Chapter 678: Quiet Partings and New Beginnings in the Territory

After returning to the territory and running into Old Goat pedaling the water bicycle, the first thing Xia Qing did was rush over to the breeding greenhouse to see how many chicks had hatched this afternoon.

The first brooding Luhua chicken’s nest held twenty eggs, and by noon today eight of them had hatched.

When Xia Qing arrived at the breeding greenhouse, eight out of the nine brooding hens were sitting diligently in their nests while one was wandering outside, leaving the ten eggs in her care huddled together and looking rather lonely.

Fixing a fierce look on the wandering hen, Xia Qing muttered, “Old Goat, do you see that one? If she doesn’t hatch a single chick in a few days, we’ll make her into chicken soup!”

“Baa.” Old Goat, who had followed Xia Qing over, replied, though his gaze was fixed on the Luhua hen.

Xia Qing’s eyes followed his, spotting a fuzzy yellow chick with a red marking on its head peeking out from under the Luhua chicken’s wing. The other chicks were tucked away tight and out of sight.

Turning on the lights, Xia Qing scattered feed for the chickens. The Luhua hen left her nest and headed over to the feeding trough, nine fluffy chicks trailing after their mom. Each one looked impossibly cute. The chick without a red dot on its head was the one that had just hatched this afternoon.

The adult chickens ate from the trough, while the chicks wriggled into the fine-toothed cage next to the chicken yard to nibble on the special feed Xia Qing had prepared just for them.

The chick feed was made from dried breadworms, finely crushed corn, even finer-chopped vegetable leaves, and pure spring water, all mixed together.

While the red-dotted chicks squeezed into the cage to peck at their food, the newly hatched chick left its mother and followed its siblings inside.

Before it got a bite, Xia Qing reached into the cage from above and gently scooped it up to give it its first medicine.

Raising chicks isn’t as simple as letting the hen handle everything. From birth to their first month, the chicks need medicine and vaccines.

The starter medicine is a liquid drop dripped straight into their mouths. Every chick gets it right after hatching. It helps flush out toxins, prevents and treats diseases like infectious diarrhea and enteritis caused by evolved fungi, and boosts their immune system and odds of survival.

After giving the medicine, Xia Qing gently pinched the chick’s little beak and dripped another drop into its tiny nostrils. Once the chick inhaled it, she dipped a wooden stick in red dye and drew a big spot on its head. This meant the chick—marked by black stripes near its eyes and along its back—had received its medicine and first vaccination.

She softly stroked the chick’s downy body to make sure it swallowed the medicine, then set the little one back in the cage to rejoin the others for feed and water.

Eating is an animal instinct—they’re born knowing how.

Watching these tiny balls of fluff, each smaller than her fist, peck at the feed and sip at water, Xia Qing’s eyes sparkled with joy. She never imagined that the first baby creature she’d get to pet after arriving in the territory wouldn’t be a wolf or a weasel, but a chick.

Once they’d eaten their fill, the chicks perked right up. The well-fed Luhua hen clucked softly a couple of times, and her chicks rushed out of the cage to find her.

The hen led her babies for a stroll around the chicken yard before heading back to the nest to settle in and resume brooding. Some of the chicks burrowed into her feathers to nap, while others wandered and explored.

After checking carefully on the rest of the brooding hens and feeding the rabbits and fish, Xia Qing picked a handful of alfalfa and grabbed three eggs before heading home to cook.

Walking past the sheep shed, Xia Qing suddenly stopped and listened. Something felt off. It was too quiet inside—no squeaking of weasel pups or the sound of them rustling through the straw.

She called softly, “Balding one, White Weasel, are you in there?”

She called three more times. When there was still no sound, Xia Qing pulled up the surveillance feed. The sheep shed’s cardboard box and hay bale were spotless—not a trace of a weasel.

She took out her phone and scrubbed through the recorded surveillance footage. Soon she found the spot—at half past four that afternoon, not long after she’d left for Wolf Valley, the Balding Weasel came back to the sheep shed dragging a large magpie.

About half an hour later, it carried out half the plucked magpie corpse and left it on the straw mat outside Xia Qing’s door. Then, wearing its usual grin, the weasel stood tall at her doorstep for a full minute before heading back to the shed.

Not long after, Balding Weasel came out carrying three weasel pups on its back, and White Weasel followed behind with two pups of its own. Together they left the sheep shed and slipped out of the yard.

Xia Qing rewound and paused the footage, zooming in for a closer look at the young weasels riding on White Weasel’s back. The two little ones, gripping their mother tight with their claws, had finally opened their eyes after a month—peering, clear-eyed and damp, right at the camera.

Switching to a different camera, Xia Qing watched as the weasel family took the eastern path out of the village, heading north, and climbed over the iron mesh wall.

With their pups past the danger of early life and their eyes now open, the weasel couple had brought their family to leave human territory.

Since Xia Qing had already programmed the two weasels into the monitoring system, the camera didn’t send her an alert when they were caught on footage.

They didn’t leave without a word on purpose—it was simply time to go, and Xia Qing just wasn’t home.

But what about the plucked magpie half Balding Weasel left by her door?

Xia Qing switched to the camera at home and played the recording on fast-forward. Fifteen minutes after the weasel family left, Red Squirrel jumped down from the roof and snatched away the magpie.

Pausing the scene again, Xia Qing squinted at Red Squirrel’s stretched-out body in mid-leap and noticed its belly was noticeably round.

So this little one must be pregnant too and in need of extra nutrition. Xia Qing decided to let it off the hook this time and not raid its stash.

“Old Goat, Balding one and White Weasel have left,” Xia Qing said as she went back inside to her companion already lounging on the tatami. “Looks like they treated our place like a postpartum retreat.”

Old Goat, still pedaling away at the stationary bike, probably didn’t get what Xia Qing meant, but it was clear he could sense her mood had slipped.

Once Xia Qing had shed her protective suit and changed, she went into the kitchen to wash up. Old Goat hopped off the bike and stood at the kitchen door, chewing quietly and watching her cook.

Before she had companions, Xia Qing never really felt lonely. Now that she did, she realized how much she needed someone around. Old Goat wasn’t clever, but he always stuck with her, making her feel secure.

Noticing him there, Xia Qing chatted half-heartedly, “I got a Yi Stone from the Queen for caring for White Weasel and her pups, and they’ve already left after just a few days. Didn’t even eat any eggs tonight. Old Goat, do you think the Queen will come by and take the stone back?”

“Baa.”

“Really? You think so?” Xia Qing snipped the washed alfalfa leaves and dropped them in a bowl, cracked in two eggs, sprinkled in some salt, and mixed everything up. “The Queen’s the dignified matriarch at the top of the pyramid, after all. She wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Baa.”

“Sizzle—”

The alfalfa and egg mixture hit the hot oil with a cheerful sizzle, filling the air with a mouthwatering aroma.

Scooping the cooked alfalfa eggs into a bowl, Xia Qing muttered, “Really bad timing for them to leave. I was planning to dig up bamboo shoots tomorrow and maybe bring some bamboo rats back for their snack. Old Goat, want me to dig you up some shoots too? Do you even like bamboo shoots?”

“Baaaaa—!”