Wei Yan cocked his ear to listen closely, but the sound had vanished, as if it were just an auditory hallucination.
Night was falling fast. Once the sun dipped below the horizon, darkness descended swiftly, and the forest before them was already growing dim.
They had too few lighting items and needed to return to the camp before it became completely dark.
Zhou Youlan quickly tied together a fish trap. Although it looked very crude and seemed like it would be battered apart by a strong current, he had managed to make it after all.
Still, they probably wouldn’t catch any fish tonight, so Zhou Youlan told everyone to head back to shore and return to the campsite. Once the night grew too deep, the jungle would become fraught with danger.
Returning empty-handed yet again, everyone couldn’t help feeling disheartened. Whether struck down by discouragement or simply exhausted, they all fell silent without a word.
Only then did Wei Yan hear it clearly. At the edge of the river was a dense thicket of bushes that had never been trodden by human feet, and the bushes further downstream were even thicker. After a rustling noise, it stopped again for a moment before starting up once more.
It sounded like something crawling and thrashing around inside.
Wei Yan narrowed his gaze at the bushes, his ears twitching as the movement grew closer and closer.
“Bro!” Big Mac suddenly shouted loudly from over there. “There are some big white grubs here!”
Because of that sudden shout, the branches and leaves of the thicket violently thrashed, clearly startled into a frantic scramble by the noise.
The others heard the commotion too. Lao Gui, who had been lying back resting, suddenly grabbed Ah Hu’s arm, and the two exchanged a look of mutual understanding.
Ah Hu stood up, walked to the riverbank, and stared intently into the thicket with sharp eyes.
The bushes here received sunlight for longer periods and grew taller than ordinary shrubs. Because the pouring river water kept the soil damp year-round, they grew very densely. If any wild animals were hiding inside, it certainly wouldn’t be easy to spot them.
Wei Yan slowly drew the dagger from his thigh, lightening his footsteps as he walked toward the spot.
The others were so startled by their sudden display of vigilance that they didn’t dare breathe loudly, yet they were consumed with curiosity about what was actually inside the bushes.
A snake? A wolf? Or some other dangerous creature?
Big Mac held a handful of rotting wood grubs he had dug out of the soil. These counted as protein, but why was no one paying attention to him? He had gone through the trouble of finding such good stuff.
“Bro, we’ve got food!” Big Mac yelled again.
Whatever was in the thicket had merely been restless before. Now it was in a full-blown panic.
Unable to find a way out in its fright, it thrashed violently and actually bolted straight into the water.
The people still in the river who hadn’t climbed up yet shrieked in terror at the sudden black creature, and the water instantly erupted into chaotic splashes.
“Ah! What on earth is that?”
“Don’t bump into me, help!”
Water sprayed wildly, and visibility was poor in the gathering dark. Everyone panicked, scrambling desperately to escape to the shore.
Wei Yan looked closely and saw that it was actually a black goat!
Someone tripped and fell in the river, choking on water and screaming. Those on the bank pulled those in the water, everyone fleeing in a disheveled scramble.
“Get up here!” Lin Yue climbed onto the riverbank first and reached out to pull up Ruan Mengmeng behind her.
Because Zhang Tongtong had pushed Ruan Mengmeng up first, he remained submerged in the water.
Human screams acted as a catalyst for fear. Seeing the goat charge toward Zhang Tongtong and the others, Zhou Youlan shouted urgently, “Watch out, don’t let it crash into you!”
Zhang Tongtong hurriedly shoved Ruan Mengmeng upward. Seeing the goat charging right at him, he panicked and floundered blindly in the water.
Wei Yan kicked up a stone from beneath his feet and struck the goat’s head, forcing it to change direction so it didn’t hit Zhang Tongtong directly.
Terrified to the point of weak knees, Zhang Tongtong was pulled onto the bank just in time by Ruan Mengmeng and the others.
Wei Yan withdrew his dagger, quickly unslung the bow from across his body, and drew an arrow from the bamboo tube on his back.
Ah Hu had also set his sights on the goat. Wei Yan raised his eyes to look at Ah Hu, and determination to win was evident in both of their gazes.
Zhou Youlan drew his machete, preparing to join the pursuit of the wild goat.
The goat ran in circles in the river before finding the direction of the thicket it had just tumbled out of. Seeing it about to run back, Ah Hu leaped into the river without hesitation.
