"Hiss—"
The Ant Queen looked around and immediately spotted the clueless beast, standing like a log in front of her home, staring blankly at her.
The Ant Queen flapped her wings, spreading them wide to make herself appear larger in a visual declaration of war against the intruder.
"Xiaolan!"
Ah Qing entered the field, brushing aside the weeds, and strode quickly towards the little fox.
"......"
Ah Qing approached from the left, the Ant Queen from the right, aggressively closing in. Master Fuli snapped out of his shock, squinting slightly, and gave a glance to the Ant Queen, who seemed raring for a fight.
"Smack—"
Master Fuli's paw slapped swiftly and accurately across the face of the Ant Queen.
The slapped Ant Queen stood stunned, as if not comprehending what just happened, lifting her front legs to rub her slapped cheek, the shell feeling a bit sore.
The fox's bushy tail curled up and straightened, resembling a hammer as it swiftly descended, delivering a heavy blow to the crown of the Ant Queen's head, driving her into her nest like a burrowing missile.
Layer upon layer of the ant nest collapsed, the Ant Queen's figure stuck in a pit five meters deep, staring wide-eyed at the light above, while a low growl of the fox echoed throughout the nest…
"I don't have time to mess with you fox-like antics..."
"Sit there quietly. If you dare to run, Master Fuli will chase you to the ends of the earth, drag you back with your rear exposed, and suppress you on Tianfu Avenue for five hundred years!"
Accompanied by a low threatening voice, an invisible force, like airflow, flowed in through the hole, transforming into a cold breeze which swept through the Ant Queen's nest, causing even the Red Fire Ants within to pause temporarily.
"......"
The Ant Queen covered her cheek with her front leg, her antennae covering her crown, and hugged her slightly trembling body with her middle legs, as if trying to dispel the inexplicable cold current.
"Not... not going, why so fierce... I was just asking what happened."
"My head hurts so much..." The Ant Queen shivered, curling up her body, hissing from her mouthparts.
Despite the Ant Queen's fierce reputation, standing tall and straightened in place following a slap from Master Fuli.
The impressive size of the Red Fire Ant Queen was clearly beyond Master Fuli's expectations.
But Master Fuli was quite pleased with it.
Compared to an Ant Queen that was just a few centimeters, Master Fuli hadn't even bothered looking through the nest. But when the Red Fire Ant Queen grew to twenty or thirty centimeters long...
The Ant Queen shone like the moon among the stars.
With one glance, Master Fuli could spot it, and by capturing the Red Fire Ants' mother, he could certainly eradicate the ant plague besieging the fields.
[Master Fuli had an insightful gaze, instantaneously determining that the Red Fire Ants were the minions of Master Treasure Tree. Outwardly calm but seething within, for a tree rooted in Qin had clandestinely conspired with the alien Red Fire Ants to disrupt the lands of Qin. Unacceptable!]
[Wish Power +1]
After swelling the Ant Queen's aged face with a slap, Ansheng squatted down, wagging his tail, watching Ah Qing, yet a golden light flashed across his mind.
To give a slap to the Ant Queen's face was a trivial matter for Master Fuli.
But the nest of Red Fire Ants in the field wasn't the elite Red Fire Ants previously anticipated by the professors.
The Ant Queen was a genuine Spirit Beast, and her spiritualization had nothing to do with the fertilizer from the College of Agriculture.
The Ant Queen had built her nest there over the summer.
Whereas the students from the Xiqi Campus came to the rural fields for cultivation only in September.
Logically, the Ant Queen came first...
"Hmm?"
"Are they relatives of the Ba Mountain Mosquito? That sapling-legged old tree sprite is still in Chang'an....."
Upon seeing the wish list's settlement details in black and white, Ansheng was taken aback.
Though the Ant Queen was ferocious by nature, disregarding her toxins and rapid reproduction abilities, her physical quality was merely akin to an iron piece, easily mangled by a car.
She was less capable than the Ba Mountain Mosquito, unable to even match its antennae.
The Ant Queen's spiritualization might have been very recent.
But her spiritualization was linked to the large tree known as [Master Treasure Tree] in the Ba Mountain Sky Pit.
Master Fuli contemplated, looking towards the professors from Xinxing Agricultural Science College.
The nest of Red Fire Ants in the field... couldn't be blasted yet, as only one Ant Queen had been captured so far.
The Red Fire Ants were polygynous, and multiple Ant Queens might exist within this field.
They must be captured and interrogated about Master Treasure Tree's situation first.
Master Fuli yearned for Wish Power.
But due to the support from buddies in the Qinling, the fame of Master Fuli was well known from the southern slopes of Qinling to the Tiechuan area. Should a creature be starving, Master Fuli provided ample food, but if they were both poor and wicked, then Master Fuli would serve a grand iron hammer instead.
An iron hammer weighing several tons.
Within the tales of the Qinling fellows, the hammer overshadowed the sky, its descent akin to the upheaval of the heavens, an apocalyptic vision comparable to a nuclear explosion.
Wish Power?
No Wish Power gained a bit, yet at night, the Spirit Beasts from Qinling came to the ecological base for relief food, behaving more obediently than mischievous kids, even cleaning up overturned trash bins.
They were utterly destitute and obstinate, hard to find even with a lamp in hand.
But Master Treasure Tree...
Its probability of being harmless was very high, after all, months ago it had transformed, yet had never been spotted, indicating it hadn't infiltrated human society. Otherwise, it couldn't evade all surveillance cameras and big data.
Both monsters and fishes had mobile phones, watching fish fry, whereas this old tree didn't even search for seedling images, which Ansheng found hard to believe.
At a certain level of spiritualization, merely standing around would influence the surroundings, and Master Treasure Tree, nestled in the tree pit, had managed to nurture the [Ba Mountain Mosquito].
Now, there was also the Red Fire Ant Queen.
"Let me check your bell, wasn't bit, were there any ants crawling on you?"
While Master Fuli was deep in thought, Ah Qing lifted Master Fuli, shaking in mid-air as if trying to shake off any possible Red Fire Ants.
After shaking, finding no trace of the Red Fire Ants, yet Ah Qing was still a bit worried and wanted to check the undercarriage.
However.
Before Ah Qing could start, a fox's hind leg was already planted on her face.
A dirt paw print, resembling a blooming plum blossom, appeared on Ah Qing's pale cheek.
"You stinky Xiaolan!"
Ah Qing muttered with her face full of grievance, looking at the little fox nestled in her arms and said, "Even Fox Fox has grown up, now even knows to be shy, but aren't you being too distant?"
"It's not like I haven't seen it before....."
Ah Qing rubbed her face, with a hint of defiance.
Ansheng rolled his eyes, poking Ah Qing's head with his snout.
Is this really about seeing or not?
She didn't have the skill to catch lice, fumbling around for nothing.....
"Hmm? Ah Qing, on your face, is that..." Lingren, having just finished a course, rode an electric tricycle to the field.
She immediately noticed Ah Qing's cheek with an imprint.
"Oh..... I'm suspected of misconduct with Fox Fox, got apprehended by Officer Xiaolan Fox."
Lingren: "......"
Are you also into furry art? Don't hang too closely with those folks, the furry lovers go pretty hard...