Chapter 36.1

After administering the vaccine and applying skin treatment to the Silver Snow bear, Mu Ling vaccinated the other animals as well.

She then took Lightning and headed out.

Since the areas had been divided in advance, Mu Ling drove straight towards the easternmost part.

This wasn’t the main mountain road. As Mu Ling ascended, she first encountered a group of blue-spotted squirrels.

These agile squirrels had long, bushy tails. A tuft of yellow fur adorned their heads, while their back fur and tails were predominantly blue.

The zoo had initially registered ten of these blue-spotted squirrels, but from Mu Ling’s recent observations, their numbers had swelled to at least fifty or sixty, all born within the past six months.

There was no helping it—blue-spotted squirrels had an extremely short gestation period. They could give birth monthly, with litters of four to six pups. After half a year, their population had naturally exploded.

Mu Ling parked the car and got out.

She didn’t let Lightning out, fearing he might frighten these small herbivores.

As soon as she stepped out, Mu Ling spotted several yellow-headed, blue-tailed creatures peeking from behind large trees, craning their necks to observe her.

They looked very alert, ready to flee at any moment.

Mu Ling closed the car door and grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds from her work uniform pocket. She cracked them open as she walked towards the forest.

As she approached, an adult squirrel suddenly leaped down from a tree trunk. It scampered to Mu Ling’s feet, swiftly climbed up her pants onto her shoulder, and skillfully reached for the sunflower seeds in her hand.

Mu Ling chuckled and opened her palm, allowing the little squirrel to take the seeds.

Squirrels are remarkably fast at cracking sunflower seeds. With two large front teeth, it quickly gnawed out the kernels and started munching.

Soon, other squirrels from the branches descended. Before long, Mu Ling was surrounded by the squirrel group.

Without minding the dirt, Mu Ling sat on the ground. She opened her medical kit and used a 1ml syringe to draw up 1ml of vaccine. She caught a squirrel, placed it on her knee, pinched the scruff of its neck, wiped the injection site with alcohol, and swiftly administered the shot.

The squirrel felt the sting and began to struggle, but the injection was already over. Mu Ling capped the syringe and placed it in a separate compartment of the medical kit. She then rubbed the injection site with an alcohol swab and used a white marker to draw a line on the squirrel’s rear—indicating it had been vaccinated.

Following this process, Mu Ling vaccinated one squirrel after another. In less than fifteen minutes, she had vaccinated all 45 squirrels within her line of sight.

Mu Ling stood up and continued deeper into the woods, biting into an apple as she walked.

The scent of the apple attracted more squirrels to follow, even luring out those hiding in tree hollows. Mu Ling seized the opportunity to catch and vaccinate them all, then cut the apple into small pieces for them to take back and eat.

After about half an hour, Mu Ling had finished vaccinating the entire squirrel group. There might still be some missed, but those would have to be addressed later. With limited manpower and such a vast park area, it was challenging to track all the animals accurately. Once all the zookeepers were in place and assigned to specific areas, they could administer any missed vaccinations.

Mu Ling returned to her car. As she opened the door, Lightning, sitting in the passenger seat, perked up and stretched his neck towards her.

Mu Ling patted Lightning’s head, stepped on the gas pedal and said, “Let’s go to our next stop.”

The second stop was the small iron pig area.

There were twelve small iron pigs in total, but when Mu Ling got out of the car, she couldn’t see a single one.

She didn’t panic and simply walked deeper into the area. After about four or five minutes, she spotted a burrow.

Mu Ling crouched at the entrance and peeked inside. Sure enough, she saw four small iron pigs fast asleep.

These sluggish little pigs were sleeping soundly until their noses caught the scent of canned meat. One piglet suddenly opened its eyes, turned its head, and saw Mu Ling at the entrance along with the can at her feet.

“Oink oink,” the piglet called twice. It struggled to stand up, then trotted over to Mu Ling and buried its snout in the can to eat.

The piglet’s parents and sibling woke up then. The parents didn’t react much, but the older sister immediately came over and pushed the piglet aside to eat the meat herself.

