Chapter 262: Red Brick and Bear Shadows

Working for nothing?

“No need,” Xia Qing refused flatly, turning back to her territory. Tang Huai might not be a bad guy, but he was irritating, and she had even more reservations about the Sufeng Squad. She had no interest in getting tangled up with the Tang family.

After Xia Qing slipped away behind the overgrown grass wall, Tang Huai grumbled and cursed, leaning against the signpost. “Damn, that woman just won’t listen to reason!”

Hu Zifeng strode out from behind Territory One’s thicket wall, face dark with anger as he marched over to Tang Huai. “Tang, stay away from Xia Qing or I’ll kill you myself!”

On the surface, Hu Zifeng was Xia Qing’s suitor. With Tang Huai setting his sights on Xia Qing, of course he had to act outraged.

Tang Huai immediately jumped back into Territory Two, smacking his own chest for emphasis. “Come on then! If you have guts, shoot me right here!”

As the acting leader of Territory Two, Tang Huai was covered by the ‘Lord’s Law’ as long as he stayed inside the borders.

Hu Zifeng spat out an insult, face still stormy. “If you’ve got the guts, come out. Quit hiding in there like a cowardly turtle.”

“You want guts? Come inside!”

“You come out!”

“You get in here!”

The two started hurling insults back and forth. Xia Qing didn’t feel like listening to their nonsense any longer and headed over to the storage spot in the abandoned village to load bricks and stones onto the cart with Old Goat.

All of Xia Qing’s building supplies had been dug up from the ruins of three old houses in her territory’s abandoned villages—hollow bricks, perforated bricks, and the red bricks.

Twenty years before the disaster, Huaguo had strictly limited the production and use of red bricks for environmental sustainability. But in these abandoned villages, most of the old buildings were made of red brick, so Xia Qing managed to salvage a ton. She even kept the ones that were split in half.

She’d also unearthed load-bearing stone blocks from the old houses’ foundations, stacking them neatly. These were already cut and polished, and even easier to use than bricks.

The next morning, as Xia Qing made her rounds of the territory with Old Goat and Wolfdog Number Two, she noticed tiny holes munching through the sweet potato leaves in the veggie terraces.

She rushed over for a closer look and soon found the culprit: freshly hatched little larvae no more than three millimeters long.

Xia Qing checked the insect net every day, regularly sprayed repellents and disinfectants, and was always careful when entering the greenhouse to avoid tracking in bacteria, eggs, or moths. Thanks to these layers of precautions, bugs in the greenhouse were much fewer than outside.

Still, no matter how careful you are, there’s no way to keep out every single pest. If bugs show up, you wipe them out. Killing bugs, weeding, fertilizing, and watering—that’s just the usual life of a farmer.

Xia Qing got in touch with Territory Seven, had her idol confirm the bug species, then swapped for the right pesticide and carefully sprayed down every single greenhouse.

After spraying, when she headed home, both the sheep and wolf wanted nothing to do with her, keeping their distance thanks to the smell.

Thanks to Blue Star’s biosphere upheaval, all pesticides were now biological mixes where one creature countered another. Effective at killing bugs but not much of a threat to sheep—still, the strong smell made Old Goat and the rest steer clear.

Xia Qing actually liked the scent. Once diluted, it reminded her of fresh mint.

With a mischievous grin, Xia Qing chased after Old Goat, who nearly got mad enough to pick a fight. After washing and disinfecting her protective suit, Xia Qing downed her breakfast and got back to work on the chicken house.

It was a full day’s labor—she cleaned the chicken house floor, dug and packed the foundations, then started laying the stone. That’s when Hu Zifeng showed up, hauling forty pounds of pine cones. “We had more people today, so we managed to collect the leftover pine cones from the first tree. There’s more than yesterday.”

The more they picked, the more Xia Qing got. She thanked him and asked, “Did you run into any evolved bears?”

“Almost bumped into one on the way. Luckily, we had people with enhanced smell and hearing, so we dodged them in time.” Hu Zifeng let out a sigh. “Let’s hope those bears are just passing through.”

Off limits? Xia Qing pressed further. “Are there mind-evolved bears in the area?”

Bears were solitary by nature, and no matter how tough the evolved ones were, with the Azure Dragon Squad’s gear, a few main squads could take one down.

But if mind-evolved bears were around, things got tricky.

Bears were already some of the smartest wild animals. A mind-evolved bear was as sharp as a mind-evolved wolf, if not more so. Worse, those bears could herd others together and lead them to fight in unison.

A dozen or so evolved brown bears under the command of a mind-evolved one were strong enough to wipe out a small human settlement.

That’s not just a scary story. It really happened.

Back in year four of the disaster, survivors were still scattered, long before the current setup with just one big safe zone per base. Many people thought they were strong enough to protect their little nests and wouldn’t leave them behind.

That year, there was a settlement of over ten thousand people inside Base Four. Someone hunting outside killed an adult mother bear and captured two brown bear cubs.

The mother was skinned and eaten, while the cubs were kept to be trained as allies against the evolved beasts.

Just two weeks later, on a cold, stormy night, sixteen evolved brown bears showed up outside the settlement, knocked down the walls, and rescued those cubs, smashing every building inside.

With the storm and the bear attack, over three thousand people died. The survivors risked everything fleeing to the safe zone, but even on the road, they were attacked again and again. By the time they reached safety, only a few hundred were left.

The entire country was shaken by that tragedy.

Afterwards, Huaguo sent bombers to finally wipe out the two mind-evolved bears.

Stories like this weren’t rare. Humans always managed to kill the evolved beasts in the end, but not without paying a terrible price.

By year ten, survivors had lost the arrogance of lording over animals. Unless there was no choice, no one picked a fight with top-tier evolved beasts—especially the mind-evolved ones.

Hu Zifeng nodded. “There are two mind-evolved bears living up on Hill Sixty-One. Our territory doesn’t have the kind of sturdy walls the safe zones do, so it’s best not to provoke them. If those two turn out to be connected to the mind-evolved bears, we’re in real trouble.”

Xia Qing agreed completely. “Did Captain Hu report the evolved bear sighting to Captain Tan?”

“He did. Captain Tan already sent it up the chain. The military will closely monitor the bears’ movements and act if they threaten the territory.”

Even the army didn’t want showdowns with mind-evolved bears. If they could chase them away, they wouldn’t try to wipe them out.

After Hu Zifeng took off, Xia Qing carried the sack home, spread out the pine cones to dry on the roof, then went right back to building the chicken house.

The crippled wolf slunk over and sat nearby, quietly observing.

Xia Qing looked over at it and started chatting. “So, yesterday’s howling evolved bear—is that your rival or your ally?”

“Did the Queen mention anything after she came back from watching those two bears bellowing at Hill Fifty? Once your back’s healed, you aren’t planning to brawl with bears, are you?” Xia Qing paused from scooping a bucket of high-strength concrete and straightened up to issue a warning.

“Look, I don’t care who you wolves fight, but make sure you don’t do it near my territory. Otherwise, Old Goat and I are doomed.”

She locked eyes with the crippled wolf for a few seconds and sighed. The wolf’s calm look said it understood everything, but she always felt like they were on completely different wavelengths.

If they had a few more months together, Xia Qing figured their communication would get a lot smoother. But this wolf would finish healing soon and head right back to the evolved forest.

Giving up on the conversation, Xia Qing grabbed the bucket and went back to building walls.