NOVPUBWolves are natural hunters, while mountain rats are at best just slightly stronger small animals. Once Huiya found its rhythm, the mountain rats stood no chance at all—they had their necks bitten and broke within moments, dead on the spot.
This time, Huiya didn’t need anyone to teach it, instinctively lying atop the mountain rat and tearing it apart.
Before Suming had even finished his meal, half of the large mountain rat had gone into Huiya’s stomach, its mouth smeared with blood. It extended its barb-covered tongue, licked the blood-stained fur around its mouth, and then tilted its head toward the sky, letting out several high-pitched ’howls’.
Compared to the mature howl of the Wolf King, Huiya’s howls were short and immature, but they were wilder.
Survival of the fittest—Suming had the gift of animal friendship but was not a mother to the animals. There was no need for him to care about the life and death of each animal, nor did he intend to disrupt the balance of the food chain with his abilities. He merely observed silently as Huiya hunted the mountain rat, without any intervention.
It wasn’t until Huiya started to call out that Suming quickly covered the little guy’s mouth.
"Quiet down, what if you attract a pack of wild wolves!" Suming glared at Huiya.
Struggling in Suming’s arms, Huiya, probably still unsatisfied from its earlier howling, squeezed its head out of Suming’s hands and opened its mouth to continue making noise.
Suming grabbed its jaws and slapped it on the buttocks with a smack.
"You’ve only been eating meat for a few days, and your wings aren’t hard yet, and you dare to disobey!"
After being hit, Huiya didn’t dare to make any more noise, its sharp little ears drooping back, looking at Suming with a pitiful expression.
...
Nothing happened that night. With Huiya, Haidong Qing, and the Diamond Parrot standing guard, Suming simply extinguished his campfire and dove straight into his sleeping bag, sleeping until daylight broke.
Upon opening his eyes, the soft sunlight filtered through the leaves, falling onto the forest floor covered with dried leaves, creating both large and small patches of light. The morning calls of birds in the forest filled his ears, and the air was tinged with the delicate fragrance of dew.
A furry head rested on his chest; Huiya had somehow squeezed into the sleeping bag during the night, lying on Suming’s chest. With a slight movement from Suming, Huiya immediately woke up, crawled out of the sleeping bag, and stretched extensively on the ground.
Suming climbed out from the sleeping bag as well and went to a nearby mountain spring to scoop up a handful of water to wash his face.
He had originally thought that he might encounter some large animals in the middle of the night, like wild boars or similar, but instead, although they had reached the deep forest, animals were scarce. There were plenty of small creatures like birds and rodents, but larger ones were rare.
It seemed that the animals had been scared off by people, all moving to the deeper forests, only emerging when absolutely necessary.
No large animals, but human traces were found!
Following the stream in the mountains for over two hours, Suming discovered a small campsite on the riverbank. It appeared that someone had camped there the night before.
From the scale of the camp, there seemed to be about five or six people, possibly adventure travelers or local hunters from the nearby mountains.
Huiya sniffed around the campsite for a while, found the direction in which these people had left, and seeing as it wasn’t towards where the Queen Bee was, Suming decided not to meddle and continued on his way.
Along the journey, it was practically all about climbing over mountains and ridges. In some places, there was simply nowhere to set foot, with steep slopes of eighty or ninety degrees blocking the way, or vast marshes of mud where even Suming, with his current skills, couldn’t cross. Fortunately, the three large birds were there. Although they couldn’t possibly carry over a hundred pounds of Suming flying across, the three of them working together to grab Suming greatly reduced the weight and finally allowed him to pass through with difficulty.
It was not until the afternoon, after circling around a small mountain ridge and trekking through the maze-like woods for a while, that they arrived at a little canyon.
Just two or three meters wide beyond the small canyon, there were cliffs on both sides, while underneath were patches of cobblestones, clearly indicating a dried-up mountain stream.
Several bees buzzing at the mouth of the valley welcomed Suming, who fortunately reacted quickly and hugged the necks of the parrot sisters, preventing the foolish birds from almost biting those few small bees to death.
"Whoo... Whoo..."
"Chirp chirp... Chirp chirp..."
The parrot sisters, with their necks squeezed, made strange noises.
Guided by the bees, Suming entered the canyon and after winding his way for about fifteen minutes, a light suddenly shone in front of his eyes!
He was greeted by a valley surrounded by mountains, with a small waterfall in the far distance cascading down the cliff, nourishing the vegetation in the valley.
From the higher ground at the entrance of the valley, one could overlook the entire valley, which appeared as a sea of flowers, blooming with a variety of unnamed wildflowers everywhere.
"What a great place!" Suming nodded in satisfaction. Standing on the slope and looking down, the valley seemed rather small. That was due to the high perspective, but in reality, the actual size of the valley was probably astonishing, much larger than an entire zoo. Not only was it hidden, but it also abounded with wildflowers, providing the bees with ample raw material for making honey.
Walking down the grassy slope into the valley, Suming felt as if he were in the legendary Hundred Flowers Valley, everywhere bloomed vivid flowers, butterflies danced, and joyful bees were laboring, with a faint sweet fragrance seemingly in the air.
The more variety of flowers, the better the honey produced, and in just a short distance, Suming had already seen dozens of different types of wildflowers.
Huiya followed closely behind Suming, floundering in the tall grass that was even higher than it, playfully chasing butterflies and dragonflies, trampling a large swath of the meadow, thoroughly enjoying itself.
In such a place, it was uncommon to find any large predators, and with Haidong Qing patrolling in the sky, Suming let Huiya romp around as it pleased.
So he casually followed the honeycomb deeper into the valley and, after walking more than a mile, finally saw the long-lost swarm of bees.
In the branches of about a dozen large poplar trees, heavy beehives were hanging. One particularly large hive, about half a person tall, was especially noticeable.
Throughout the woods, bees flew swarming, far more than Suming had anticipated. At a distance, the mass of bees looked like a dark blanket.
"Eh? Why are there so many bees?"
Suming was slightly surprised to see that the number of bees before him was at least five to six times larger than the last swarm, covering the sky and filling the air. Even if the Queen Bee was prolific, the bee colony couldn’t have grown so large in such a short time, could it?
Upon closer inspection, Suming realized something was amiss!
These bees were grouped together, constantly colliding violently, with mass attacks between clusters of bees, and injured bees were falling on the ground like raindrops!
The bee colony was not making honey at all, but was in the midst of a war!
