Chapter 934: Evening Baths and Eagle Hunts

After finishing the fig, Zhang San slipped on his gloves and praised Xia Qing. “Nicely done. Bring the soil and branch samples and come with me.”

Huh…wait, does this mean she’s qualified to enter Third Brother’s inner lab?

“Got it!” Xia Qing hurried after him, hefting her samples.

By the time she left Territory Seven loaded down with gear, the blazing sunset had faded to a dusky blue.

Rushing back home, Xia Qing found Flathead missing, and Old Goat and Er had already taken her bag back. Only three chubby foxes were still playing near the reservoir at the foot of the hill.

Lugging a huge barrel of freshly drawn pure spring water down the hillside, Xia Qing gave the foxes a quick pet, then hurried home. She poured the water into a large wooden basin, added the pesticide she’d made with her Idol, and just like that, the spring water became a special root-soaking solution, perfect for disinfecting and rooting fig branches.

With her friends gathered around to watch, Xia Qing took out a branch over a meter long, picked out healthy segments free of pests, and snipped them into cuttings around 20 centimeters each.

She left one to three healthy leaves at the top of each cutting, trimmed away the others, then angled the base for maximum water uptake and dropped the stems into the rooting solution to soak.

All the leaves she snipped off went to Old Goat, who’d spent all day guarding the territory and lecturing Flathead.

Once every branch had been trimmed and was soaking, Xia Qing switched out of her protective suit, took a quick shower, and started humming as she made dinner for herself and Er.

But just as dinner was ready, the Wolf Pack showed up.

“That giant eagle? I shot it. I’m officially this territory’s top sniper now!”

Xia Qing spun the phone screen toward the two wolves, grinned, and took a giant bite of her Green Lantern scallion and egg pancake. After harvesting both spring and winter wheat, she’d finally achieved total freedom to eat all the Green Lantern flour she wanted.

Scallion and egg pancakes were simple but packed with nutrition. After eleven years without Green Lantern wheat flour, Xia Qing could never get enough.

The two wolves crouched solemnly by the dinner table, replaying the clip of the giant eagle being shot out of the sky and hauled off by humans. They only looked up at Xia Qing after watching it several times.

“Yep, I did that!” Xia Qing took a sip of Green Lantern chicken soup and scrolled to show them the Gui Five bounty task video.

Hearing the eagle’s sharp cry, both Er and Monkey froze mid-bite, while Old Goat just lounged in the hammock chair, chewing cud with his eyes half closed.

When the video showed someone capturing a shrieking monkey and a giant eagle swooping in, Alpha let out a low growl. His bright golden eyes burned with killing intent.

Xia Qing grew serious, gesturing for the wolves: “There were two of these giant eagles in total. I took down one, but the other one—I have no idea where it went. Queen, Broken Back, make sure you keep all the wolf pups safe.”

After watching the video twice, Crippled Wolf dashed upstairs, fetched down a basket with a laptop in it, opened the accessory box, and slipped on his stylus.

Because Crippled Wolf’s big paws made computers tricky, Xia Qing had tweaked the stylus so it could strap onto his paw and sold it to him.

After some clumsy tutorials and practice, Crippled Wolf, now with a stylus strapped to his big paw, could operate a laptop pretty smoothly.

Of course, “smoothly” here only meant he could power it on or off, open or close folders, and pick out and play video files.

Typing and reading words—that’s still not something a wolf should have to do.

He’d learned to tap and poke his own pink laptop, and after watching Xia Qing show how to play videos, Crippled Wolf had the trick down.

He lifted his left paw, stylus attached, and tapped around on Xia Qing’s phone till the next video popped up. While Alpha watched the screen intently, Crippled Wolf looked up and flashed Xia Qing his adorable, white, sharp little fangs.

“Broken Back, you’re getting better and better. Really awesome.” Xia Qing praised him as she munched on chicken drumstick, then turned to introduce Alpha. “Queen, this golden eagle appeared during today’s hunt. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Alpha watched the video in silence, while Crippled Wolf closed his mouth and gazed at Xia Qing.

Xia Qing…

“This giant eagle isn’t nearly as handsome as Crippled Wolf, and not half as awe-inspiring as the Queen.”

After dinner and washing up, Er and Monkey went to patrol the territory. Xia Qing and Old Goat started lugging pure spring water from the buffer forest back for the night’s baths, with Crippled Wolf tagging along for a while before losing interest and staying in to study with Alpha.

Handsome Huge Wolf lay sprawled under the eaves, while Black Wolf flopped by the sheep shed door, both making it clear they weren’t up for conversation with anyone—wolf or human. Alpha only brought the three of them this time, not even Little Wolf.

An hour after dinner, Xia Qing swallowed an Evolved Ba Zhen Pill and slipped into the medicinal bath. The instant she sank into the warm liquid, a sense of deep satisfaction swept over her.

She’d spent hours crouched in a nest, screamed at a pack of hyenas, and lugged hundreds of pounds of fig branches and fruit while sprinting nearly thirty miles through the forest. Her shoulders were red and swollen, her legs covered in bruises—her whole body throbbed.

But things were different now. Before, she just had to grit her teeth through injuries. Now, she had Blue Star’s top medic—Senior Expert Zhang San. This kind of soreness and pain? A single medicinal bath and she’d be good as new!

If she could soak in the bath eighteen times, fully repairing every muscle and bone, Xia Qing couldn’t even imagine how strong she’d become.

When she finished her bath, changed clothes, and went downstairs, she saw not just Alpha and Old Goat soaking, but Monkey too—pressed down into a small wooden tub by Crippled Wolf’s giant paw.

There was no medicine in the little tub, but Monkey stayed perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle.

“Thanks, Broken Back.” Xia Qing ladled a bit of medicinal liquid from the big bath barrel, soaked Monkey in it, then pulled Little Fei Mao from her pocket and dunked him too, wincing as she supervised the two employees’ baths.

And where was Crippled Wolf? Still in the living room, fiddling with Xia Qing’s phone.

To Xia Qing’s surprise, after Alpha and Old Goat finished their soak, the next in line wasn’t Crippled Wolf—but Handsome Huge Wolf.

Bracing herself against the pain and exhaustion, Xia Qing leaned gingerly in the bathroom to towel off Old Goat, and asked, “Big Wolf, how’d you end up next in the bath rotation?”

Handsome Huge Wolf lay slumped in the bath barrel, refusing to see or hear anything.

After Er dragged Old Goat out, Xia Qing moved closer to the barrel. Meeting Handsome Huge Wolf’s wary eyes, she gently pressed his big head down with her snakeskin-gloved hand and coaxed softly, “Come on, Big Wolf, get your head in too. Don’t be scared—the medicine will make your teeth stronger and sharper. You’ll get even tougher, I promise.”

A wolf’s main weapons were teeth and claws. Alpha could hold his breath underwater just like Xia Qing, and Crippled Wolf made the effort to soak every part of his body. Handsome Huge Wolf just hadn’t figured that out yet—his entire head stayed above the water.

He probably realized there was something to these baths, and should understand what Xia Qing meant. Still, she kept her hand ready to pull back at any sign of resistance.

No matter how well they understood one another, Xia Qing reminded herself she wasn’t dealing with her own kind. These were fierce forest beasts through and through.