Chapter 1159: The Case of the Scarface Wolf

“The swallows are gone. Their nest got taken over by this rowdy bunch of sparrows.” Watching Crippled Wolf standing beneath the eaves, head tilted toward the empty nest, Xia Qing took the initiative to explain the latest change at home.

Over forty sparrows had driven out a dozen magpies and claimed the swallows’ old nest for themselves, settling right under Xia Qing’s eaves.

After inspecting the abandoned nest, Crippled Wolf wandered over to the sheep shed to watch the Yellow Calf chewing cud beside Old Goat.

Since this Yellow Calf saw Wolfdog Number Two practically every day, it wasn’t as scared of wolves as before. When it spotted Crippled Wolf at the screen door, it simply paused its chewing, pressed close to Old Goat, and stared back with huge cow eyes.

Old Goat just squinted, looking as laid-back as ever while he kept on chewing.

Crippled Wolf hung around for a bit but soon lost interest. After shaking snow from his paws and brushing open the door to the living room, he sniffed the gun on the wall, then turned his head to look at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing beamed with pride. “You really have a sharp nose. I did head out last night for a mission. Not only did I shoot down a bird of prey flying over 2,000 meters up, I also took down Phantom—Hui Five Base’s top sniper. Crippled, you have no idea, but I’m an internet sensation right now.”

Crippled Wolf stood up and tapped at Xia Qing’s protective mask with his paw, letting her know he wanted to see the mission footage.

Xia Qing remembered the Scarface Wolf that had appeared in the video. Deciding it was a good chance to ease Crippled Wolf’s mind, she played the footage, showing that the adolescent wolf had been recovering well.

Crippled Wolf had seen Xia Qing hunt birds before, so he wasn’t interested in the early parts of the video. Only when the fight against Phantom Squad began did he start watching with serious intent.

Once the video had finished, Crippled Wolf nudged Xia Qing to play it again, this time skipping straight to the scene when the two wolves appeared.

On the third watch, Crippled Wolf hit pause, padded up to the screen, and poked at the scar across Scarface Wolf’s muzzle with a huge paw, then fixed Xia Qing with a grave stare.

Under the infrared camera, Scarface Wolf’s mouth was stained bright red with blood and the scar at the corner of his mouth stood out, harsh and vivid.

Xia Qing answered Crippled Wolf’s implied question head-on. “Yeah, I messed up two stitches last time I sewed up this wolf’s wound. But look—it’s healing pretty well, isn’t it? No need for another treatment.”

Crippled Wolf stubbornly jabbed at the screen again, eyes still locked on Xia Qing. Clearly, he didn’t agree.

Wrecking her brain for memories of her long-ago “Medical Ethics” class, Xia Qing couldn’t figure out what point was bothering Crippled Wolf, so she asked bluntly, “You think I should keep treating him?”

Crippled Wolf fished a territory map out of the living room drawer and pressed his large paw right onto Territory Seven.

Xia Qing was silent for a moment.

“Crippled, do you think we should call Third Brother and ask what he thinks?”

Crippled Wolf bared his little pointed fangs.

“Alright, I’ll ask Third Brother how to deal with this.” Even though it felt like making a fuss over nothing, Xia Qing knew her idol took Crippled Wolf’s upbringing seriously and planned to personally guide him into becoming an upstanding wolf. So she didn’t dodge the issue, dialing her idol’s video number then and there.

Zhang San was in a video meeting with heads of two research institutes, hashing out experiment progress. At a glance at his screen, he announced a ten-minute pause, muted his laptop, switched off the camera, then finally accepted Xia Qing’s call.

Glancing at the phone screen showing a human and a wolf, Zhang San needed a couple of seconds to adjust, then barked, “Spit it out!”

“Third Brother, hope I’m not interrupting?” Xia Qing greeted politely before diving right into the story. “What do you think I should do in this situation?”

You seriously missed two stitches closing a three-centimeter mouth wound?! Zhang San shot Xia Qing a look. “Let me see.”

“Yes, sir.” Xia Qing pointed the camera toward the TV so her idol could get a good look at the footage.

Watching a TV screen through a phone wasn’t exactly clear. Zhang San pushed his glasses up with a finger, then spoke, voice steady and professional, “Missing stitches while suturing a torn mouth isn’t just a cosmetic issue, leaving an ugly scar. It could also mean the muscle or mucous layers didn’t line up, causing tightness or pain when the wolf moves his jaw, or even a slight crookedness to the mouth. Worse, if the local tissue tension isn’t balanced, it can result in dead space and fluid buildup, raising the chance of infection. The reason this wolf couldn’t finish off Phantom might very well be related to your two missed stitches.”

Xia Qing blinked in disbelief. Was it really that serious?

Crippled Wolf let out a howl of agreement at Zhang San’s explanation.

Zhang San went on, “That’s called a surgical error. Respect, non-maleficence, benefit, and fairness—those are the core principles of medical ethics when it comes to handling accidents. Since you made the mistake, you need to step up, figure out the consequences, and then try to make it right. Your job is to re-examine this wolf as soon as possible, confirm what went wrong, and do whatever follow-up care is needed to reduce the pain you caused.”

Crippled Wolf finally grinned, showing off two sharp white fangs.

Xia Qing nodded. “Understood. I’ll give that wolf a check-up as soon as possible. Thanks for your time, Third Brother.”

After hanging up, Xia Qing admitted to herself that she ought to take this seriously. “I’ll try to visit the southern wolf pack these next couple of days and have a look at Scarface Wolf.”

She and Crippled Wolf held each other’s gaze for a few seconds. Xia Qing got the message. “You want to come too?”

Crippled Wolf immediately broke into a wide, toothy smile.

“Alright, I’ll call you when it’s time. We’ll go together.” Xia Qing ended the call and then switched on a first-grade math video lesson. “Crippled, today we’re starting some really fun new stuff!”

Xia Qing kept her promise to her idol—if she was going to teach Crippled Wolf, she’d do it right.

The lesson she brought from school was geared toward human kids, so it wasn’t exactly perfect for a clever Brain-Evolved Wolf. Xia Qing trimmed the video down, skipping all the introductions about classroom rules for human students and leaving only the bits Crippled Wolf would care about.

“Class, math isn’t just for daily life. There’s a whole world of math in the Evolved Forest too. Let’s take a look together!”

With the teacher’s lively storytelling drawing them in, the video dove into nature’s math lessons inside the Evolved Forest:

Birds picking the shortest routes when migrating, bees building hexagonal hives to save time and materials and strengthen structure, ants counting food with surprising accuracy…

Crippled Wolf watched with genuine interest, but when the video failed to mention anything about wolves, he hit pause and looked at Xia Qing expectantly.

Xia Qing had prepared for this. She explained, “Of course wolves are smart and use math too. When you hunt, don’t you send Black Wolf and Lame Wolf’s sister to track prey, then Broken Leg and the others to flush them out, and finally the Queen and you catch them?”

“That’s teamwork—and it’s a kind of swarm intelligence algorithm. The Queen is brilliant, and so are you. You’re all top-tier Evolved Wolves!”

Crippled Wolf broke into a huge, fanged grin, proudly flashing four sharp teeth.

When the lesson part wrapped up, the real teaching began. The first topic: recognizing numbers from zero to ten and understanding quantity.

For Crippled Wolf, this was child’s play. In under twenty minutes, he’d mastered it all and aced Xia Qing’s little test. Next, it was time for lesson two—how to write the numbers zero through ten.

After the teacher in the video showed how to write each number, Xia Qing got serious and asked, “Crippled, want to try writing numbers yourself? Use your paw!”