After weaving through the woods for so distance, the Golden Retriever stopped up ahead.
Qin Ziwen stood so 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 tis in the direction they had co from.
Qin Ziwen kept his distance, asking from behind a tree, "What happened to you?"
Hearing a voice, the man sitting by the roots seed to regain so of his spirit. He turned his head and said excitedly, "My leg is injured. It hurts like hell if I move. Can you help ?"
"How did you injure your leg?"
"A wild boar ramd . We were hunting it just now. After it got hurt, it went crazy, zeroed in on , 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 ? I’ll make it worth your while, I swear. Oh, right! I have a set of Mountain Armor at ho, made from cold-rolled steel! It’s the real deal. A wild boar couldn’t even pierce it! It’s a total ga-changer! Armor, man, a full suit of Armor. Back in ancient tis, owning sothing like that could get your head chopped off."
"Mountain Armor? How do you have sothing like that?" Qin Ziwen asked, puzzled.
The young man explained, "I’m a historical costu 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 tead 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 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 a five-figure sum. By the way, my benefactors, I don’t even know your nas. I’m Li Yue. The Li is from Li Tang, and the Yue is from Mount Tai."
"My surna 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 soone 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 so 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 dical 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."
...
Soti after Li Yue had left.
A beagle, sniffing the ground, erged from the bushes.
Three n 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 ti we get him back."
As they were talking, they arrived at the spot.
"Huh? Where is he?"
"How did he disappear?"
"I rember 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 so 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 mont 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 an one less person to share the at 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 sa. 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 sowhere?"
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. Co 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 cos back? We ca back to look for him. It’s his own fault he disappeared. You can’t bla us. You expect us to apologize to him?"
Looking at the other two, the middle-aged man cursed internally, ’These two morons.’
’My thod for "resolving the conflict" would never be an apology.’
’The simplest and most brutal solution is to make soone shut up for good.’
...
...
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