“Oh no!”
Lin Xi’s heart sank violently, a chill shooting from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her skull.
She looked around. As far as the eye could see, there were nothing but identical, towering pine trees and nameless shrubs. The sunlight was sliced into countless fragmented spots by the lush foliage, dancing on the ground in a dizzying display that made it impossible to tell north from south, or east from west.
She tried to retrace her steps, only to find the scenery ahead even more unfamiliar. The faint memories of the path she took were completely swallowed by this sea of green; she couldn’t find a single clue.
How did this happen?
She clearly felt she hadn’t walked that far. How could she be so suddenly lost?
A long-forgotten sense of panic coiled around her heart like a vine. She recalled the legends of “Ghost Walls” (the phenomenon of walking in circles) she had heard in her previous life. Had she run into one?
“Meow?” Huzi seemed to sense his master’s anxiety. He jumped down from Lin Xi’s shoulder, circled the spot a few times, and let out two cries toward a specific direction, as if saying: “Master, home is that way.”
Lin Xi immediately followed Huzi, but after walking a short distance, even Huzi stopped. He tilted his head, his emerald eyes filled with confusion. He twitched his nose, sniffing the air incessantly, but he too seemed to have lost his bearings.
Even Huzi was lost!
Lin Xi’s heart went cold. She realized then that this mountain forest was far larger and more complex than she had imagined. The scents, the magnetic field, and even the light patterns here could interfere with an animal’s instincts.
She had been too arrogant. She thought that having a stone knife, a basket, and basic survival skills meant she could roam these woods unchallenged. Reality had just dealt her a harsh blow.
If she couldn’t find her way back, it meant losing the secret base with the spiritual spring! She would turn back into a starving, exposed fugitive!
No! Never!
Lin Xi pinched herself hard. The sharp pain instantly cleared the panic from her mind.
Don’t panic! The more desperate the situation, the calmer I must be!
She forced herself to sit down and took several deep breaths. The cool air helped lower the temperature of her anxiety-heated brain. She began to recall every scrap of useful knowledge from her previous life: things geography teachers had taught, techniques explorers demonstrated in documentaries, even plot points from survival novels… everything flashed through her mind.
First, determine the direction.
She looked up at the sky. It was roughly afternoon, and the sun was tilting toward the west. She held up a hand, gauging the sun’s position.
“East is up, west is down, north is left, south is right…” she muttered to herself—the simplest solar positioning method. But she quickly spotted a problem: the trees were too high and dense. She could only see a blurred halo of light, making it impossible to pinpoint the sun’s exact location.
That method wouldn’t work.
She began to observe the surrounding trees again.
“The side of a tree facing south has lush foliage, while the side facing north is sparse and likely has moss growing on the bark…”
She immediately ran to a massive pine tree and inspected it closely. Sure enough, she found that the branches on one side grew significantly more outward and had a more vibrant color. On the opposite side, not only were the branches sparse, but the bark near the roots was indeed covered in a thin layer of dark green moss.
South! She had found South!
Lin Xi felt a surge of joy. Her secret base was roughly due north of the village, and she had escaped from the back mountains to the south of the village. Therefore, as long as she kept heading south, theoretically she could exit this mountain forest and return to the area near the village. Although that wasn’t her goal, it was at least a clear direction, which was better than spinning around like a headless fly.
However, she didn’t want to leave the mountains; she wanted to go back to that cave with the Spirit Spring!
She remembered the cave was located halfway up a valley, with a stream nearby. Her current location was relatively flat, clearly not a place she was familiar with.
What should she do?
Just when she was at her wit’s end, her enhanced “Beast Taming” ability gave her another surprise.
She closed her eyes. Instead of blasting her mental energy out like a desperate distress signal, she let it radiate outward gently like radar, scanning the surroundings in concentric circles.
She “heard” the rustle of wind blowing through the leaves.
She “heard” the patter of earthworms churning the soil underground.
She “heard” the thump-thump-thump of a woodpecker tapping on a tree trunk in the distance.
The entire forest seemed to transform in her mind into a three-dimensional map filled with various sounds and life signals!
She projected her intent gently: ‘Water… I am looking for a stream… flowing from high to low…’
“Thump-thump-thump… this way… water…”
The “working” woodpecker gave her a vague response. Its intelligence wasn’t high, and it couldn’t provide precise directions, but it instinctively knew the direction of the place where it usually went to drink.
A clue!
Lin Xi immediately walked toward the direction of the woodpecker’s sound. This time, she was smarter. She used her stone knife to carve small “X” marks—which only she could understand—on the tree trunks along the way.
As she walked, she constantly communicated with the living creatures around her using her mental energy.
A foraging pheasant told her: ‘Thorns ahead, go around.’