Niu Xixi had just scrambled to his feet and was still screaming in terror, “Ah, help, what—”
Annoyed that Niu Xixi was blocking his path, Ah Hu stepped on him for leverage, kicking him right back down and cutting off his screams instantly.
Li Xiaohuan yelled anxiously, “We can’t let it run back! Once it dives into the thicket, it will be too hard to catch.”
This was their life-saving dinner.
Ah Hu nimbly followed the goat from the water straight into the thicket. Fixing his eyes on the movement within the brush, Wei Yan threw a parting phrase to Zhou Youlan, telling him to stay put, and bolted into the woods.
“Wei Yan!” Zhou Youlan called out.
It was almost dark, and entering the forest would be dangerous. Yet Wei Yan was so fast that, in the blink of an eye, he had sprinted into the woods and vanished from sight.
The others gasped, entirely too late to stop him.
“Wait,” Big Mac looked at the others. “Did Wei Yan just chase after it like that?”
“I can’t believe this,” Li Xiaohuan complained. “Didn’t they say not to let it enter the thicket, that stopping it would be enough? Wei Yan is so stupid.”
Zhang Tongtong’s mouth twitched in speechlessness. “Then why didn’t you go stop it? Weren’t you the first one to crawl out of the water?”
At least the others had the decency to reach out and help pull people up. Li Xiaohuan had just stood on the bank, wanting to catch the goat but too scared to step forward, doing nothing except open her mouth to issue commands.
“How was I supposed to stop it when I was all the way over here? Wei Yan was right by the thicket; he was the closest. If he had just had the sense to block the goat’s escape route, the goat would have slowed down in the water. Couldn’t all of us together have caught one goat?”
Li Xiaohuan continued complaining, “What did he go running off for now? The goat went into the forest, and it’s this dark, so who’s going to catch it? He should have just stayed behind to think of other ways, putting on an act just to make everyone else look lazy while he tries to look proactive.”
“How are you talking?” Zhang Tongtong said angrily. “Brother Wei is just trying his best.”
“What do you mean?”
“Enough!” Zhou Youlan barked in a deep voice, tired of how they always resorted to blaming each other and shifting responsibility whenever something happened. “Big Mac and Ke Feiyang, stay here and watch everyone. Don’t wander around. I’m going in to find Wei Yan.”
Big Mac hurriedly tried to stop him. “Bro, it’s dark; it’s not safe in there.”
Ignoring him, Zhou Youlan ran into the woods in the direction Wei Yan had taken. Big Mac shouted after him and hurried to follow.
Ke Feiyang quickly grabbed him. “Brother Zhou said not to wander around. What if we get lost and separated in there?”
“Then what if he goes in and can’t find his way back out?”
Big Mac shook him off and ran inside. Unwilling to leave him alone, Ke Feiyang had no choice but to follow.
The rest of the group followed the crowd and ran in as well, but after running just a short distance, they lost sight of Wei Yan and Zhou Youlan completely.
Li Xiaohuan and Kang Xiang quickly stopped in their tracks, neither of them daring to advance any further.
They all had a bit of outdoor survival experience. Thickets like this were crawling with snakes, insects, mice, and ants. Finding harmless ones was one thing, but running into venomous ones would make self-rescue nearly impossible.
More importantly, it was already dark, and they had no light sources. Venturing any further would cause them to lose their direction, and without a campfire at night, they would suffer from hypothermia.
Kang Xiang stopped the people following from behind. “No, we can’t go any further in. We have no idea which direction they went.”
“We can’t chase after them anymore. We don’t have any guidance, we’ll get lost, and losing our lives over a goat isn’t worth it,” Li Xiaohuan added.
Ke Feiyang had no choice but to stop as well. He grabbed Big Mac. “Let’s wait here for a moment. Maybe Brother Zhou and the others will come back out once they lose the trail. They shouldn’t have wandered too deep.”
Big Mac was anxious, but there was nothing he could do. If someone lagged behind or got separated after entering, it would only spell danger.
Wei Yan kept running in the direction of the swaying branches, accompanied by Ah Hu, who had chased after him as well.
The two ran at a nearly identical pace, side by side. Seeing that he couldn’t shake Wei Yan off, Ah Hu hacked off a tree branch and hurled it straight at Wei Yan with a sharp, slanting point.
Clearly, he had no intention of cooperating. He wanted the prey all to himself.