Chapter 26 - The Reunion (1/2)

Chapter 26: The Reunion

Translated by Shiya of Exiled Rebels Translations

They lost their backpacks, the only thing they had now were a dagger and an air gun. They didn’t have a map nor a torch, so they could only try to find the way with the vague memory they had. It was still raining heavily; their clothes were so wet that they were dripping water. Even in such a poor state, they didn’t dare rest. They couldn’t reason with nature; danger could strike at any given moment.

“We should have kept the flare with us.” SiMa JingRong said with regret.

Li Sui looked up at the rainy sky and said, “In this weather, even if we used the smoke flares, they probably won’t see us.”

The roads were harsh, as a landslide just took place, the landscapes were very different from when they first arrived. The two of them discussed for a while but still couldn’t reach a consensus.

“I remember it’s this way, there’s a tree here.”

“There’s a tree in the next crossroad, not this one.”

“No, it is this one. This crooked tree, I remember this tree.” SiMa JingRong fought back.

Li Sui wasn’t sure either, so he held up his dagger and made a mark on the tree. He said, “Let’s follow your memory first, if it doesn’t feel right, we will immediately return here.”

That was what he said, but the woods all looked the same. It was extremely dark right now, they couldn’t get their bearings at all, so they were just walking around basing on pure instinct. After walking for a while, the rain began to recede. The wild grass became thicker and taller. At a point, they found even advancing impossible.

Li Sui stopped walking, “We haven’t been here before.”

SiMa JingRong turned back and asked, “Are you sure?”

Li Sui squatted down, he dug up some soil, then he frowned, “The soil feels different, we’ve must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

SiMa JingRong looked at the surroundings, he sniffed his nose in the cold, “We should go back when the sky lights up. There are quite a lot of trees here, so landslides probably won’t happen here, right?”

They had been walking for the whole day, they didn’t get much rest at night either. After going through that scary ordeal, both of them were exhausted. At least SiMa JingRong slept for a few hours, Li Sui didn’t get a wink of sleep, so he was so tired that he began seeing stars. Without much thought, he agreed to SiMa JingRong’s idea.

They didn’t have any tools to start a fire, their clothes were all wet and they couldn’t dry them. The humidity in the woods were high, plus they sweated, so everything was sticky and uncomfortable.

Not only that, there were insects everywhere. The heavy rain must have scared them out from the ground. Flies and mosquitoes were nothing, the problem was ticks and leeches. There were a lot of them, and their bites hurt a lot. They would crawl into their trousers once they weren’t alert, sucking on their skin and almost impossible to get rid of.

Li Sui cut off some relatively dry grass under the tree, then he used the pieces of grass to dry the air gun. Luckily, the gun had a waterproof coating. Wang Wei probably sprayed it on beforehand, worrying that it would get humid in the woods. Now being in the wild, he finally understood what Wang Wei meant when he said, “I didn’t feel safe without a gun.” When facing the unknown, there was nothing more comforting than a weapon in hand. After making sure the gun was still functional, Li Sui used the rest of the grass to knit a few pieces of ropes. He tied the ends of his trousers up tightly with the ropes, then he leaned on the trunk of the tree to rest. He was too tired. At first, he just planned on closing his eyes to meditate, but once he closed his eyes, he fell asleep.

It was an extremely uncomfortable nap, half of him was in dreams, but half of him was awake. He kept seeing Lu Shang coming to pick him up, he would prop himself up ecstatically, but once he moved, he’d notice that it was nothing more than a dream. This repeated a few times, making his head dizzy and disoriented.

The longer he slept, the more tired he became; Li Sui opened his eyes in pain. Originally, he thought he had been asleep for a long time already, but when he looked around, everything was still dark, only the rain had stopped.

The bushes from afar had some movements, Li Sui immediately got alerted. He held the small dagger tight in his hand, then tried waking SiMa JingRong up, “Wake up.”

