Chapter 498: A Winter Refuge for Red Squirrel

The little guy was clearly parched. The moment it saw the pure spring water, it rushed over and started drinking, forgetting all about its fear of Xia Qing.

Xia Qing watched closely for a while and noticed that Red Squirrel wasn’t hurt. All the blood on its fur came from the mutant field mice. Still, it looked much thinner than before, and its coat had lost its shine. Most likely, those mutant field mice figured out the resident Red Squirrel was weak—maybe by its droppings or some other clue—and decided to gang up and steal its food.

Once Red Squirrel had its fill, Xia Qing put the bowl away and turned to tidy up the food in the stone den. At the slightest movement from Xia Qing, Red Squirrel panicked and darted a dozen meters away, hiding high up in a pine tree.

When Red Squirrel saw this human pulling out tools and rummaging through its food stash, it started jumping around in a frenzy, chattering and cursing non-stop.

Still, Red Squirrel never tried to attack Xia Qing. Xia Qing wasn’t worried anyway—Red Squirrel’s claws and teeth could never pierce her Level-3 Wild Protection Suit.

Plenty of the food stored in the stone den had already been spoiled by the mutant mice. Xia Qing picked out what was still salvageable, stuffed it in a bag, and collected the corpses of the mutant field mice. Then she threw the lot over her shoulder and headed for the next tree hollow.

Clutching two peanuts, Red Squirrel dashed into the stone den looped around once and then ran right back out, chasing after Xia Qing and cursing as it bounced along.

Xia Qing shot back, “Relax, I have way more food than you. No offense, but I’m not interested in whatever’s been pawed over by those mice.”

Bag in hand, Xia Qing reached the next tree hollow, only to discover its food stores had also been ransacked by mutant field mice. One after another, every hollow she checked had been hit.

So after an entire autumn of hard work, all Red Squirrel had left to get through the winter was what Xia Qing now carried—less than ten pounds of pine nuts, chestnuts and wild grass seeds.

No wonder Red Squirrel fought so fiercely with those mutant field mice inside the den. If it lost all its food, it would have no choice but to dig through the icy Devastation Snow all winter long in a desperate search for scraps. Even if predators or snow-mites didn’t get to it first, overdosing on Devastation Element would make it lose control.

This little one definitely shouldn’t spend the winter here on Hill Forty-Nine, Section Three.

Shouldering the bag, Xia Qing led her cranky, chattering little neighbor back to her own territory. She had no idea how much food a mutant squirrel needed to make it through three months of semi-hibernation, but she could share some of her own supplies.

If not for Red Squirrel, Xia Qing never would have found the hot spring valley behind the bear cave on Hill Fifty. So, she considered this food as payment for showing her the way.

Xia Qing found a hollow tree in the Western Buffer Forest, lined it with dry straw, then poured some of Red Squirrel’s food inside. Softly, she called up to Red Squirrel, who was peeking from a nearby tree, “This tree hollow used to be your home, right? Spend the winter here. My territory has wolves—mutant mice and pine martens wouldn’t dare come in.”

Red Squirrel fluffed its tail and peered at Xia Qing with those bright, round eyes, watching from behind the tree. Once Xia Qing left, it rushed inside to guard its food stash.

Back home, Xia Qing grabbed the emergency thermal blanket she’d been keeping in the tool shed.

The emergency blanket Yang Jin had wrapped her in was already torn up by branches, but there was still enough left for a little squirrel.

Xia Qing returned to the buffer forest. She could hear Red Squirrel shuffling around in its new home. Seeing the little creature so busy, Xia Qing couldn’t help but see a bit of herself in it.

She climbed the tree and stuffed some emergency blanket fabric and three hickory nuts into the hollow. She called out to the frozen Red Squirrel, “Use that fabric as a quilt—it’ll keep you warm at night. The hickory nuts are a little gift from me, and they’re Green Lantern ones. Eating them is good for you. Don’t be put off by the small number—even the most handsome human in our base only gave me this much for wrapping him up in a blanket.”

With that, Xia Qing folded what was left of the emergency blanket into a palm-sized piece and tacked it up as a door curtain for Red Squirrel’s new home.

Down from the tree, Xia Qing gazed up with satisfaction. “Old Goat, Er Gou—what do you think? Pretty good, huh?”

Old Goat chewed cud slowly with eyes half-closed, pretending not to notice.

Er Gou just grinned and let out a silly laugh in Xia Qing’s direction.

Xia Qing brushed pine bark off her gloves, “You’re right, Er Gou—it’s gorgeous. Come on, let’s go get some work done in the greenhouse.”

The three of them had barely started ambling toward the greenhouse when Xia Qing heard sounds coming from the tree hollow. Red Squirrel was already burrowing into the emergency blanket she’d brought, and Xia Qing couldn’t help but smile.

Even though Devastation Snow had ended two days ago, the air was still thick with Devastation Element. That’s why Xia Qing left both the Yi Stone and the grow lamps in place inside the greenhouse and her special wheat field. Thanks to those, everything in the greenhouse was thriving—plants and animals both. No wonder not only Old Goat and Er Gou loved staying there; Xia Qing enjoyed it too.

She grabbed her small hoe and crouched on a field ridge, loosening the soil around the seedlings and pulling weeds.

The weeds she dug up were split into two piles. The ones Old Goat liked got tossed over the thorn fence for him to eat; the ones he didn’t like got packed into a small basket for Er Gou to feed the fish, chickens, and rabbits in the next-door greenhouse.

This kind of work always relaxed Xia Qing. She started telling Old Goat and Er Gou about Red Squirrel’s troubles as she worked.

After weeding, Xia Qing checked the peanuts drying on the rain cover in the breeding greenhouse. The peanuts weren’t fully dried yet, but their skins were much less sticky. Xia Qing pocketed a few Green Lantern peanuts for tomorrow.

If Red Squirrel came looking for water by her window tomorrow, she’d treat it to a couple of peanuts.

Under the sunset, one human, one wolf, and one goat ambled home. Old Goat scrambled onto his toy power cart while Er Gou flopped by the fireplace to nap.

Xia Qing gave Old Goat an enthusiastic round of praise, took off her protective suit, and added a few logs to the fireplace. As dinner cooked, she listened to the radio.

Wind battered the smoke coming out of the chimney, scattering it every which way, but inside the house it was warm and cozy—if a bit smelly.

While the winter winds howled, warm rustling sounds drifted from the tree hollow in the buffer forest. A tiny squirrel poked its head out from behind the new blanket curtain, looked around, then ducked back inside before the cold got to it. Moments later the crackle of shell cracking echoed as Red Squirrel expertly bit through a hickory nut and polished off the nutmeat inside.

Night settled in. Xia Qing sat at the table, dinner in front of her, the news on the radio. Her whole dinner was made of Green Lantern food: Green Lantern rice, stir-fried Green Lantern peppers and eggs, and a soup of Green Lantern python meatballs sprinkled with fresh Green Lantern onion leaves.

Devastation Snow had just cleared up, so the radio was full of heartwarming stories from the storm, plus updates on how the Huicheng Base was banding together to fend off the beast tide.

It had been six days since the man-made extreme mutant pathogen disaster broke out on Hill Fifty, but it still hadn’t made the base news.