After traversing the forest for a while, Golden Retriever stopped ahead.
Qin Ziwen stood at a distance, in front of a clearing.
He told the men to put down their backpacks and hide in the bushes nearby, then picked up his weapons and went forward.
A man sat by a tree root, leaning against the tree. Golden Retriever ran over and nuzzled him with its head, then barked a few times in the direction they had come from.
Qin Ziwen moved a distance away, hiding behind a tree, and asked, "What's wrong?"
Hearing the approaching person, the man sitting by the tree root regained some strength. He turned his head and said excitedly, "My leg is injured, it hurts a lot when I move it, can you help me?"
"How did you get your leg injured?"
"I was hit by a wild boar. We were hunting wild boar just now, and after it was injured, it went crazy, charging at me and breaking my leg. In the end, the wild boar ran away."
"Where are your companions?"
The man smiled bitterly, "They went after that injured wild boar. I called to them, but none of them answered me."
The harpy eagle flew around once, finally landing quietly on a branch above its head.
Qin Ziwen felt a sense of relief; it seemed there was no one else around.
He stepped forward and approached the man.
The injured man looked young, in his early twenties, and his lips were pale, perhaps due to blood loss.
His brown trousers were soaked with blood, and in one place, they were torn, revealing a bloody wound.
A finely crafted knife lay on the ground beside the young man.
"Did a wild boar inflict this wound?"
The young man nodded: "It stabbed me with its tusks."
Qin Ziwu looked at the young man's wound, somewhat relieved. Luckily, his older brother hadn't made him hunt that wild boar; otherwise, they might be the ones injured now, and they might not have found the kiwifruit.
Judging from his condition, the injury was quite serious.
The young man looked at Qin Ziwen hopefully, "Can you help me? I promise you won't let me do it for nothing. By the way, I have a set of mountain armor at home, made of cold-rolled steel! It's top-notch stuff; even a wild boar couldn't penetrate it! It's an absolute game-changer! Armor, full-body armor—in ancient times, it would have been a deadly weapon."
"Mountain-patterned armor? How do you have that?" Qin Ziwen asked, puzzled.
The young man replied, "I'm a fan of ancient costumes. I have not only mountain-patterned armor at home, but also Hanfu (traditional Han clothing) and various antique-style weapons. That mountain-patterned armor was too heavy; I couldn't walk very far in it, so I didn't wear it."
At this point, the young man gritted his teeth in frustration. "I teamed up with some people from my neighborhood because we all own large dogs and often walk them together. So after we transmigrated, we teamed up. I trusted them, thinking that many hands make light work, so I lent them the cold weapons I had collected.
But at the crucial moment, they ignored me and went straight to chase wild boars. I really misjudged them."
Qin Ziwen told his younger brother to pick up the knife on the ground. "Let's go."
Qin Ziwu picked up the knife and waved it in the air.
"What kind of knife is that? It looks pretty cool,"
the young man said. "It's a Tang Dynasty horizontal sword. I had it custom-made; it cost five figures. By the way, my benefactors, I still don't know your names. My name is Li Yue, Li as in the Tang Dynasty, and Yue as in Mount Tai."
"My surname is Qin. This is my younger brother, and this is my friend Lao Deng."
Li Yue's eyes reddened. "Brother Qin, Brother Deng! Thank you!"
Qin Ziwen said, "Alright, you're injured and still talking so much.
Can't you put any weight on your leg?" "I can still put weight on this leg."
Qin Ziwen and Deng Guang supported him on either side, and Li Yue hopped around on one leg.
After walking a distance, Li Yue's face turned even paler. The wound on his leg, which had already scabbed over, burst open and started bleeding.
Li Yue said weakly, "Brother, I think we should stop the bleeding first."
They put him down, searched around, and then used a knife to cut open his shirt, tore off a strip, and tied it tightly above the wound until the bleeding decreased.
None of the three were professionals, nor had they learned how to bandage wounds, so they didn't know if this would be feasible.
But they figured it was better than not stopping the bleeding. "I'll carry you."
The three then took turns carrying Li Yue back. Luckily, Li Yue wasn't heavy; he was tall and thin.
According to him, he weighed just over 110 pounds.
Qin Ziwu touched the blade. "Is this knife sharpened? Aren't these things you buy online supposed to be unsharpenable?"
Li Yue, being carried by Deng Guang, said, "In principle, they shouldn't be sharpened."
"I understand."
After Li Yue left for a while,
a beagle emerged from the bushes, drawn by the scent.
The three followed closely behind, with a German Shepherd and a Labrador beside them.
"I told you, we should have shot its legs first. How can we catch up if we don't shoot its legs?"
"You make it sound so easy. Do you think I don't want to shoot? That wild boar is fast and strong; we can't stop it at all."
"What about Li Yue? His leg is injured. How are we going to get him back?"
"It's still so far. By the time we get him back, it will be dark."
As they were talking, they arrived nearby.
"Hey, where is he?"
"Where did he go?"
"I remember he was under this tree, and there were some rocks nearby."
The man in the denim jacket with a wolf tail looked around. "Could he have been carried off by some wild animal?"
The man with a mole on his lip said, "Look here, there's blood on the ground. He was just here."
The middle-aged man with glasses looked worried. "Oh, what do we do now?"
The man with the wolf tail glanced at him and sneered, "Alright, stop pretending. You were the first to suggest chasing that wild boar, but you didn't consider what to do."
The middle-aged man's lips twitched slightly. "Li Yue was calling us from behind, but you ignored him."
After hearing this, the three men's eyes flickered.
Li Yue was injured, and the wild boar looked badly injured as well, so the three of them chased after the boar without prior arrangement. If something happened to Li Yue, there would be one less person to share the meat.
Besides, they didn't have to return the borrowed weapons.
After Li Yue lent them the cold weapons, he urged them to take them back every night.
They were using this thing so skillfully, it was as if they didn't want to return it.
But unexpectedly, not only did they fail to catch the wild boar, but the injured boar ran incredibly fast, even the dog couldn't catch it. The boar seemed to know the surrounding terrain intimately, and eventually disappeared.
The man with the wolf tail glanced around: "Damn, the scenery all looks the same. It's a good thing we have the dog, otherwise we probably wouldn't even have found this place. Speaking of which, is Li Yue hiding?"
The man with the mole on his lip said, "His leg is injured like that, what good is hiding? He won't survive the next day in this forest. Alright , let's go back."
hiding? He won't survive the next day in this forest. Alright , let's go back."
The middle-aged man pondered, "I suggest we keep an eye on him near his house when we get back. If he comes back, we can resolve the conflict."
The man with the wolf tail scoffed: "So what if he comes back? We're back to find him now. He disappeared on his own, it's not our fault. Do you expect us to apologize to him?"
Looking at the other two, the middle-aged man cursed inwardly, "These two idiots."
How could his solution be an apology?
The simplest and most brutal method was to shut them up completely.
(End of Chapter)