The latter obviously didn’t sleep well either, he woke up the second Li Sui called him. Rubbing his eyes, he asked, “What’s wrong?” Before Li Sui replied, SiMa JingRong noticed the odd movements in the bushes himself. It was as if something was nearing them at high speed.

“What is that?” SiMa JingRong mouthed the words to Li Sui.

Li Sui stared at the bushes, not answering him.

The thing in the bushes suddenly stopped moving, almost like it had felt Li Sui’s gaze.

“Is it a snake?” SiMa JingRong asked anxiously.

“Most likely.” Li Sui took in a cold breath, his grip on the dagger tightened.

The sun was rising soon, and the forest was engulfed in the morning mist, making everything hazy. Li Sui fell back a few steps with his back up against the tree. Neither side moved, as if they were gauging each other’s ability.

A gust of wind picked up in the woods, the grass rattled under the wind as an eerie sound came from the bushes. Siiii… siiii… At roughly the same time, the upper part of the snake straightened up, popping out from the bushes and sticking out its tongue.

“God! It really is a snake!” SiMa JingRong basically screamed.

“Don’t scream.” Li Sui continued after some thought, “Don’t move around, either.”

The snake wasn’t big, it was small but long, with black and brown stripes on its scales. It didn’t look especially strong. Li Sui didn’t know much about snakes, he had no idea what species the snake was, but since it is a wild snake, he presumed that it would be quite vicious. If the snake wasn’t poisonous, then Li Sui had the confidence he could take it on, but if it was a poisonous snake, then it would be a big problem. Being bitten by a poisonous snake here would mean a lot of trouble.

Li Sui felt his palm sweating; he’d stayed in the city for his entire life, so this was the first time he had to face a situation like this. He wasn’t exactly frightened, but he was still anxious. His brain was in a state of confusion, he remembered hearing people saying when faced with danger, you would get hurt the more you ran.

“What are you doing?” SiMa JingRong’s face turned white as he saw Li Sui pulled out the gun. Instinctively, he moved to stop Li Sui.

“Striking first and gaining the upper hand.” Li Sui tightened his own coat, then turned to ask SiMa JingRong, “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“No, no I don’t.”

“Good.” Li Sui threw him the dagger, then said, “Climb up the tree.”

“You……” Before SiMa JingRong knew what to say, Li Sui had already picked up a wooden stick and ran towards the snake.

At the same time, the snake seemed to have sensed the hostility. The snake suddenly jumped out from the bushes completely, baring its fangs. Li Sui calmed himself down, after taking a big breath, he picked up the courage to whip the snake with the stick. The hit threw the snake out a few meters, it curled up on the ground in agony.

Their target was now as clear as day, seeing that they were at an advantage here, Li Sui clumsily raised the gun up. The snake just got whipped, so it was still cowering on the ground, Li Sui took the chance to shoot at the curled-up snake. The sound of the shot echoed through the forest, but the result of the shot wasn’t satisfactory, it didn’t hit any of the snake’s vitals. The snake jumped at the sudden attack; it began retreating.

Seeing that the snake was going to run away, Li Sui screamed at the person up on the tree in a rush, “Go for the kill! Don’t let it run away!”

T/N: No offense but why? Just let it run away…

Rich boy, SiMa JingRong had never seen snakes out of the zoo, his legs were numb, and he didn’t dare jump off the tree. Seeing that the snake was running away, he just threw the dagger out, the dagger shot straight into the snake’s tail. The snake struggled for a bit, then bringing the dagger with it, it sneaked back into the bushes and got away.

They didn’t catch the snake, worse still, they lost the only other weapon besides the gun they had. Li Sui couldn’t hold back, he scolded SiMa JingRong, “How does garbage like you survive for this long?”

SiMa JingRong sat on the tree branch; with an innocent face, he said, “I have money.”

Li Sui choked.

… He couldn’t refute.

“Will it come back again?” SiMa JingRong jumped down from the tree; dusting off, he said, “Will its family gang come back for revenge or something?”

