Chapter 49 - 45: Rescue
After weaving through the woods for some distance, the Golden Retriever stopped up ahead.
Qin Ziwen stood some distance away, looking at a clearing ahead.
He had the others put down their backpacks and hide them in a nearby bush, then advanced with his weapon drawn.
A man was sitting by the roots of a tree, his back against the trunk. The Golden Retriever ran over, nuzzled him with its head, and then barked a few times in the direction they had come from.
Qin Ziwen kept his distance, asking from behind a tree, "What happened to you?"
Hearing a voice, the man sitting by the roots seemed to regain some of his spirit. He turned his head and said excitedly, "My leg is injured. It hurts like hell if I move. Can you help me?"
"How did you injure your leg?"
"A wild boar rammed me. We were hunting it just now. After it got hurt, it went crazy, zeroed in on me, and broke my leg. The boar got away in the end."
"Where are your companions?"
The man gave a bitter smile. "They went after the injured boar. I called for them, but not a single one answered."
The Beaked Eagle circled the area once before landing silently on a branch overhead.
Qin Ziwen felt a sense of relief. ’Looks like there really is no one else around.’
He stepped out from behind the tree and approached the man.
The injured man didn’t look old, probably in his early twenties. His lips were pale, perhaps from blood loss.
His brown pants were soaked with blood, and a torn section revealed a gory wound.
An exquisite-looking saber lay on the ground next to the young man.
"A wild boar did that to you?"
The young man nodded. "Gored by its tusk."
Qin Ziwu looked at the young man’s wound and felt a wave of relief. He was glad his older brother hadn’t let him hunt that boar earlier. Otherwise, they could have been the ones injured, and they might not have found the kiwis either.
Judging by his condition, the injury was severe.
The young man looked at Qin Ziwen with hope in his eyes. "Can you help me? I’ll make it worth your while, I swear. Oh, right! I have a set of Mountain Armor at home, made from cold-rolled steel! It’s the real deal. A wild boar couldn’t even pierce it! It’s a total game-changer! Armor, man, a full suit of Armor. Back in ancient times, owning something like that could get your head chopped off."
"Mountain Armor? How do you have something like that?" Qin Ziwen asked, puzzled.
The young man explained, "I’m a historical costume enthusiast. I don’t just have the Mountain Armor; I also have Hanfu and all sorts of replica ancient weapons. That set of Mountain Armor is too heavy. I can’t walk very far in it, so I didn’t wear it."
At this, the young man gritted his teeth in frustration. "I teamed up with a few guys from my Gated Community. We all have large dogs and used to get together to walk them, so we grouped up after the crossing. I trusted them. I figured there was strength in numbers, so I even lent them the cold weapons from my collection to use.
"But when it mattered most, they abandoned me and just went after the boar. I was so wrong about them."
Qin Ziwen told his brother to pick up the saber from the ground. "Let’s go."
Qin Ziwu picked up the saber and swung it through the air.
"What kind of saber is this? It looks pretty cool."
The young man said, "It’s a Tang Cross Saber. I had it custom-made—cost me a five-figure sum. By the way, my benefactors, I don’t even know your names. I’m Li Yue. The Li is from Li Tang, and the Yue is from Mount Tai."
"My surname is Qin. This is my younger brother, and this is my friend, Old Deng."
Li Yue’s eyes grew red. "Brother Qin, Brother Qin, Brother Deng! Thank you!"
Qin Ziwen said, "Alright, that’s enough talk for someone who’s injured. Can you put any weight on your leg at all?"
"I can still use my uninjured leg."
Qin Ziwen and Deng Guang supported him, one on each side. Li Yue hopped along on his good foot.
After they had gone some distance, Li Yue’s face grew even paler. The wound on his leg, which had started to scab over, split open and began to ooze blood.
Li Yue said weakly, "Hey, guys... I think we should probably stop the bleeding first."
They set him down. After a quick search, they used a knife to cut open his shirt, tore off a strip of fabric, and tied it tightly above the wound until the bleeding lessened.
None of the three were medical professionals, nor had they ever learned how to bandage a wound. They had no idea if this would actually work.
But they figured it had to be better than not stopping the bleeding at all.
"I’ll carry you."
The three then took turns carrying Li Yue on their way back. Luckily, Li Yue wasn’t heavy; he had a tall, slender build.
According to him, he weighed just over 120 pounds.
Qin Ziwu ran a finger along the blade. "This saber has an edge on it? I thought the ones you buy online couldn’t be sharpened."
Li Yue, who was being carried by Deng Guang, replied, "In principle, they can’t be."
"Ah, I get it."
...
Sometime after Li Yue had left.
A beagle, sniffing the ground, emerged from the bushes.
Three men followed close behind, accompanied by a German Shepherd and a Labrador.
"I told you we should have gone for its legs first. How are we supposed to catch it if we don’t cripple it?"
"Easy for you to say. You think I didn’t want to? That boar was fast and strong. There was no stopping it."
"So what about Li Yue? His leg is injured. How are we supposed to get him back?"
"It’s still so far. It’ll be dark by the time we get him back."
As they were talking, they arrived at the spot.
"Huh? Where is he?"
"How did he disappear?"
"I remember him being under this tree. There were rocks next to it."
The man in the denim jacket with a wolf-cut hairstyle looked around. "Don’t tell me some beast dragged him off."
The man with a mole by his lip said, "Over here. Look, there’s still blood on the ground. He was right here a moment ago."
The middle-aged man with glasses looked worried. "Sigh. What do we do now?"
The man with the wolf cut glanced at him and sneered, "Alright, cut the act. You were the first one who wanted to chase the boar. You weren’t worried about ’what to do’ back then."
The middle-aged man’s lip twitched. "Li Yue was shouting for us back there, and you two ignored him too."
At these words, all three of them averted their eyes.
Back then, Li Yue was injured, but the boar also looked to be badly hurt. The three of them had tacitly agreed to chase the boar. As for Li Yue... if he had an "accident," it would just mean one less person to share the meat with.
And they wouldn’t have to return the weapons they’d borrowed either.
After Li Yue had lent them the cold weapons, he had pestered them every single night to get them back.
These weapons were a joy to use, and he acted as if they had no intention of returning them.
But to their surprise, not only did they fail to catch the boar, but the injured animal had run off at high speed. Even the dogs couldn’t keep up. The boar knew the surrounding terrain like the back of its hand and eventually vanished.
The wolf-cut man looked around. "Damn it, this whole area looks the fucking same. Good thing we have the dogs, or we probably wouldn’t even have found our way back here. Say, you think Li Yue is hiding somewhere?"
The man with the mole on his lip said, "His leg is that bad, so what if he’s hiding? He won’t survive a night in this forest. Come on, let’s just go back."
The middle-aged man mused, "I suggest that when we get back, we stake out his house. If he does manage to make it back, we can... resolve the conflict."
The wolf-cut man scoffed, "So what if he comes back? We came back to look for him. It’s his own fault he disappeared. You can’t blame us. You expect us to apologize to him?"
Looking at the other two, the middle-aged man cursed internally, ’These two morons.’
’My method for "resolving the conflict" would never be an apology.’
’The simplest and most brutal solution is to make someone shut up for good.’
...
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