Chapter 1145: The Wolf’s Lesson and the Weight of Knowledge

After Crippled Wolf left Xia Qing brought a steaming spread to the table—a big pot of Green Lantern hazel mushroom wide noodles with potatoes and goose, a plate of tomatoes tossed in sugar, a dish of chilled spinach, a small pot of loofah soup and two bowls of piping hot Green Lantern rice. She warmly invited her idol to dig in, every dish bursting with color, aroma, flavor and energy.

Zhang San gazed at the elegant white porcelain dishes and stainless steel chopsticks, and finally felt the stirrings of an appetite. He sat down, tasted a spoonful of soup, sampled each dish and offered a precise evaluation. “The tomatoes are quite well done.”

To Xia Qing, having even one of her three dishes rated as “not bad” by her notoriously picky idol was already a win. “This is made with the white sugar you traded me, Third Brother. You’re too thin—eat more meat! By the way, every condiment and ingredient is from the Green Lantern,” she said.

Not just the ingredients—even the soup in the pot and the water for washing veggies came from the pure spring. With her belief in never wasting good ingredients, Zhang San picked up his chopsticks and started eating.

After a morning of hunting, Xia Qing had barely pulled through lunch with two eggs and some roasted meat. Now, having finally passed both assessment and inspection, she dug in with gusto, losing herself in her meal.

How did she know she’d passed?

Had her idol said she failed? No! If she didn’t fail, that means she passed, doesn’t it?

Shouldn’t she double-check with her idol? Absolutely not. Asking would only get her a failing grade for sure!

Xia Qing devoured mouthfuls of meat, happiness radiating from her whole body. Her pure enjoyment was contagious—before he knew it, Zhang San had cleaned his entire bowl.

After eating four bowls of rice, Xia Qing noticed her idol put down his chopsticks with a fairly amiable expression. She felt even more at ease and seized the chance to chat.

“Third Brother, there’s a rumor you left Hui One Research Institute because the food was terrible. Was it really that bad over there?”

Zhang San nodded. “In Hui One’s cafeteria, one fifth of the food is Green Lantern, three fifths is Yellow Lantern, and the last fifth is things like ration bars.”

After treatment, those ration-type foods still count as Yellow Lantern for Devastation Element content.

But her idol’s allergic to the Devastation Element—he can’t eat Yellow Lantern food. How did he survive those years at Hui One?

Who was he anyway? A world-class medical expert, allergic to Devastation Element, who’d made historic contributions to the country’s disaster relief efforts!

No wonder he was so thin. No wonder the first trade made over the radio by the territory lords was for food and seedlings, and her idol was willing to swap for Yellow Lantern mutton from Territory Two.

“It wasn’t quite as bad as you think. I was eating Green Lantern food too, though the choices were limited,” Zhang San said lazily. “I could still grow Green Lantern plants in the lab and make veggie juice for extra nutrition.”

Xia Qing ladled him another bowl of soup and handed it over. “When I lived in the Safe Zone, I couldn’t find any spot private and safe enough to grow good veggies for nutrition. All I could do was use some potted plants on the dorm windowsill and plant whatever seeds I found in Evolved Forest. Every time before a Devastation Rain I’d have to pull up the seedlings, roots and all, to eat them, then replant after the rain.”

She wasn’t alone—lots of people in the Safe Zone grew vegetables this way. That’s why Xia Qing was elated when she got to leave for her own thousands of acres of land.

It’s almost two years since she started farming. Every time Xia Qing looked out over her own fields within her territory, that deep sense of satisfaction rose again.

Anyone who survived from before the apocalypse till now developed their own unique survival wisdom—everyone was a tough one in their own way.

And Xia Qing? She was absolutely one of the strongest.

After finishing his second bowl of bland soup, Zhang San placed the bowl back in the kitchen and asked as Xia Qing cleaned up the dishes, “Why did you put a password on the lab?”

Uh…

Zhang San’s voice went chilly. “Be honest.”

“After Crippled Wolf figured out how to use the door, I thought combining a password with facial recognition would be safer.”

“Did he ask to learn, or did you teach him?”

Xia Qing answered honestly, though carefully skipping the main point. “I taught him. I figured it would be safer if he learned to use the door properly.”