“You watch too many movies.” Li Sui tied the gun back to his legs and said, “Snakes aren’t that united, even if they are, they wouldn’t be that quick…”

Before Li Sui finished speaking, the sounds of a few snakes reached their ears. The sound came from the bushes around them.

The two of them stared at each other, both with terrified expressions. They could barely handle one snake, but now with a bunch of snakes, there was only one option left.

“Run!”

They didn’t have the leisure to care about where they were going, they just ran like their lives depended on it. At the beginning, Li Sui still remembered to check the direction, but after a while he couldn’t. The horde of snakes behind them weren’t giving up, they were fast and agile. If they accidentally tripped, then the snakes would most likely immediately swarm them. The two of them only had one goal right now, which was to get them off their tails.

As Li Sui ran, he turned his head back and took a few shots, he wasn’t sure if the snakes were hit or not, but at least it could scare them a bit. The snakes seemed to be taken aback by the shots, but quickly they regained their formation and continued the pursuit.

“Were we in a snake’s den or something?!” SiMa JingRong screamed.

When Li Sui linked this back to the landslide before, he began to have an unsettling feeling, “I think we might have already gotten out of the protected zone.”

The landslide frightened them, they forgot about one thing. If the landslide could flatten an entire forest in an instant, washing away the protective barrier would be more than easy. Before they embarked on the test, the trainer reminded them again not to go out of the protective barriers, as outside was an area of untouched, primitive woodlands. Without the protection of the barriers, the chances of them running into wildlife animals would be high. Moreover, it would be very difficult to find them, if they ventured into the wild.

“I can’t run anymore…” SiMa JingRong complained.

“We can’t stop, it’d be troublesome if we get caught.”

“I can’t. I seriously can’t…” They walked for the whole day, then they ran for their lives at night. Even Li Sui was feeling exhausted, of course SiMa JingRong would be complaining.

Li Sui clicked his tongue and turned back, he grabbed SiMa JingRong’s arm, pulling him forward, “You can’t stop. I promised your father and Lu Shang that I’d get you through this.”

The snakes were getting closer, it was as if the cold-blooded animals wouldn’t tire at all. The two of them ran around the forest, but just couldn’t seem to get them off their tails. Just when the snakes almost caught up, the path in front of them ended. Neither of them noticed in time to hit the brakes, they screamed as they fell off along with the rocks and sand.

The drop was disorientating, it was as if they were thrown into a washing machine, they felt like their organs were getting washed out from their bodies. Amongst the chaos, Li Sui tried to grab hold of the grass on the side, but he only got a handful of sand. The loose sand and soil on the slope tumbled down with them. At that moment, they could hear nothing but the wind and their screams.

After the fall, they felt their bodies sank, the two of them fell into a ditch-like place. They fell so hard that they almost spewed blood. Before they could get up and react to where they were, a bunch of rocks and sand followed after them, falling onto their heads. Li Sui raised his arm, barely managing to cover his own head up. As he moved his shoulder blades, he felt a sharp pain in his back, soon losing his consciousness.

It rained and thundered for the entire night, Lu Shang didn’t sleep well, his complexion was abnormally bad. After changing, he walked downstairs to find Uncle Yuen standing there waiting for him, his usually calm face was now buried in worriedness.

“What’s wrong?”

“There was a huge rainstorm in the Protected Woodlands.” Uncle Yuen continued with a lower voice, “A landslide.”

In Tong Yan’s conference room, assistant Yang waited a long time but still saw no signs of Lu Shang. She secretly phoned Uncle Yuen, getting the direction to cancel the meeting. She was going to ask if the signing ceremony in the afternoon was going to continue or not, but before she could ask, Uncle Yuen had already hung the phone up.

“What’s happening, what’s so important anyways…” She mumbled at the now dark mobile phone screen.

On the way to the mountain, Lu Shang for once didn’t sit at the back, instead he sat in the co-driver’s seat.