The sky grew dim. The four of them took turns carrying the two drag nets, resting periodically as they hurried back.
Thankfully, Qin Ziwen had walked this path several tis. He had a general idea of where the slopes and pits were, which saved them from many a pointless detour.
As the sun dipped low in the west, darkness shrouded the forest.
"SCREE—"
The Beaked Eagle let out a sharp cry.
The four n stopped in their tracks.
Qin Ziwu raised his flashlight and swept the beam forward, but he couldn’t see any sign of movent.
"There! In the tree!" Zhao Pu pointed to a branch up and to their right.
A leopard was perched there.
The leopard was over two ters long. In the beam of the flashlight, its pupils reflected an eerie green light.
Realizing it had been spotted, the leopard leaped down from the branch in a few quick bounds and vanished into the trees in the blink of an eye. But as he watched it go, Qin Ziwen couldn’t shake the feeling—perhaps it was just his imagination—that its running gait wasn’t entirely smooth.
The four of them continued onward, dragging the pork for a while longer.
But soon, the Beaked Eagle once again let out a cry of warning.
The n stopped and ford a circle, standing back to back.
They swept their flashlights around and quickly spotted the leopard again, this ti behind a bush.
The leopard was crouched in the tall grass, staring at the four of them. It glanced up at the Beaked Eagle overhead, then turned and ran off again.
Deng Guang’s expression was grim. "It’s not going to give up that easily. That thing has its eyes on the boar we killed."
Qin Ziwu tightened his grip on the Long Spear. "Heh, this damn freeloader dares to eyeball our kill."
Qin Ziwen set down the vine he was holding, straightened up, and rubbed his lower back. "The flood just ended. The leopard’s probably been starving for days."
"Beaked Eagle, be careful! Stay safe up there," Qin Ziwen called out to the bird circling overhead.
The Beaked Eagle’s injuries hadn’t fully healed yet. It had only just regained the ability to fly and couldn’t make any strenuous movents. And a leopard’s ability to climb trees was nothing to scoff at.
The group had only walked a short distance when a sound suddenly ca from a nearby tree.
"Grrr—owl."
The leopard was crouched behind a short, stout tree, staring at them.
That was the source of the sound.
"Is it warning us?"
"Looks like it."
As if accepting an invitation to battle, Qin Ziwu raised his Long Spear and slowly advanced. Seeing the spear, the leopard imdiately got to its feet and backed away slowly. Then, with a turn of its head, it disappeared into the darkness behind it.
Qin Ziwu waved the Long Spear in his hand, looking smug. "Getting interesting. It seems to know the power of this Divine Weapon, this Sharp Weapon of mine."
"Alright, your turn to drag the pork. Give back the weapon." After speaking, Qin Ziwen stepped forward and took the Long Spear from his younger brother’s hands. "There’s a downhill slope ahead. Everyone be careful not to fall."
Before he could even get used to the feel of it, Qin Ziwu regretfully handed the Long Spear back to his older brother. "Bro, you gotta help get a weapon of my own eventually."
"No problem."
Zhao Pu glanced at the Long Spear in Qin Ziwen’s hands. The iron-cast tip, the nearly thirty-centiter-long Spearhead, and that vicious-looking blood groove... to his eyes as a doctor, it was a truly deadly weapon. Forget a wild boar; even a tiger wouldn’t survive being stabbed in a vital spot with that.
Of course, that was assuming you could actually land a blow on a tiger’s vital spot.
The four n made their way down the slope and walked for another ten minutes or so.
The forest was filled with the chirping of insects.
"SCREE—"
The Beaked Eagle cried out a warning.
Everyone stopped and scanned their surroundings. For the fourth ti, they found the leopard, this ti behind a tree to their front right.
This ti, the leopard didn’t run. Instead, it raised its head and stared at the Beaked Eagle overhead, a low growl rumbling in its throat. "Grrrrrr..."
Its claws dug into the tree trunk as it strained to climb. Just as it managed to get high up, the Beaked Eagle spread its wings and flew to another tree in the distance.