The piglet, smaller than its sibling, couldn’t reach the food and had to content itself with licking the scraps falling from its sister’s mouth.

Mu Ling couldn’t help but laugh. She picked up the little piglet.

At just five months old, the piglet’s horn was still a small nub. Mu Ling gently touched it. The iron steel pig was a type of miniature wild boar that grew a rhino-like horn on its forehead. Even fully grown, the largest iron pig weighed only about twenty pounds, not much bigger than a dog.

Of all the animals in Bi Ke Zoo, the small iron pigs were undoubtedly the most affectionate to humans.

They were gluttonous, playful, loved to sleep, and would bond with anyone who brought food.

Brother Wei had once joked that the small iron pigs were the only ones who truly appreciated his feeding efforts.

After vaccinating this family of four, Mu Ling moved on to the next group.

Half an hour later, she was back in her car, heading to the next zone.

From 1 PM until nearly 6 PM, as dusk began to fall, Mu Ling counted the vaccines she’d used—101 out of the 150 she’d brought. That was enough for the day. She could continue tomorrow.

Tomorrow, she’d need to head to the inner areas of the zoo, where the animals’ ranges were much larger. Unlike the animals in the outer areas that lived in groups, the inner animals were more solitary, which would make tracking them down time-consuming. Especially the war beasts, which were as elusive as dragons—seen once, then vanishing.

Bi Ke Zoo currently housed nine retired S-rank war beasts. Apart from Qilin, Lightning, Qingjiao, and Moonlight, she hadn’t even glimpsed the other five yet.

Not to mention the 18 B-rank and 11 A-rank war beasts. Although they weren’t as challenging to handle as the S-ranks, they still had a tendency to hide in remote corners.

The thought of tomorrow’s workload made Mu Ling feel exhausted. She turned on the headlights and rounded a bend, muttering, “I wonder if we’ll finish all this before opening day. Lightning, do you think your sister can handle it?”

Lightning, lying in the passenger seat, raised his head at Mu Ling’s voice. His emerald green eyes gleamed as he looked at her.

Mu Ling smiled and rubbed the big panther’s head. “You think your sister can do it too, right? Okay, I’ll trust our Lightning.”

At that, Lightning stood up and nuzzled Mu Ling’s neck with his large forehead. She chuckled and decided to drive with one hand while wrapping an arm around him for a quick kiss when—

Thud!

Suddenly, a loud crash came from the roof of the car, as if something had fallen from the sky, startling Mu Ling.

She quickly hit the brakes and looked out the window, shocked.

In the orange sunset filtering through the lush trees, she glimpsed a large bird flying swiftly past, blending into the green forest and disappearing from sight.

Mu Ling didn’t think much of the bird at first. She carefully examined the car’s roof, then put on her protective suit and helmet before cautiously stepping outside.

But the moment she got out, Mu Ling saw a dead green snake lying atop her car, covered in blood and completely motionless.

Mu Ling stared at the snake, then at the sky, reasonably suspecting that the bird had dropped it.

She quickly inspected the snake.

Thankfully, judging by its species, it wasn’t one of the zoo’s snakes.

Wait… if it wasn’t one of theirs, then where had the bird gotten it from?

Well, birds could go anywhere, so it might have caught it outside the park.

Wait, their park’s birds couldn’t go outside!

Their birds were all kept in the aviary, which was enclosed by nets on all sides to prevent them from flying out. In their park, the only birds that could move freely were…

The retired war birds.

So, was that big bird one of their retired war birds?

No, no, even their retired war birds couldn’t fly out!

Bi Ke Zoo currently had five retired war birds: two A-rank, two B-rank, and one S-rank.

Mu Ling quickly ruled out the A-rank and B-rank birds. Of the two A-ranks, one was an ostrich and the other a fire-eating bird. The two B-ranks were a cassowary and a wingless francolin.

All four birds had one thing in common—they couldn’t fly. It wasn’t that their wings were damaged; they were simply flightless species, commonly known as ground birds.

And the last S-rank retired war bird…

Well, it couldn’t fly either.

