Survival of the Nation: My luck was a tiny bit worse.

In the bushes not too far from Mike, Green Bean lay on a rock, watching the golden-haired two-legged creature walk further and further away.

Red Bean next to it was already asleep, its body curled up into a fluffy ball, its belly rising and falling evenly with its breathing.

Green Bean nudged Red Bean with its paw and meowed.

Red Bean groggily opened one eye, glanced at it, and then closed it again.

"..."

The mung bean pushed again.

Red Bean immediately grumbled in dissatisfaction.

What? He's not dead yet, don't disturb my sleep!

Green Bean rolled her eyes slightly and had no choice but to continue staring at it by herself.

To be honest, it's a bit boring.

This two-legged creature did nothing but walk, occasionally stopping to rummage through the rocks and examine the corpses—it had seen the corpses many times before, especially those of two-legged creatures.

Since Nanbei was given the title of security team captain by Leng Dui, it became the prospective captain. Previously, Leng Dui always led Nanbei on his travels, and now it's its turn—

When patrolling the mountains, it's inevitable to encounter many corpses!

Especially for two-legged creatures, especially during this period.

However, the corpses of those two-legged creatures were very valuable, as they could help Captain Cold find out where these people came from and whether their equipment was usable.

Many of the equipment that the furnaces in the camp couldn't forge were scavenged from the corpses of these two-legged creatures.

For example, Chen Hao's notebook and pen.

There were also sunglasses belonging to the three masters.

Even the thing that Leng Dui called a cat toy—

Therefore, in Green Bean's opinion, this golden-haired two-legged creature was quite boring compared to the two-legged corpse.

They neither fight nor cook, and they barely exchange a few words.

The camp is so much more fun—the Cold Team can train it, the Big Brother likes to play with it using a cat toy, and Nanbei can teach it a lot of things.

Who told Captain Leng to say this mission was so important, that he had to follow him until he died—though Green Bean didn't understand why he had to follow him until he died either.

But if Cold says it's important, then it really is important.

It yawned, shifted to a more comfortable lying position, rested its chin on its paws, and continued to stare at the limping figure by the river.

Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the clouds, spreading a layer of shattered silver across the river.

The figure flickered in and out of the moonlight, gradually merging into the deep darkness of the night in the distance.

*

The next morning, at the Dragon Kingdom camp.

Ou Yun was awakened by an extremely loud rooster crow—

Wait, where did these chickens come from in the camp?

He groggily opened his eyes and saw a small, dark lump of coal standing on the windowsill, straining with all its might to make a sound completely disproportionate to its size—

"Coo coo coo coo—!!"

Oh, who else could it be but Little Coal Ball?

I haven't seen it for a few days, and it's grown quite a bit. Now it's almost the size of a chicken.

It stood on the windowsill, its neck stretched high. Although its call was still several orders of magnitude smaller than that of an adult black eagle, if you listened carefully, you could still hear some of the beginnings of an eagle's cry.

"Early in the morning..."

Ou Yun rubbed his eyes and went downstairs.

I didn't expect that mung bean and red bean would have already returned.

The two lynxes were covered in dew, clearly having run around outside all night.

"You're back? How was the journey?"

"Just as we guessed, they're still looking for the body."

"Oh, she's quite stubborn."

Ou Yun thought for a moment, then didn't say anything, and ruffled the hairs of the two Hakimi a few times with both hands.

"Alright, thanks for your hard work. There's meat in the kitchen, go get some yourself."

Two lynxes, one after the other, chased after Little Coal Ball until they disappeared through the kitchen doorway.

Leng Ruolan made herself a bowl of meat soup and also served Ou Yun a bowl.

"No new news?"

"Some brothers, and some others."

Leng Ruolan slowly took a sip of soup. "I had Nanbei and Ludou track down that unknown creature from last night this morning."

"However, their tracking range is only five kilometers around the camp, and they don't seem to dare to venture beyond that range."

"Did you find anything?"

"There are footprints, heading towards more distant, unexplored territory. The distance is too far, and the footprints are very new—"

Leng Ruolan's expression gradually turned serious. "This means that thing is moving faster than we expected. And also—"

She looked at Ou Yun, "More than one new type of footprint has been discovered in that area, at least three different types of creatures. They are all very new, appearing within the last day or two."

"..."

This doesn't sound like a good thing at all!

Sure enough, the forbidden area has begun releasing new mutated creatures into the forest?

Just like the second phase of the cleanup—the forbidden zone never waits for the announced date before taking action.

It always likes to give you a little surprise beforehand.

"Then we'll proceed according to the old rules."

Ou Yun took a sip of juice and began to deliver an important speech.

"We will not venture into unknown areas for now. We will strengthen patrols and defenses around the camp. We will adjust our strategy based on the situation after the third phase officially begins."

He thought about it carefully.

"Tell our brothers in the Bear Kingdom and the Pakistani Kingdom to continue reinforcing the low walls, and double the patrol frequency of the lynx groups under the command of the North and South. Green Bean will lead the logistics team as backup... and then tell the monkeys to double the number of sentry shifts. Prepare more dried meat and pickled vegetables today, just in case."

Leng Ruolan agreed, "Then I'll give the instructions like that later."

"Oh, right."

Looking at the flatbread on the table, Ou Yun suddenly remembered something, "Has the honey supply from the monkey troop been restored?"

"..."

*

Mike walked through the valley all night.

As dawn broke, he stopped at the mouth of a narrow canyon.

The terrain here is very special – there are steep rock walls on both sides, and only a narrow passage in the middle, no more than three meters wide, with large and small pebbles scattered on the ground.

The end of the passage was shrouded in a thin layer of mist, making it impossible to see where it led.

What truly made him stop was the mark on the canyon wall.

The deep, bone-revealing claw marks stretched from the bottom of the rock wall all the way to the top. Each mark was as thick as an arm, and the five marks were arranged side by side, as if they had been slashed by the sharp claws of some giant beast all at once.

Dark purple slime remained at the edges of the claw marks, gleaming eerily in the morning light.

Mike watched with trepidation. He slowly approached the rock wall, hesitantly touching the slime with his finger—

It's still very wet and hasn't completely solidified.

This indicates that the creature that left these claw marks had recently passed through this area.

He followed the claw marks and looked into the depths of the canyon.

In the thin mist, several fallen trees could be vaguely seen, their trunks broken in half, the cuts jagged and uneven.

It doesn't look like it was cut off; it looks more like it was broken by a tremendous force.

There was also a series of huge footprints on the ground, each footprint larger than his head, shaped like some kind of large feline, but with claws that were significantly more exaggerated than those of ordinary wild beasts.