Chapter 661: Dangerous Harvest in the Evolved Forest

It wasn’t even six in the morning when Xia Qing’s year-long habit of rising early for farming woke her up.

She lay still for a few seconds, listening to the sounds of running water, birdsongs, and insects outside. Then she got up, tidied herself, grabbed breakfast, and slipped out of the tent to let Yang Jin get some rest inside.

After Devastation Rain, the Evolved Forest was full of dangers. You couldn’t take off your protective mask or expose any skin outside the tent, or you’d risk letting airborne fungal spores or bacteria invade your body—or get bitten by a poisonous insect and die.

Forget drinking or eating; even going to the bathroom had to be done inside the tent. This was one of the biggest hassles of field missions, so before Xia Qing’s team set out, they’d eat only compressed rations for the first two days to cut down bathroom trips on the road.

An even better option than eating compressed rations was drinking nutrient shake.

But since compressed rations made from grass only cost a couple of credits per bar while a regular nutrient shake ran anywhere from 200 to 400 credits—and premium shakes shot up to two thousand—Xia Qing would only ever bring two normal ones for emergencies. Unless she faced real danger or they were about to expire, she couldn’t bear to use them.

To get the most out of those two shakes, she made sure to do extra missions within their shelf life to earn more credits.

Beyond eating, water was still an issue. Even though you’d sweat out almost everything while trekking through the Evolved Forest, Xia Qing would still scale back her water intake just to cut down on bathroom breaks.

After Yang Jin came out, he showed Xia Qing the route and data on the tracker. “That python dragged the Devastation Snake with it for five hours and sixteen minutes, covering several kilometers, before stopping up north a few kilometers away.”

Then he pulled out a marked paper map, showing the python’s route and where it ended up. Sure enough, the python carrying the Devastation Snake had traveled from Hill Fifty-Five to the lake north of Hill Sixty.

The python’s path ran through rivers above ground and areas labeled as forest on the map, which made sense. The green Devastation Snake was an evolved bamboo viper—it needed to breathe with lungs and would have to surface every so often—so the python couldn’t stay submerged for too long.

That gives them an edge. If you want to wipe out the Devastation Snake later, just guard the river passage the python uses to get back to the northern lake.

Today’s goal: keep hunting Devastation Snakes and gather underwater medicinal herbs.

Xia Qing explained the situation to Yang Jin, then suggested, “While that python’s still gone, let’s team up and dig out that herb from the pond. What do you think?”

Yang Jin glanced at the photo on Xia Qing’s phone and recognized it right away. “That’s one of the medicinal herbs we need to detoxify Zhang Hongda. I didn’t catch it in that video clip, but good thing you spotted it. Since we’ve found it, there’s no way we’re leaving it behind.”

Xia Qing knew that with Luo Pei’s connection to Yue Haiying, Yang Jin was probably one of the people she’d asked to look for herbs. It wasn’t surprising he knew what the herb was for.

It was no wonder he missed that split-second shot of a leaf nearly identical to regular grass. Unless you followed those two yellow weasels around every day, you wouldn’t have all the subtle traits of both herbs burned into your brain. Without that, Xia Qing would’ve missed it too.

Still, credit where it’s due. “It was Third Brother who figured it out. He said this herb growing on the underwater rock wall is probably a different evolved variant of the same species, but the medicinal effects aren’t verified yet.”

If this herb checked out for use, Xia Qing could re-label the sheep shed so only a single kind of herb was needed.

To get to the herbs at a depth of around ten meters in the python pond, they needed a solid plan.

Xia Qing’s approach was to chop down trees to make wooden bars ten meters long, tie a rock, flashlight, and a hook to one end, then fish for the herbs underwater.

Yang Jin shot down that idea. The detector showed the herbs grew in cracks between the rocks, so Xia Qing’s method wouldn’t have enough flexibility and would just ruin the herbs, wrecking their medicinal value. Plus, since the pond was connected to subterranean rivers, there might be pythons or other big beasts lurking. Odds were they’d break the pole before you got anything at all.

The final plan: the two of them would lure away any python or dangerous animals lurking in the water. Then Yang Jin would dive for the herbs while Xia Qing would cover him with a sniper rifle, keeping watch for any predators. As for the credit split, they’d divvy it up based on who contributed more during the mission.

Yang Jin handed Xia Qing a special homemade pistol and showed her how to use it before heading off to find a good spot to rig up traps and try to contain the python for a while.

If the python at Hill Fifty-Five could scare off wolf packs and gather Devastation Snakes from all around into a mutually beneficial alliance, that meant their group probably had an alpha with Brain Evolution.

High-intelligence predators could rally their own into a massive fighting force. If humans provoked or hunted the group members, there was a real risk of savage retaliation. Just look at the bloody fight between the Western Wolf Pack and Hui Three Base a while back.

So, the python group at Hill Fifty-Five needed to go on the list of ‘advanced evolved beasts not to be provoked.’ They had to handle this with caution.

This time, Xia Qing and Yang Jin weren’t here to kill pythons or fight for territory or prey, just to dig up a few herbs in the python’s domain. No reason to make enemies. As long as they lured them away, they’d be fine.

While Yang Jin went off to set up the trap, Xia Qing hunted down an evolved animal—could’ve been a deer, cow, or sheep—and broke it into pieces, tying it off with rope to make a perfect python bait.

Once Yang Jin finished stringing up the trap using the aggressive Devastation Evolution Tree vine, they headed to the pond, tossed a bait into the water, and started lowering the rope.

It hadn’t even been two minutes when Xia Qing saw a shadow in the deep water, growing fast. She blurted,

“It’s coming!”

Yang Jin yanked the bait up just as a python burst from the water, jaws wide, shooting more than six meters up.

It was the first time Xia Qing had come face to face with a living giant python. Every hair on her body stood on end—she was both pumped and terrified.

She watched as Yang Jin used the bait to lead the python away, then dropped a second chunk into the water, eyes wide, focused on the depths.

And when she caught sight of another shadow, Xia Qing couldn’t help but curse, “Dammit!”

She’d somehow managed to fish up not one, but two giant pythons with just one piece of meat!