Xia Runrun's team had already planned the departure time, so after Chu Hang said that there was no need to waste time because of him, the team set off quickly.
A group of people climbed onto the mutant dog's back.
“Tap tap tap…”
The mutant dogs were incredibly fast, dashing away from the Longquan Survival Base in just 20 minutes. Standing atop the base's protective wall, an officer watched the group leave and called his superiors to report the news.
A team that can completely ignore all powerful mutant animals, even a survival base like theirs with a huge military force, needs to pay attention to the other side at all times.
Xingyue City is located in the central region. The winter here is not too short, but not too long either.
When we set out from Xingyue City, the sky was still covered with white snow. Now, on our way back, the snow on the road has slowly melted, turning into puddles of snow water mixed with the soil. Dots of green are slightly emerging from the snow, indicating the strong vitality of the plants.
"You know what, ever since these plants mutated, as long as the temperature rises slightly in winter, these plants can immediately grow several meters high." Huang Haichao sat on the back of the pork belly and sighed with his head down.
"It's just right that once we get back, we can start the new season's planting... I had been planning to plant fewer sweet potatoes and more potatoes this year. Even though sweet potatoes have a higher starch content and a higher yield, they have too much woody fiber. I nearly broke my teeth eating those mutant sweet potatoes a while ago." Yang Fan glanced at the gradually spreading greenery along the road. "Now that we've exchanged for the starch machine, we can plant more sweet potatoes."
The principle of the starch machine is to crush the fresh sweet potatoes into sweet potato puree, then wash out the fine sweet potato starch from the sweet potato puree, and finally use the vermicelli machine to make the fine sweet potato starch into sweet potato vermicelli.
Although the sweet potatoes' size had increased after the mutation, resulting in severe lignification in their rhizomes, making them difficult for human teeth to chew, these mutant potatoes were still no match for the starch machine's power. The Longquan Survival Base's scientific research and development department had enhanced its kinetic power to ensure it could handle the vast majority of mutant plants. They had exchanged three machines at once, more than enough for the entire shelter.
"Well, let's not talk about anything else. We all have to thank Ruanruan a lot. Three months ago, I would never have thought that three months later, I would not only have the opportunity to come to the Longquan Survival Base, but I would even be able to eat food that won't break my teeth every day." Yang Fan was in a relaxed mood when chatting with Huang Haichao and others. The mutant dogs under them were moving very fast, and the others also talked excitedly, not at all nervous like when they came.
Not to mention Yang Fan and Huang Haichao, even the other survivors in the team had never thought that one day they would be able to expect to live a good life in the natural disaster like before the virus outbreak.
There are powerful mutant animals protecting the safety of everyone in the shelter, there are spacious and safe 'domestic farms' with grain and vegetable fields that do not need to be guarded day and night, and they can also live with their families with electricity and hot water. A group of people feel their hearts burning just thinking about it. These days are the days that they really have hope for!
"We even exchanged soybean seeds and other vegetable and grain seeds at the base this time. I reckon in a few months, we'll be able to see meat and oil on the table in the shelter cafeteria every day. Even if there's no meat, fried tofu is delicious!"
A group of people were chatting and laughing on the back of the mutant dog. Xia Runrun was sitting in the small carriage, pulling the small bamboo window with her two small hands, looking at the surrounding scenery.
Even these days, seeing the flora and fauna that felt like she'd accidentally stepped into a land of giants, Xia Ruanruan still marveled at the wonders of nature. From ordinary plants and animals, they evolved to become hundreds, even thousands, of times larger. The HCP virus was both a disaster and a global evolutionary frenzy. If it weren't for this virus, even if Egg Yolk and Big Black could understand her, they wouldn't be able to communicate with her as fluently as they do now.
Think about what ordinary animals often said to her in her previous life: I'm hungry, rub against me.
In this life, the mutant animals communicated with her fluently and seamlessly, even learning to play tricks without any instruction. Xia Ruanruan couldn't help but sigh that compared to the former, the latter was now closer to human intelligence. To be frank, she even thought that many mutant animals might have intelligence that surpassed that of ordinary people, completely becoming a new type of furry intelligent creature. Perhaps in a thousand years, these animals would be able to establish their own scientific systems and city kingdoms even without human help...
Her thoughts were a little disorganized. Perhaps because she had nothing else to do sitting in the small carriage, Xia Ruanruan was stunned for a moment.
“Roar, roar, roar!——”
“Ah~!——”
“Hehehe!——”
Suddenly, before I could fully grasp the thoughts in my mind, I heard a series of fierce roars and earth-shaking tremors from the corner of the street not far away.
"What's wrong?! What's wrong?!"
"What happened up front?!"
"A herd of mutant beasts! There must be a herd of mutant beasts fighting ahead!"
