After downing half a can of milk in one go and devouring an entire beef shank in one sitting, Little Wolf finally felt his starving body replenished with energy.

The little wolf could physically feel this upgrade in his constitution. The increase in speed, combined with the newfound sense of freedom from leaving the space, made him even more reluctant to stay here. He had planned to try biting Jiang Le’s hem and escaping with him the moment Jiang Le left, just like before. But he never expected that today, Jiang Le would tell him that starting tomorrow, he could leave this place—and that he could even eat the nucleus crystals Jiang Le hunted for outside.

The little wolf was stunned by this surprise, yet at the same time, he doubted that the usually ruthless Jiang Le would be so kind to him.

“But,” Jiang Le laid out the conditions, “once you’re out, you can’t wander off—otherwise, I won’t let you out again. You can’t attack humans without reason, especially the farm workers. You have to learn to follow my commands and fight alongside me; don’t pretend you don’t understand.”

With every word Jiang Le added, the little wolf’s spirits sank a little more. Hearing that it wasn’t allowed to attack humans at will made it even unhappier, but compared to the one-sided benefits, these seemingly restrictive conditions actually made it feel a bit more at ease. It wasn’t a windfall, but rather hard work—a hard life, but a stable one.

Plus, since it meant being able to go outside, the little wolf reluctantly accepted the deal.

So the next day, Jiang Le brought the little wolf to the farm. First, he let it get to know its territory, making the distinction between inside and outside clear, and then introduced it to Mao Xiaofei, so that one day, if Jiang Le wasn’t paying attention, his employee wouldn’t end up with a workplace injury.

However, to Jiang Le’s surprise, Little Wolf behaved quite calmly after entering the farm. It didn’t run amok in the fields causing destruction, nor did it grab a poultry bird in its mouth to chew and gobble down. In fact, the way it moved between the ridges of the fields looked as if it were patrolling its territory.

In fact, Jiang Le’s hunch was correct—the little wolf was indeed patrolling its territory, though it was a bit puzzled itself as to why it had taken such a strong liking to this place. Due to the master-pet bond currently binding it to Jiang Le, the farmer’s pet naturally developed a sense of territorial ownership over its own farm.

Mao Xiaofei was very curious about this little wolf cub that bared its teeth at the sight of him. He stepped forward and asked Jiang Le, “Bro, what is this…”

Before he could even get the word “dog” out, Jiang Le cut him off: “It’s a wolf. If you get too close, it’ll bite you. From now on, if you see it, take a detour.” Mao Xiaofei nodded blankly and obediently took a couple of steps back, though he kept his eyes fixed on the cub’s every move.

The cub patrolled every corner of the farm, then returned to Jiang Le’s side, lifting a paw to tap the ground—silently conveying some kind of message.

Mao Xiaofei didn’t understand, so he looked at Jiang Le. He saw Jiang Le pull a can of powdered milk from his coat, fetch an enamel basin, and immediately mix up half a basin of milk, which he pushed in front of the little wolf.

The wolf lapped up the goat’s milk with relish, the liquid sloshing noisily, yet not a single drop was spilled. What had seemed like a large basin of milk was soon gone.

The little wolf looked up at Jiang Le, seemingly not yet satisfied. But Jiang Le said, “Half a bucket per meal—no more than that.” He doted on it, but not that much.

He hadn’t brought back many cans to begin with; if he didn’t control the amount, they’d be gone in a matter of days. Jiang Le thought to himself that he couldn’t rely on goat milk powder in the long run. Once the farm was upgraded, he’d simply raise a few dairy goats himself.

After finishing the goat’s milk, the man and the wolf left the farm and set out to hunt down the nearby zombies.

The mountainous region wasn’t densely populated, and the villages were sparsely scattered. Most ordinary people had already heeded the call to head down the mountain in search of shelters, leaving behind many zombies wandering aimlessly through the villages. With the man and the wolf working together, their efficiency increased significantly; on average, they could take care of about a hundred zombies a day.

Although repeated battles against the same type of enemy didn’t yield as high an affinity score as the first encounter, little by little, trust gradually built up in the face of danger. As time passed, the benefits became quite noticeable.

Moreover, aside from intimacy, the individual and the wolf also accumulate substantial personal and combat experience through these battles.

All slain zombies are first stored in a corner of the storage space, then fed into the compost machine together upon returning to the farm at dusk. With so many zombies, the machine runs all night long.

By the time Jiang Le returned to the farm the next morning, the area in front of the composting machine was already piled high with automatically bagged fertilizer and a small heap of zombie nucleus crystals.

In addition to zombies, if they spotted high-level mutated flora or fauna nearby, the two would also choose to hunt them down. However, compared to zombies, high-level mutated flora and fauna were much harder to find. Most mutated flora and fauna can sense the presence of stronger counterparts and thus keep their distance. The ordinary mutated flora and fauna left behind, struggling to survive in the cracks, are generally not worth the effort of hunting.

The difference in energy between the nucleus crystals of high-level and ordinary mutated flora and fauna is akin to the difference in calories between a Snickers bar and a grain of rice. While it’s not that a grain of rice has no calories, it’s simply not worth going to great lengths for.

It was late October, and at noon the sun still radiated scorching heat. For the sake of convenience in cleaning up, Jiang Le still wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, with a baseball cap on his head, though the tool in his hand had been swapped from a machete to a sturdy wooden stick.

This was a lesson Jiang Le had learned from his recent zombie-killing experiences. Compared to the blood and gore caused by the machete’s sharpness—which made cleaning up the severed bodies a nightmare—a well-aimed blow with a wooden stick, delivered with enough force, could usually kill the zombie in one strike. It also minimized the splattering of brain matter, making the cleanup much neater.