A monkey swinging in the trees (the biodiversity of this forest was beyond imagination) tossed a wild fruit down at her and transmitted the thought: ‘Dummy, the path is over there!’
Even when she passed a massive beehive, a hornet on guard duty flew in front of her. It didn’t sting her, but instead sent a “warning” intent: ‘Our home, do not approach!’
Lin Xi immediately and obediently took a wide detour.
Under the guidance of these “original residents,” she was like a queen with countless scouts, traversing calmly through a forest that would be a labyrinth to anyone else.
After walking for about an hour, she finally heard the splashing sound of water!
It was a small creek!
Although it wasn’t the one she was familiar with, as long as there was water, there was hope! Most water systems in the mountains are interconnected. By following the flow, she would eventually find a familiar spot.
She followed the creek, sometimes heading upstream and sometimes downstream, constantly identifying her bearings.
The sky gradually dimmed. Nightfall was imminent.
The mountain forest at night was a hundred times more dangerous than during the day. She had to find a safe place to spend the night before total darkness set in.
Just as she was becoming anxious, she suddenly smelled a familiar, faint scent of blood and an… indescribable stench.
Her heart jolted. She immediately hid behind a large boulder and cautiously peeked out.
Not far away in the woods by the creek, a campfire had actually been lit!
There were people!
Lin Xi’s heart instantly leaped into her throat. Was it a hunter? Or someone lost just like her?
She crept a little closer, using the trees as cover to observe carefully.
Seated around a campfire were three men. Each was burly and fierce-looking, dressed in ragged clothes, with gleaming machetes tucked into their waists. At their feet lay several open, bulging sacks that seemed to contain bolts of cloth and various metal utensils.
What made Lin Xi’s skin crawl even more was the sight of two people lying on the other side of the fire! Their hands and feet were bound, their mouths gagged; they lay motionless, and it was impossible to tell if they were dead or alive.
Bandits!
The word hit Lin Xi’s heart like a heavy sledgehammer.
By the looks of it, they had clearly just completed a robbery and were here to divide the loot!
Scared out of her wits, Lin Xi didn’t even dare to breathe loudly. She never dreamed that in these deep, ancient woods, she would stumble upon bandits who were a hundred times more cruel than wild beasts.
She wanted to turn and flee immediately, to get as far away as possible from these demons who killed without blinking.
But just as she prepared to retreat quietly, the conversation between the bandits made her stop dead in her tracks. Her very blood seemed to freeze in that moment.
A one-eyed man with a thick beard, gnawing on a piece of roasted meat, spoke indistinctly to his companion: “Boss, now that we’ve finished this job, can we go back to the village and enjoy ourselves for a few days? I’ve been missing my new bride like crazy!”
Another man with a scar across his face—their “Boss”—snorted coldly, took a swig of liquor, and cursed: “Enjoy yourself, my ass! The heat hasn’t died down over at Shanglin Village yet! A few days ago, that loser Lin Dajun made a huge scene looking for that niece of his who’s supposedly worth several hundred yuan. He even reported it to the officials! The town is crawling with checkpoints right now; going back now would be walking straight into a trap!”
Shanglin Village! Lin Dajun!
Those names pierced Lin Xi’s ears like needles!
She snapped her head up, staring fixedly at the scarred man.
The one-eyed man asked again: “Reported it to the officials? Dammit, it’s just a bratty girl. If she’s lost, she’s lost, why call the law? Doesn’t that mean the deal we made with Matchmaker Liu is dead in the water?”
The scarred man spat on the ground and said viciously: “It’s dead! That old hag Matchmaker Liu ran off overnight, scared of getting caught. Made me get my hopes up for nothing! I was planning that once we got the Lin girl, we’d flip her to the black mines down south for another big payout. I heard the brat looks like a porcelain doll; she definitely would have fetched a high price!”
“Dammit! What bad luck!” the one-eyed man cursed resentfully. “It’s all that little wench Lin Xi’s fault. Why the hell did she run! If I catch her, I’ll break her legs and sell her to the darkest brothel out there, so she’ll beg for a death that won’t come!”
Boom!
Lin Xi’s mind felt as if a bomb had been detonated!
So… so these were the people Matchmaker Liu had contacted—the real buyers!
It was them who had originally planned to buy her and resell her to the black mines!
They were the ultimate executioners of her tragic fate!
A surge of fear and hatred, a hundred times stronger than what she felt facing the wolves, instantly overwhelmed her.
She looked at the bandits laughing and talking, treating human life like grass. Then, she looked just above their heads at a massive hornets’ nest—larger than her entire body—hanging from a thick branch. A wild and daring plan instantly took shape in her mind.
You want me to beg for a death that won’t come?
Then today, I’ll let you be the ones to taste what it feels like to be stung by ten thousand hornets—with no way to heaven and no path to the earth!