other territories would dare venture here.

“Common Pochard, Mallard, Black-Maned Goose, Ferruginous Pochard… wow!” It was Wu Lianmin’s first time here, and he stared wide-eyed, itching for action. “Sister Qing, what are we hunting today?”

Lowering her voice over the walkie-talkie, Xia Qing replied, “Let’s head left along the marsh edge for twenty minutes. There’s plenty of black-maned geese and diving ducks there.”

Tonight, Third Brother would be inspecting the lab in Section Three, checking her and Crippled Wolf’s progress. Xia Qing had to prepare the premium meat he liked so she didn’t end up on his blacklist.

Today’s hunting spot was one Xia Qing had traded for—a string of beautiful pearls for Crippled Wolf. That hunting ground was the Wolf Pack’s usual spot, and Crippled Wolf often caught edible birds there himself.

“No problem, let’s go!” Tang Huai said, barely able to contain his excitement.

Wang Man, on rear guard, reminded them, “Careful where you step, everyone. There are a lot of venomous snakes out here.”

Tang Huai, who’d already slipped twice and was determined not to fall a third time—otherwise his name would literally be spelled backwards—fell silent right away.

At the target site, the hunting squad split into two groups. Xia Qing, Xin Yu, Tang Huai, and Wang Man—the best shots—stood guard. The others circled the area and lifted an eight-meter-high net with large mesh openings.

Once the net was up, and aside from defenders Wang Man, Wu Lianmin, and Xia Qing, everyone else went to their positions along the perimeter. They readied their bows and aimed, preparing to drive the black-maned geese and wild ducks toward the net and capture them.

Their iron bows and hardness-evolved bamboo arrows had been made by Huo Lei and Jiang Ying. The lords practiced frequently in their own territories, and every archer’s aim was solid.

Xia Qing glanced up to a nearby hillside, watching seven wolves—three large, four small—eyeing their hunting operation. In a hushed voice, she gave the order. “On my count—everyone loose your arrows. One, two, three!”

“Whizz!”

“Whizz!”

“Quack quack!”

“Gaggle gaggle!”

“Honk!”

Bamboo arrows struck eight ducks and black-maned geese. Birds shrieked all around; thousands more took wing, and frogs and smaller creatures scattered in a panic. Huo Zhun, Shi Du, Yu Shou, and Yuan Yan quickly tightened the bird net, their harvest overflowing.

“Awoo—”

At the sight of so many captured birds, a half-grown black wolf on the mountaintop let out a howl, clearly itching to join the fun.

Little Wolf sprawled lazily, watching a crocodile slither closer to the human squad. It yawned. This was hardly the first human bird hunt it had seen—nothing new at all.

His little sister, bright-eyed and alert, stared intently at Wang Man, who stood close beside Xia Qing.