Zhang San nodded. “How long did it take Crippled Wolf to memorize the password and learn to unlock it?”

“Third Brother, he didn’t actually memorize the numbers. He just remembered which buttons to press, in which order. He got it after two lessons,” Xia Qing explained.

After a brief pause, Zhang San started assigning Crippled Wolf’s next round of studies. “Delete all that random nonsense from his laptop and phone, and replace it with video lessons in elementary Chinese, math and evolutionary biology—only those three courses. Let him build a solid foundation. He loves taking tests, so after every new video, you have to check his grasp of the material before moving on.”

Just recalling the encyclopedic playlist Crippled Wolf had watched was already giving Zhang San a headache.

“Back when Yang Jin and I shared all this knowledge with you, I never imagined you’d pass it on to a wolf that can’t even read!”

The workload sounded enormous…

Xia Qing genuinely asked, “Third Brother, Crippled Wolf’s a top-tier adult Evolved Wolf who’s spent his life in the Evolved Forest. Does he really need to systematically study human knowledge?”

Instead of answering directly, Zhang San changed the topic to a macaque.

“In the third year of the apocalypse, Huai Six Base caught a two-year-old brain-evolved macaque from the Evolved Forest and named it Huai Six Number Eight. This macaque was docile and never attacked humans, so the researchers eventually let their guard down.”

“In the fifth year, during the second Devastation Rain, a thunderstorm hit the Huai Six Safe Zone and triggered wide-scale Devastation Explosions, wrecking the research buildings. In the chaos, the staff forgot to lock up Number Eight and rushed out for disaster response. The macaque seized the chance—blocked the lab door with a stool, keyed in the password and released all the other brain-evolved macaques, Numbers 3 to 12, and 32 other evolved macaques. They escaped into the Evolved Forest during the confusion.”

“That troop of macaques, survivors of countless harsh experiments, took their grudge against humans back into the forest. They started using the same intimidation and training methods on other animals, driving predators out and claiming vast territory. The ecological balance in Huai Six’s forest collapsed. Even joint ground-air sweeps by Huai Six couldn’t wipe out the macaque troop, which only led to more brutal revenge attacks.” Zhang San suddenly paused and reminded Xia Qing, “There’s still scraps on the rim of that plate.”

Xia Qing, about to set the plate down, put it back in the warm water instead and kept scrubbing. “Third Brother, is Huai Six Number Eight still alive?”

“They haven’t found any trace for two years now. But Zhang Song thinks it’s still out there,” Zhang San explained, then returned to the main point.

“That group of macaques that escaped from Huai Six Research Institute witnessed and learned humanity’s darkest side. They used terror and training tactics on wildlife, quickly took over the Evolved Forest and toppled the ecosystem. Several large-scale clean-up operations by Huai Six failed and just provoked more vicious retaliation from the macaque troop.”

“Because of what happened with Number Eight, people are extremely cautious about teaching high-intelligence animals ‘knowledge’. As far as I know, you’re the only human who’s handed over everything you know to a brain-evolved animal, no holds barred.”

“But because you’ve never held anything back, Crippled Wolf’s knowledge base is a complete mess. He’s got some serious misconceptions. If he starts acting on the wrong lessons, it’ll be a disaster. Without proper guidance, he could turn out even more dangerous than Number Eight.”

“You think of Crippled Wolf as your companion, so you’d never agree to eliminate him as a precaution. That means the hole you dug for yourself—you have to fill it.”

With the plate in her hands, Xia Qing suddenly remembered the monkey that sat on a tree branch watching videos with Crippled Wolf. Did that count as… another hole?

“When Crippled Wolf finishes his foundation courses, I’ll guide him to become a qualified researcher and ecological caretaker for the Evolved Forest.”

Zhang San grabbed the protective mask hanging by the shelf and looked at the oddball in front of him—this unreliable, one-of-a-kind human.

Her muddled mess of a medical ethics course wasn’t due to low intelligence—she simply didn’t care, or just thought it was useless.

She was also the only human who understood how that wolf’s brain worked, so this job was hers and hers alone.

She’d completed nine years of compulsory education—surely she could handle teaching an Evolved Wolf some grade-school basics… right?