Chapter 115

Chapter 116: Killer Version “River God”

Farmers hate it when someone ruins a vegetable garden they worked so hard to fix. Qian Qi rushed over and saw that not only her scallions were eaten, but some of her Magiplants that were just starting to bear fruit were chewed too.

What made her even madder was this: the ones eaten were the honest, mild Magiplants, while the aggressive ones with strong attacks were untouched. She frowned, thinking: [So you pick on the gentle ones only?]

She gritted her teeth, muttering as she stomped forward: [How is this any different from Xu Jing, that jerk?]

She brushed aside the soil and followed the footprints. The scattered dirt trailed toward her half-finished hut. The hut only had a skin of a roof, no bed, and held farm tools and a few Magiplant by-products she had made.

A bad feeling rose in her chest, so she dashed inside. Sure enough, her Magic Honey jar had been pried open. The jar lay on its side, the outside sticky with spilled Magic Honey, but the inside was licked spotless.

On the floor, big smear-like prints of half-formed Magic Honey showed where the thief had stepped. Qian Qi’s vision went dark for a moment, and she swayed on her feet.

She had saved for so long to fill that one jar of Magic Honey. She had planned to cook tomatoes and eggs with it.

She let out a fierce roar and, grabbing her knife, charged out along the trail: “This is a hatred that cannot be shared under the same sky!”

She swore she would chop the Magibeast that stole her scallions and her Magic Honey into pieces.

Plains rarely have Magibeasts. The land is flat and open, with only slight hills and almost no cover. Once a beast shows itself, other hungry Magibeasts spot it and fights break out. So the thief’s path was easy to track by the bent blades of golden grass.

Following the prints into the Black Forest on the east side, she found clearer tracks on the ground. What surprised her were the marks beside them: puddles, sometimes clear, sometimes white, left every so often. The puddles made it even easier to follow the fleeing path.

She knelt and sniffed the soil, murmuring: “Strange.” The clear liquid had no sour urine smell; it smelled like water. The white liquid carried a faint milky scent.

After a moment’s thought, she hurried on.

At last, a quarter hour later, she caught up to the culprit who ruined her garden.

It was lying on the ground, twitching. The huge, nearly three-meter-long silver wolf body had gone stiff and bony. Its limbs trembled, skin stretched over bone, and painful whimpers slipped from its mouth.

Circling to the side, Qian Qi stared: it was a Moon Silver Wolf, and its belly was swollen. It lay on its side, drool trailing from its fanged mouth, and she could smell the sweetness of Magic Honey in the saliva. The ballooned belly rose and fell in no rhythm; each ripple sent a flash of pain through those ice blue wolf eyes.

She whispered, stunned: “Is this a pregnant mother wolf?” Her gaze dropped to the ground beneath the wolf. Amniotic fluid and blood were flowing there, and she froze, unsure what to do.

She backed up a few steps and hissed: “Wait, is it about to give birth?”

Mother beasts often attack anything during labor, so this was not a good time to settle accounts. Even though she could end it with one punch, humans are strange: they fear a fierce beast and might want to kill it, but when it is a mother about to give birth, pity rises and they do not want two lives lost.

Standing at a distance, she rubbed her small hands and glanced at the wolf’s unevenly moving belly, fretting: “I feel like something is wrong with it.”

She had never seen Magibeast delivery tips in her textbooks, but the way the Moon Silver Wolf rolled its eyes and seemed to endure huge pain made her too uneasy to just watch.

She paced, worrying: “Could this be a difficult birth?”

[Bingo~ Congratulations, Qian Qi, you got it right~]

The System Panel popped up with glittering text: [Kind Little Farmer, do you plan to kill this mother wolf and these pups, or kill the mother wolf to save the pups, or kill the pups to save the mother wolf?]

She blinked hard, thinking: [???]

She glared at the air and muttered: “System, what are you, a killer version of ‘River God’?”

She spread her hands and shouted at the sky: “Is there really no way to save both?”

The System replied with cool contempt: [There is, but you do not know how to perform a cesarean.]

She deflated, thinking: [……]

It was annoying to have no comeback.

Neck shrinking, she paced in a small circle and called to the wolf without getting too close: “Hey, it is not that I do not want to help you. I just have no experience. I only delivered my family’s dog once.”

She added under her breath, thinking: [And that one was an easy birth.]

The Moon Silver Wolf looked close to fainting. Even after eating Magic Honey and scallions, it did not have enough strength for labor. The pups’ rough movements inside made the mother let out sharper, more pained cries.

She clicked her tongue and finally couldn’t stand it. She jogged to the wolf.

Small and slim next to the long-bodied silver wolf, she looked extra tiny, but her eyes were steady and clear with a strength that most people lack.

She laid her hands on the swollen belly and felt a strange, restless stirring. The pups inside were struggling, and there were quite a few of them.

Sensing her approach, the mother wolf, almost faint with pain, snapped to alert. It flashed sharp claws to keep her away, forced itself to breathe in gasps, and growled a warning at her.

She snorted: “Hey, honey thief, you had the guts to steal my honey but not the guts to let me near you?”

Since she had helped deliver her family’s fierce dog, the wolf’s bad temper did not offend her. She tossed her long blade behind her and walked toward the wolf’s head.

The Moon Silver Wolf bared its fangs at once.

She leaned in and said calmly: “Breathe well.” She took hold of the wolf’s jaws, one small hand on the upper and one on the lower, and firmly shut its mouth. Then, right in front of its nose, she exaggerated her breathing: “In, out, in, out.”

Her own belly rose and fell as she clumsily taught it to keep a steady rhythm. After five minutes, the wolf realized she had no intent to kill it, and its body slowly relaxed. It began breathing more evenly.

She nodded and asked in a very serious voice: “Do you know how to poop? Have you ever been constipated?” She hunched and demonstrated, encouraging it: “Push like you are pooping. Push the pups backward and out. Can you do that? Like this, mm, mm, mm.”

The wolf either did not understand or it tried and it still did not work.

She wiped her face, helpless, then pressed her cheek and hands gently along the belly toward the center. The little wolves inside were still thrashing, louder than before, whether fighting or doing who knew what.

She bit her lip and muttered: “Why are they still not coming out?” Then she asked, uneasy: “System, what if I give them one punch? Would they quiet down?”

The System fell silent: [……]

It finally said: [Are you sure that after your punch both the mother and the pups will still live?]

She was not sure. She paced beside the wolf, eyes drifting now and then toward her long knife.

She thought: [What if I do a cesarean? I don’t know the exact spot, but if I make a few cuts, I will find it. I do have Hemostatic Potion.]

She frowned tighter, thinking: [I just do not know if I have enough potions.]

Unconsciously, her gaze slid toward the wolf’s rear.

She coughed and thought: [Or…]