"HSSST!!!" The leopard stared fixedly at the Beaked Eagle in the other tree, its eyes filled with indignation as it let out a frustrated hiss.
It was clear the animal was getting desperate.
Climbing up a tree is one thing, but getting down is another. The leopard slowly made its way down before finally jumping to the ground. As it landed, Qin Ziwen noticed sothing was off about the way it moved its right hind leg. It might be injured.
The leopard stared at the four n, then slowly turned away.
Deng Guang said hesitantly, "Maybe we should toss it a piece of at? Otherwise, it’s just going to keep harassing us, and this constant annoyance isn’t a solution."
Qin Ziwen thought for a mont, then took the boar’s heart out of a plastic bag in his pack. He cut the heart in two and tossed one half far into the distance.
"SPLAT—"
The heart landed in the bushes.
The leopard, its back still to them, was startled by the sound. It stumbled for a mont before quickly vanishing into the dense woods.
Only after the four n were long gone did the leopard stealthily return to the spot, its nose sniffing the air constantly.
Following the scent, the leopard finally found the half-heart in the undergrowth.
It sniffed it, scanned its surroundings one more ti, then snatched the heart in its jaws and climbed a tree, where it began to wolf down the al.
It wasn’t until the moon was high in the sky that the four finally made it back to the Gated Community.
They carried the pork all the way up to Zhao Pu’s apartnt on the fourth floor.
Hearing the door open, Zhao Shuheng shot up from the living room sofa. Seeing by the moonlight from the window that it was his father, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
The four n set the two sides of pork down on the floor.
All Zhao Shuheng could see were two huge, dark lumps on the floor.
Zhao Shuheng ca over and greeted them. "Dad, Uncle Qin, Brother Qin, Uncle Deng."
’Uncle Qin?’
Qin Ziwen was taken aback for a second but didn’t dwell on the small detail.
He and Zhao Pu were peers, so it made sense for Zhao Pu’s son to call him uncle.
Qin Ziwu, however, felt like he’d gotten the short end of the stick. ’Why does he call Brother? Doesn’t that make a whole generation younger than Deng Guang and Zhao Pu?’
Zhao Pu pointed at Qin Ziwen and said to his son, "This is the wild boar your Uncle Qin killed out there. With just that one spear, he took down a massive boar weighing over three hundred pounds all by himself."
Zhao Shuheng’s eyes went wide as he looked at Qin Ziwen with admiration. "That’s amazing!"
"It wasn’t that dramatic," Qin Ziwen said, waving his hand dismissively, but he couldn’t suppress the smile on his face.
’This Long Spear really is sothing else.’
’No wonder our ancestors dominated their age with it.’
Qin Ziwen said to the others, "Let’s divide the at. My brother and I will take one side, and you two can split the other."
Deng Guang already knew how generous Qin Ziwen was with his own people.
For Zhao Pu, however, this was his first ti hunting with Qin Ziwen.
When he heard he would be getting a quarter of the boar, his whole expression changed.
Qin Ziwen teased him, "What’s the matter? Not enough for you?"
"No, not at all! This is too much! Besides, you were the one who did all the work killing the boar. A tenth would have been more than enough for ," Zhao Pu stamred. He hadn’t expected such generosity. He was just a newcor, after all, and he felt he hadn’t contributed much during the hunt.
Zhao Shuheng’s eyes widened as well. ’Dad is getting that much pork? Does that an I can finally eat my fill of at?’
Qin Ziwen replied, "It’s not too much. Everyone played their part. I have a simple belief when it cos to my people: when there’s at, we eat together; when there’s soup, we drink together. We’re a team. As long as you don’t run from a fight or betray your comrades, you get what you’ve earned. Besides, you’re our team’s doctor. We were just lucky today that no one got hurt. We just didn’t have a chance to see your expertise in action."
Hearing this, the gray-haired man nodded deeply.
He glanced at Deng Guang and felt he was beginning to understand why the older man, who was clearly more than a decade Qin Ziwen’s senior, was willing to follow his lead. This Mr. Qin... he was truly magnanimous.
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