"From what I hear, there are at least three different groups of mutant animals fighting!"
"Take a detour. We have to take a detour quickly."
Seeing the fierce roars intensifying, and even showing a faint trend of moving towards them, Yang Fan and others immediately looked solemn. Huang Haichao immediately pulled the slightly frightened Wu Belly to the front of Xia Ruanruan's carriage and said seriously, "There are three groups of mutant animals fighting in front of Ruanruan. It sounds like wolves, leopards, and a group of wild boars or other large mutant animals... The fighting between the three parties sounds fierce. Why don't we turn around and leave now?"
Judging from the map, if they took a detour to leave the shelter, they would have to walk at least ten more kilometers. However, facing three groups of mutant animals emitting strong microscopic rays, they had to bow their heads and compromise. After all, their lives were the most precious. Who knew if those crazy mutant animals would give them a few claws? Maybe the ones with bad tempers would simply give up fighting the enemy and turn around to attack them.
Huang Haichao thought Xia Runrun would agree, and immediately ordered the mutant dogs to change course and move forward, but he didn't expect to see a little face that was three parts surprised and seven parts embarrassed.
Huang Haichao: “……?”
An awkward smile appeared on the girl's fair face. She said awkwardly, "Brother Haichao, I feel... from the sounds they make, I seem to recognize them..."
Huang Haichao: “???!!!”
Kid, do you know what you are talking about?!
Xia Ruanruan scratched her cheek and explained awkwardly, "From the sound, it should be those mutant animals we encountered during the previous mission..."
and……
It looked like three groups of mutant animals had all arrived, and the three groups had collided with each other.
"Why don't we go take a look...?"
Seeing the distant roars growing louder, Xia Ruanruan could no longer sit still. She wasn't worried about the White Wolf King, the lions, or the wild boars harming her. She patted the outer wall of the carriage, called out to Dahei, and ran in the direction of the noise. The survivors, who were riding on the other mutant dogs at the back, had no choice but to follow. In reality, the others didn't have much choice; after all, they were riding on the backs of the mutant dogs.
"Hoho!" (That wild boar is good, I want to eat it!)
"Ahhh~!" (These are all meat, let's give the little ones a full meal today!)
"Hehehe~!" (Brothers, kill these two little bastards! Hehe!)
Before Xia Runrun could get close to Dahei while sitting on him, the cries of wolves, lions and wild boars came into her ears, making her frown and her face become more solemn.
Before the outbreak, plants and animals hadn't mutated, and the intelligence of ordinary animals wasn't high. Even the brightest Border Collie, when communicating with her, was at best like a first-grader. Normal, everyday conversations were fine, but anything more complex wouldn't make sense to a Border Collie, let alone chickens and ducks, which have virtually no intelligence.
Apart from uttering some meaningless syllables and words, they are actually rarely able to truly communicate with Xia Ruanruan. They are mostly driven by instinct to eat and rest.
The difference between humans and animals was very obvious before the virus outbreak.
The food chain passed down from ancient times is there, and she also respects the laws of nature.
Therefore, in most cases, Xia Ruanruan rarely interferes with the hunting and eating behavior of any animal.
But in this later world, a virus had broken out, and plants and animals were mutating. Even a golden pheasant in the wild could clearly speak to her, as if it were an eight-year-old child. Not to mention the mutated animals, such as cats, dogs, wolves, and lions, whose intelligence and thinking were almost on par with humans.
In a world where everyone was intelligent, she couldn't follow the old rules of the food chain anymore. Watching a talkative furry creature one moment get devoured by another the next was truly unbearable. She'd been able to ignore the past, pretending it hadn't happened. But now, with mutant wolves, lions, and boars all fighting, each attempting to devour the other, how could she not speak out and stop them?
When Xia Ruanruan took on the high-level mission and communicated with the mutant wolves and lions, she never invited them to join her in the refuge. The fundamental reason was that she was worried that the wolves and lions would lose control and start hunting the other furries! The mutant dogs had been trained by Dahei to fish on their own, so they had no problem eating fish every day, but wolves and lions obviously didn't eat fish.
Since she wants to build Zootopia, the animals in the entire city must not be allowed to kill each other. In order to ensure that other animals voluntarily join Zootopia, she must also regulate and control the hunting of herbivores by carnivores in the city, even animals outside the city. This will make the mutant animals outside the city dare not join Zootopia.
Therefore, she has no intention of inviting carnivores to join the shelter until the problem of carnivores' food is solved.
But Xia Ruanruan didn't expect...
These mutant animals actually appeared on the road she had to take to return to Xingyue City. It seemed that they were waiting for her here.
Thinking of having these mutant beasts help transport supplies through this place a few days ago, Xia Runrun touched his nose and shouted loudly to the three parties in the melee.
"Stop fighting, stop fighting! Stop it, stop it!"
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