Jiang Le stood in the shade of a tree when the leaves above him suddenly rustled. He looked up to see Xiao Lang perched high on a branch, using the vantage point to survey the new village they had just reached. The mutated cicadas, which had been chirping incessantly, fell silent, and the noise gradually faded away.

This was the last village within a half-day’s round trip on foot.

More than a month had passed, and Xiao Lang’s puppy-like appearance hadn’t disappeared; it had simply grown proportionally larger. With the face of a puppy and the build of a medium-sized dog, it defiantly used this appearance to project ferocity.

A few seconds later, the young wolf leaped down from the tree and walked ahead of Jiang Le, entering the village first.

It was a small village. At the entrance stood a large stone carved with the village’s name, blurring the boundaries of time as always in the stillness of the surroundings. But the once-white walls and gray tiles were gone; countless green plants densely covered the buildings, tall and short alike. Thick roots broke through the earth from below, branches pierced through the walls, and at their tips bloomed huge, vibrant flowers that swayed gently in the breeze, exuding a beguiling, subtle fragrance.

In time, this place would be completely unrecognizable, reverting to a chaotic, primal state. Having witnessed such scenes countless times, Jiang Le felt nothing.

The small square in front of the village had once been a basketball court, but now it was overgrown with mutated plants of varying heights, and deep green moss covered the ground, resembling green algae on a lake.

However, the mutation level of these plants was not particularly high, and they did not dare to attack as Jiang Le and Xiao Lang approached.

Jiang Le raised his palm and clapped it in the air; several crisp sounds echoed out from the small square in front of the village. As he walked along the village path, creating noise as he went, it wasn’t long before a chaotic, muffled sound of approaching footsteps began to drift out from the alleys and lanes in every direction of the village.

A mountain stream flowed through the village. Xiao Lang stood on the stone slab where villagers once washed clothes, looking down and drinking leisurely. Jiang Le took a piece of pork from his storage space—still warm from the slaughter—and the aroma of fresh meat instantly released countless scent molecules into the air.

A dozen or so zombies were drawn by the sound and the scent of meat. Upon seeing Jiang Le, they let out excited, thirsty growls from their throats and lunged toward the person by the mountain stream.

Jiang Le tossed the fresh meat to the little wolf, which devoured it in a few bites as a snack.

A dozen or so frail, elderly, sick, and disabled zombies—who hadn’t eaten in a long time—didn’t even require Jiang Le to lift a finger. The little wolf lunged and kicked, and a single swipe of its claws was enough to smash the zombies’ brains to a pulp.

The sounds of the fight attracted another dozen or so zombies, which the little wolf also disposed of.

Jiang Le stowed the corpses in his spatial pocket, then activated his five senses to check for any stragglers. To his surprise, he detected the presence of two zombies just a few dozen meters away. The commotion and the scent of fresh meat hadn’t drawn them over.

Perhaps there was another source of “food” in their vicinity.

Jiang Le continued to focus his senses and, sure enough, detected two more extremely faint auras in roughly the same area. However, they were obscured by an impenetrable energy barrier, making the sensation unclear.

Living people?

Jiang Le was surprised; this was the first time they’d encountered living people while clearing out zombies. Usually, aside from zombies, the most common sight was people half-eaten and turned into zombies.

Jiang Le and Xiao Lang bypassed the obstacles on the path; they didn’t need to search very hard—the zombies’ auras and sounds were enough to guide them. Once they reached the spot, Jiang Le realized why these two zombies had ignored the lure of sound and fresh flesh: it wasn’t entirely because of the other living people, but more because they were powerless to resist.

In the small courtyard before them, the walls had collapsed by more than half. The old house inside was completely enveloped by a climbing plant, leaving only a small gap at the entrance.

The two zombies were completely trapped by the plant’s leaves; apart from their heads, which remained exposed, the rest of their bodies were either deeply embedded in the foliage or had been stripped of their rotting flesh, leaving only their skeletons exposed.

Jiang Le’s arrival interrupted this slow devouring.

With every step he and Xiao Lang took forward, the leaves and vines that had previously obscured the path within the courtyard slowly retreated. By the time Jiang Le reached the zombies, the two were suddenly released, clattering to the ground with a crash—much like a giant python reluctantly spitting out its prey as it escapes.

Jiang Le, however, had no intention of letting it go. This climbing plant was a rare find—a creature with a high degree of mutation and a respectable tier. Ignoring the two crippled zombies that had lost their ability to move, Jiang Le used the wall to launch himself onto the roof with a series of rapid jumps, his movements so swift they were dizzying. Xiao Lang, acting in perfect sync, launched a flanking attack from the other side; drawing on his extensive combat experience, he crushed the mutant plant’s power core with a single paw.

Jiang Le then slashed open the spot where the nucleus crystal was hidden.

With the nucleus crystal seized, the leaves—which had been as sharp as blades and had been fluttering in a desperate attempt to retreat—instantly went limp and drooped, losing all strength to struggle.

It was a Level 2 nucleus crystal on the verge of advancing to Level 3. Jiang Le held the broad bean-shaped nucleus crystal up to the sunlight to examine it. The little wolf stood nearby, showing little reaction, seemingly uninterested in the nucleus crystal.

Jiang Le had long noticed that Xiao Lang didn’t have much enthusiasm for nucleus crystals; he’d usually let Jiang Le dispose of or store them as he pleased. But when it came to blood vine—whether out of a grudge or because it was beneficial to him—Xiao Lang couldn’t seem to get it out of his mind.

But at that moment, something else had captured Xiao Lang’s attention.

Standing on the roof, he peered down through the gaps between the broken bricks and tiles, letting out a threatening growl. He began using his claws to tear away the bricks and tiles, intending to crawl straight down through the opening.