The records clearly stated that the retired S-rank war bird, the eagle “Tayun”, due to psychic power damage and fear of it falling to its death from high altitudes, had been injected with a wing-softening agent by the vet, rendering it unable to fly.

So…

Mu Ling was suddenly confused. So was that big bird actually not from their park?

The bird wasn’t from the park, the snake wasn’t from the park, but they had both ended up here…

Mu Ling was at a loss for words. She clicked her tongue, picked up a tree branch, intending to flick away the dead snake.

But just then, the black panther suddenly leaped out of the car window. With a push of its hind legs, it nimbly jumped onto the car roof, then pressed down on the dead snake, whose vital point had been broken, with one paw and bit the snake’s body in half with its mouth.

Mu Ling: “”

Mu Ling was dumbfounded. “Lightning, what are you doing?”

After making sure the snake was indeed not moving, Lightning spat out the snake’s body and looked up at Mu Ling.

Its emerald beast pupils looked down at her from above, glowing with a cold light.

Mu Ling: “”

Mu Ling just stared at Lightning like this, one second, two seconds, three seconds later, Mu Ling’s face suddenly changed. “You don’t mean to tell me…”

Mu Ling quickly used the tree branch to poke at the snake’s body, and then she discovered that on the flawless, translucent body of the green snake, at the position below the head, there was actually a piece of black, moldy-looking necrotic flesh.

“Damn, this thing isn’t a mutant beast, is it?” Last time, those two hyenas had this kind of messy stuff on their faces too.

Mu Ling’s pupils shook, and she quickly looked towards the sky again.

The bird responsible had long since fled, leaving behind this hot potato for her.

Mu Ling was stunned. “No way, who was that bird? Why did it bring a mutant beast to our park? Is our park some kind of famous garbage dump? If it keeps randomly dropping mutant beasts when visitors come later, how am I supposed to live?”

Mu Ling was about to collapse. She thought for a moment, quickly found a bag from the car, flicked the snake into the bag, threw it into the trunk, got in the car, and immediately started the engine.

Two hours later, Mu Ling managed to return to the park just before it got completely dark.

She was the first one back; Brother Xiang and Brother Wei hadn’t returned yet.

After returning, Mu Ling first went to check on the construction workers. The workers were still working at this time; they had already eaten dinner, ordering takeout boxed meals. The workers’ meals for these few days were covered by Mu Ling, so the boxed meals were also reimbursed by her.

Mu Ling transferred the money for this meal’s boxed meals to the workers, then told them which floor their rooms were on, asking them to go back and rest at nine o’clock. Then she went to the veterinary station to feed the animals and give them medicine.

After finishing all this, Mu Ling sat on the sofa, hesitated for a long time, but still found Major Chang’s number in her light brain and dialed it.

Her light brain rang several times before someone picked up. Mu Ling immediately spoke, “Hello, is this Major Chang?”

The other end of the call was very noisy, and the signal wasn’t very good. After a few seconds, it became a bit quieter, and then Major Chang’s voice came through, “It’s me, Director Mu.”

“Hello, Major Chang.” Mu Ling directly told him about the snake incident. She said, “I’ll send you a photo. Can you see if this is a mutant beast? I noticed Lightning’s reaction was off, but I’m not sure.”

“Okay, send it to me.”

Mu Ling ran to the garage, took out the dead snake from the trunk, took a photo, and sent it to Major Chang.

Shortly after, Major Chang’s communication came through. He said, “It’s a mutant beast in the early stages of infection. You said a bird dropped it in your park, right onto your car?”

Mu Ling said, “Yes, but that bird shouldn’t be from our park. We don’t have birds that big or that can fly so well. I just wanted to ask, are you still clearing the mountain behind us? I’m just guessing, but could it be that one of your unit’s war birds flew to our area and accidentally dropped a mutant beast? After all, only combat war could catch mutant beasts, right?”

Major Chang on the other end pondered for a moment. “We are indeed still clearing the mountain. I’ll check with the team and see if it was one of our birds. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out. As for that snake, can you handle it? If not, I can send someone to collect it.”