Chapter 803: A Rush for the Red Squirrel’s Life

Before Xia Qing could finish, Zhang San snapped, “Get lost! I’m not a vet! Stop bugging me with this kind of trivial crap, go find Zhang Song!”

“Got it, thanks Third Brother.” That was exactly the answer Xia Qing wanted to hear.

Zhang San was the lord of Territory Seven and head of the P3 Lab. According to the lab’s rules, Xia Qing wasn’t allowed to contact researchers directly without the boss’s permission. She knew she’d get chewed out for this call, but still had to grit her teeth and do it.

After finally getting his grudging consent, Xia Qing tucked the little squirrel into a small pouch and stuffed it in her pocket, then jumped in her car and sped toward Territory Seven.

“Beep beep—”

A flashy red off-roader pulled up, and Tang Huai rolled down the back window. “Xia Qing, where are you off to? I was just about to drop off some crab seedlings for you, my dad brought in the latest batch…”

“I’ve got an emergency, need to head to Territory Seven.” Xia Qing didn’t wait for him to finish rambling. As she reached for the crab seedlings, Tang Huai kept chattering while handing her the water-filled bag. “Next time you eat out with Xin Yu, bring me along, would you? I want to join you guys for dinner and hang out.”

“As long as Xin Yu’s okay with it, I don’t mind.” Xia Qing took the bag and set it carefully on Old Goat’s custom seat, then floored it and sped straight to the South Gate of Territory Seven.

Tang Huai…

Xin Yu was even harder to win over than Xia Qing, but he truly wanted a chance to visit Territory Eight and chat with that talking brain-evolved raven…

After getting past the gate check, Xia Qing bolted straight to the lab entrance. She carefully handed the baby red squirrel to Zhang Song. “This one’s about two months old. It got snatched by a hawk, dragged over fifty meters in the air before being dropped, and its belly was torn open by the hawk’s talons. Sorry, Brother Song, but could you help?”

Zhang Song nodded for Xia Qing to put the baby squirrel on the operating table, then carried it into the operating room and closed the door behind him. The ‘Surgery in Progress’ light above the door flickered on.

Huo Zhun rushed over from the monitoring room and dropped into the chair beside Xia Qing. “That little squirrel doesn’t look too badly hurt. I’m sure it’ll pull through.”

Xia Qing nodded. Both Yan Long and Ji Li were nowhere to be seen — probably one off trading supplies, the other questioning defectors. As for Huo Zhun, he must have seen what was up with the baby red squirrel through the cameras, which was why he sounded so confident.

Huo Zhun wanted to ask how the yellow weasel pups in Xia Qing’s territory were doing, and if any of them had inherited their dad’s evolved abilities. But seeing how worried Xia Qing looked over the red squirrel, he couldn’t help wondering:

Could that baby red squirrel be a member of the Combat Team too?

It didn’t really add up — red squirrels were even less of a fighter than gray squirrels. Maybe this little guy was an evolved one?

But what kind of evolution could a two-month-old red squirrel possibly have? Speed? Even if it moved fast, what real use was that at this age?

“Professor, take a look at this.” A voice came from inside the operating room — one of the surgical assistants calling for Zhang Song. From the background noises, Xia Qing could tell Zhang Song and three assistants were running scans on the baby red squirrel’s injuries.

Zhang Song’s voice carried out. “Here — and here. These two places on the large intestine were severed by the hawk’s talons, and infection’s already set in. Look at this — right kidney contusion, substantive swelling… Tell the testing team to speed up, ID the bacteria and viruses as quickly as possible, clean the wound right away, prep for minimally invasive surgery, suture the intestine first…”

Xia Qing kept her face blank and her hands still on her knees, pretending not to hear a thing — quietly listening as Huo Zhun talked about how poorly the crops were growing in Territory Eleven, grass was overrunning everything.

Inside the operating room, another assistant asked in a hushed voice, “Professor, should we consult with the lord of Section Three before proceeding? The surgery and medication will cost over three thousand credits, and even then, survival isn’t certain.”

No matter how much the lord liked animals, would he really shell out thousands of credits for a squirrel this small?

“No need.” Zhang Song replied calmly. “Get ready for surgery right away, and use the best medicine we’ve got.”

“Understood.”

About an hour later, the operating room light finally switched off.

When Zhang Song walked out holding the baby red squirrel in a glass box, Xia Qing’s heart leapt into her throat. “Brother Song…”

Zhang Song gave her a small smile. “Relax, it’s alive. The two severed intestinal sections are disinfected and sutured — everything else is mild. The trouble is, it got infected by evolution bacteria from the hawk’s talons. Even though this squirrel’s technically a Green Lantern animal, it’s still an infant — its immune system’s not fully developed yet. We’ll have to use Miracle Medicine to wipe out the bacteria, and it needs total isolation from devastation elements during the seven-day recovery. This cover won’t last long, so hurry — take it to Third Brother now.”

Any specialty medicines in Territory Seven required Zhang San’s approval for use.

“Alright, thanks for everything, Brother Song.” Xia Qing cradled the glass box and followed Huo Zhun for the next round of scolding.

Grumpy as ever, Zhang San glanced over the test report, then scowled. “Does it have to be saved?”

Xia Qing nodded firmly. “This squirrel is a brain-evolved. Its mom was the one who found those chestnuts and Green Lantern peanuts we’ve been eating. Once it grows up, it’ll be even smarter than its mother.”

From the moment this little one first crawled onto her shoulder, Xia Qing had kept an eye on it. After several days together, she was sure it had the makings of a brain-evolver.

Seeing the way this tiny creature lay motionless on the grass stack after being injured, Xia Qing couldn’t help but recall the Alpha from her childhood, when it had its ear torn by a giant raptor. That moment, she resolved to save the squirrel and see just how far it could go in the future.

Right now, the baby — in which Xia Qing had pinned all her hopes — was still unconscious, body crisscrossed with cuts. A patch of fur on its stomach had been shaved and taped for surgery, and a slightly messy tuft was stuck damply to one ear. It couldn’t have looked more pitiful.

Learning that this was the squirrel responsible for finding food, Zhang San’s mood improved noticeably. He spun around, tapped in a long password, and disappeared into the medicine room.

A few minutes later, he emerged with a slender dropper. Lifting the glass cover from the baby squirrel’s case, he expertly pried the little one’s mouth open and dripped the medicine inside.

This colorless, transparent liquid must have been the nearly side-effect-free Miracle Medicine Zhang Song mentioned. Judging by Zhang San’s now even darker expression, the stuff wasn’t cheap.

Xia Qing didn’t dare ask what it was — her idol already looked on edge. If she poked the bear, she might even get blocked for a while.

After the medicine went down, Xia Qing breathed easier — the baby red squirrel’s life was out of immediate danger, though Zhang San was still in a foul mood.

Zhang San pulled a thermal box from the medicine room and set it down with a thud in front of Xia Qing. “Feed it two milliliters every eight hours. As long as it’s alive, keep feeding till it’s finished. Surgery and medicine cost — I’m charging a hundred credits just for giving this little thing its meds, plus the credits you owe me from last time for the surveillance camera. All in all, that’s eighty thousand.”