Chapter 475: A Hearty Breakfast Awaits

Xia Qing warmed herself by the fireplace for a while. Once she felt a bit cozier, she opened her backpack and took out deodorizing powder, spray, body wash and incense.

She’d bartered these items from Yan Long. According to him, the deodorizing effect was, in his words, ‘decent.’ If a level nine Scent Evolution expert calls it ‘decent,’ it must be impressive.

Step one for deodorizing: spray the deodorant.

Xia Qing picked up the spray but her fingers hurt too much to press the nozzle. Step one: fail.

Step two: light the deodorizing incense.

She held the incense up to the roaring fire in the fireplace. Success.

Step three: set out boxes of gas-absorbing agents in each room.

These gas absorption boxes came from a trade with Idol. They effectively soak up C and D class toxins in the air. Xia Qing took a knife, slit open the seal on each box and set them around the rooms upstairs, downstairs and in the living room. Success.

Step four: apply deodorizing powder. Trouble was, the Wolf Pack had just rolled through the Devastation Snow, so their fur was damp. Rubbing in powder now would just turn it into a mess. Xia Qing picked up the bag of powder, thought twice, and put it down. She gave up on that step.

Step five: wash and disinfect the protective suits.

She stripped off her patch-covered protective boots, took off her own suit and threw it into a big wash basin along with the three wolves’ suits, adding in the deodorizing disinfectant Zhang He had given her.

According to Zhang He, the reason the Yellow Weasel’s toxin smells linger is because it contains a time-release evolved compound. Xia Qing forgot the name – what stuck with her is that the stuff makes the stink last by releasing the toxin gradually.

Even with Zhang San’s top-tier pesticide, it takes a full week to remove this evolved compound. After soaking and rinsing the suits, Xia Qing was worn out and just hung the suits in the first floor bathroom to drain and dry slowly.

With step five done, Xia Qing’s last reserves of strength were spent. She slipped off her patched-up protective boots, opened the security door and left them under the eaves to air out. Looking up, she was dumbfounded to spot the Huge Wolf—of all things—burrowed into her quilt.

The laundry line had snapped and now her quilt, clipped at the corners, had become the Huge Wolf’s cold-weather coat. It was the very quilt she’d worked for months to make, spinning cotton from her precious seeds.

The handsome Huge Wolf, now dressed in its makeshift cloak, met Xia Qing’s gaze with icy blue eyes. Lacking the strength to argue, Xia Qing cowered back inside and shut the door.

She switched on the toxin detector to find the toxin levels had dropped by a tiny fraction—point zero one percent. All that work made a little difference, at least.

Now it was just after six AM. Outside, the wind and snow had eased off a bit. Xia Qing settled by the fire, deciding to rest and regain her strength before starting breakfast.

An hour and a half later, Xia Qing slowly went upstairs and opened the closet in the storage room. Inside were two brand-new protective suits: one was a Grade-Four Field Protective Suit she’d traded for with Tang Huai, the other a Special Protective Suit she’d bought from the base chief with spinach seeds.

She stared at the Special Protective Suit admiringly for a while, but finally took the Grade-Four Field Suit and put it on. She left the house, headed for the storage shed on the east side, and carried back sweet potatoes, cabbage, potatoes and chestnuts from the vegetable cellar beneath the garage. Feeling weak, she only picked out Green Lantern (Evolved Fish) grade ingredients for today.

Tasks she used to breeze through now felt like a struggle. Her bag weighed less than twenty pounds, but it still felt heavier than lugging the two-thousand-pound Green Lantern.

Losing your strength—there’s nothing scarier.

Stepping out of the garage, Xia Qing saw Er Gou standing in the wind and snow waiting for her. Moved, she called out, “Er, got any strength left? Help me carry this bag back home. Breakfast for us is inside.”

Er Gou wagged his tail, signaling Xia Qing to load up the supplies on his back.