Chapter 974: Recovery and Routine: Changes Under the Moon

After a bone fracture heals, can the leg brace be removed?

Xia Qing flipped through the professional manual Zhang Song had given her and read the relevant section aloud to Broken Back Wolf: “For a mild bone fracture, the standard fixation period for ordinary humans is six weeks, or forty-two days. For advanced evolutionaries, it’s only twenty days.”

She pulled a color printout from her drawer. It showed a series of moon phases from full to waning to full again, with numbers listed below.

The sun never changes, but the moon is different each night. Using this chart, Xia Qing could translate ‘days’ into a timeline Broken Back Wolf understood. “See, the moon changes from this shape to that shape in twenty days—the time advanced evolutionaries need to have their fracture fixed. You’re an advanced evolutionary. You’ve only had the brace for ten days, so it’s like the moon from here to here. Technically, you need to wear it for another ten days.”

Broken Back Wolf wore a stern expression, clearly disagreeing. After all, it was an Evolved Wolf, not an evolved human.

“You’ve soaked in my medicine that heals bones and skin. All that pain we went through wasn’t for nothing—and it’s normal for you to heal faster. Let me check with Third Brother to see if the brace can come off.” Xia Qing exported the wolf’s scans and sent them to her Idol for advice.

It wasn’t even half past six yet, and Xia Qing’s question wasn’t urgent. She didn’t want to wake her late-sleeping Idol with a call.

Would his phone even make a notification sound?

Nope. Idol was a researcher who needed total focus for work and experiments. He hated interruptions, so his work and personal phones were both silenced—unless the call came from one of a handful of important contacts.

He only saw missed calls and messages when he finished up and happened to glance at his phone.

Luckily, Xia Qing was on that shortlist of special contacts.

An hour later, Zhang San finally replied: The brace could be removed, but for the next ten days, Broken Back Wolf needed regular rehab and had to avoid strenuous activity. After ten days, another X-ray would be necessary to reassess healing.

If the patient were the rambunctious Lame Wolf, Xia Qing would have delayed removal a few extra days—otherwise, he’d go wild the moment the brace came off. But Broken Back Wolf was steady and reliable, so she decided he could begin rehab right away.

So Xia Qing showed Broken Back Wolf the message from Third Brother, explained the situation, and carefully took off the brace from his left foreleg.

Being free of the cumbersome brace put the wolf in high spirits—at least until he saw that the fur on his leg was now just a patchy stump. Suddenly, his mood tanked.

For the first time, Xia Qing heard him open his jaws and let out an epic bout of wolfish complaining: “Awoo… awooo… awooo…”

She couldn’t decipher the actual words, but the tone and look on his face told her just how much he was grumbling.

To an Evolved Wolf who prized a lush, thick coat as a mark of beauty, a bald leg was a devastating blow.

Xia Qing had expected this vain creature to act just like this once the brace was off. She pulled up a photo in her phone showing Broken Back Wolf’s leg right after it was shaved and showed it to him.

“Look, Broken Back, ten days ago your leg looked like this. But see? The fur’s already growing back. Next time the moon is full, both legs will have the same coat again.”

Broken Back Wolf studied the photo, glanced at his own leg, and his mood seemed to recover a bit. He nudged Xia Qing, wanting her to take him to the bathroom—he wanted to wash his paws and leg.

Now that the brace was gone, he could finally smell just how stinky his leg and paw had gotten.

Xia Qing scooped up the emotional wolf and carried him to the bathroom. She washed and dried his leg and paw, then showed him how to do rehab exercises. Leaving him at home to train on his own, she went off to patrol her territory and check on the crops.

Passing the pasture shed, she greeted Old Goat, who was munching on grass. After inspecting the fields and digging out a few root-chewing pests, Xia Qing strolled into the Northern Buffer Forest, where Little Fei Mao bounded through the trees with a pine cone in his mouth. He landed on her shoulder, then dove straight into her pocket.

There was no need to ask: what Little Fei Mao brought back was definitely a premium Green-Lamp Pine Cone. Unfortunately, he picked it too soon—the pine nuts inside hadn’t fully matured.

Xia Qing plucked a broad leaf from a tree and rolled it into a cup. She poured in some warm water from her bottle, then gently fished Little Fei Mao from her pocket so he could have a good drink before sending him back out in search of more prime snacks.

The weather was cool and breezy, perfect for insects. This was the most active time of day for the critters, and for squirrels and birds who feasted on them, it was the best window to get their fill.

Of course, the pine cone would stay in Xia Qing’s pocket as Little Fei Mao’s private stash. Like his mother, he was a hardworking red squirrel obsessed with storing food.

Xia Qing reached Greenhouse One and carefully checked the High-Evolution Green Lantern Spinach growing safely under her protective netting.

Every two weeks, she planted a batch of two hundred high-evolution spinach. The field in front of her would be the fourth harvest to ripen in her territory this year, though the quality matched the last batch with no improvement.

Even so, these original High-Evolution Green Lantern Spinach were still much better quality than the X-2 on the market.

It wasn’t just Xia Qing—after the first batch of X-2 seeds harvested this year came out of dormancy, everyone in the Safe Zone who had a fertile plot, including lords of different territories and residents who’d held back seeds instead of selling them, planted them to cultivate their own second batch of High-Evolution Green Lantern Spinach.

The price of X-2 had fallen, but its quality and nutrition never did.

According to Hui Three’s radio broadcasts, after just half a month of eating X-2, even the poorest who used to rely on ration bars were already seeing significant health improvements.

Of course, a handful of ambitious types had gone overboard, developing ‘Evolution Element Excess’ from eating too much X-2, but those were rare cases.

The Safe Zone Evolution Ability Test Center also had good news: halfway through the month, Hui Three Safe Zone had already identified more new evolved fighters than the last two months combined, with a total of 150 people!

The number of evolved fighters was a key indicator of a base’s overall strength.

Because high-nutrition food had been unavailable before, many potential evolutionaries among the lowest social classes were never triggered. But now, thanks to X-2, their ID cards were turning from yellow to green—they finally had a shot at a better life.

These people were overwhelmed with joy—literally weeping with happiness.

Of course, there were some whose sadness outweighed their joy. He Hui, who had awakened the highest-rated Speed Evolution Ability but lost her right leg in the last Devastation Explosion, was one of them.

On her last visit to the Ninth Planting Center, Xia Qing saw He Hui’s swollen eyes from crying but didn’t offer any words.

There are times when words of comfort just seem hollow. He Hui understood everything, but that didn’t make accepting such a harsh reality any easier.