Chapter Forty: The Man

I lost track of time spent in thought until a wave of drowsiness washed over me. I looked up at the sky; the stars were brilliant. Dawn was still about two hours away.

I let out a yawn, pulled out another cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag. My mind suddenly felt incredibly sharp. Perhaps it was the oppressive silence of the surroundings combined with the stimulant of the tobacco, but my thoughts began to wander aimlessly.

The face of my employer would appear in my mind, followed by the image of the girl riding on the back of a wolf. I was young then and didn't quite understand why someone would constantly occupy one’s thoughts.

Just as I was smoking and drinking, a rustling sound suddenly erupted from the bushes not far to my right. Despite my mind being preoccupied with the girl, I immediately squinted, staring fixedly at the thicket. My hand slowly raised the hunting rifle, aiming directly into the brush.

Rustle! Rustle!

The noise in the bushes drew steadily closer. Based on the weight of the footsteps falling on the soil, I could tell that whatever was inside was heavy—at least two hundred pounds. I held my breath, adjusted my angle to a better position, and kept the rifle aimed at the heart of the thicket. As the sound grew closer, I placed my finger on the trigger.

But just then, a rough, calloused hand pressed down on the barrel of my rifle. Old Chen’s raspy voice whispered, "Sanqi, don't use the gun! It's too loud! Use your bow!"

I was startled and turned to look. Old Chen was beside me, apparently just having woken up; his eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the bushes.

"Understood!" I nodded and quickly lowered the rifle. I reached out to grab my bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed at the shaking foliage.

Three seconds later, with a sharp *whoosh*, the arrow pierced through the brush.

*Thwack!*

I heard the distinct sound of the arrow burying itself into flesh. My heart skipped a beat—I knew I had hit my target. Old Chen frowned. Just as I started to rise to investigate, he held me back and said urgently, "Sanqi, wait a moment! Something isn't right."

"What’s wrong?"

"Think! Don't you find it strange that there wasn't a single sound after you shot it? Even if you’d hit a rabbit, it should have at least thrashed about, shouldn't it?"

I paused, thinking. Damn! He was right. It was far too quiet. Was this creature some kind of legendary warrior who could play chess while having his bone scraped clean of poison? That was clearly impossible.

After waiting for about a minute, Old Chen signaled to me with his eyes. I nodded and slowly stood up. Old Chen took his rifle, I gripped my bow, and we approached the thicket from opposite sides, stepping as lightly as we could.

However, when we parted the branches and stepped inside, there was no sign of anything.

"Did it run away?" I asked in surprise. I knew the power of that shot; it was no small thing. Old Chen, however, fixed his gaze on the ground. He crouched down, inspected the area, and ran his finger over a nearby blade of grass. A smear of red blood appeared on his fingertip.

"It looks like I did hit it. Damn, the beast got away!" I cursed.

But Old Chen let out a cold laugh. "Hmph, this wasn't a beast. It was a person."

With that, he shoved the grass aside. There, lying flat on the ground, was my blood-stained arrow. I was stunned. The arrow proved it—I had indeed shot a human. An animal would have no way of pulling an arrow out of its own body; they didn't have hands.

If it was a person, who could it be? My mind quickly raced through the possibilities. The most likely candidate was the spy known as Bai Qi. After she had wounded Old Chen and escaped, she might have been wandering through these old woods; the light of our campfire could have drawn her in. Of course, there were also the two tourists, the man and the woman, who had come into the forest. In these deep, remote mountains, it was rare to encounter anyone else; apart from the hunters who had died the night before, those were the only three people I had ever seen.

Some might wonder, were there no primates in the Greater Khingan Mountains? Like monkeys?

My answer is: absolutely not. Monkeys generally live in warm, humid climates; in China, you only find them in the central or southern regions. The Greater Khingan Mountains, on the other hand, spend two-thirds of the year in deep freeze. At its most extreme, the mountains are sealed by snow from October until May of the following year, with average temperatures dropping to twenty or thirty degrees below zero. In that climate, forget about monkeys—even humans can barely survive. Furthermore, a monkey wouldn't have been so eerily silent after being shot, and there was no fur on the arrowhead—only blood. It was almost certainly a person.

"Old Chen, what do we do now?" I asked softly.

Old Chen pondered for a moment, picked up the arrow from the ground, and examined it closely. He said only one thing: "The wind is picking up. Let's pull out."

Afterward, we used the embers of the fire to prepare some food. I don't know exactly what it was—a mix of canned goods, water, meat, and biscuits, all boiled into a single mass of carbohydrates. As for the taste, it was passable; it was edible, at least.

After we finished eating, dawn had still not broken, so I sat across from Old Chen, smoking and drinking. I let out a long sigh and spoke first. "Old Chen, can we really not get out of here?"

"Ever since those people sent these others into the mountains, we were never going to get out," he said in a dull, heavy voice.

I gave a bitter smile. "Old Chen, I... I miss the boss. Do you think there’s any chance the boss isn't dead?"

When I finished speaking, Old Chen let out a cold, sharp laugh. He took a violent swig of liquor and replied, "Sanqi, try putting that rifle to your own head and pulling the trigger. If you survive that, then I’ll believe the boss is still alive."

I felt a sudden wave of shame. Just then, Old Chen noticed the wolf tooth in my hand. He thought for a moment, cut a few strips from the yellow weasel skin nearby, twisted them into a small cord, and handed it to me. "Tie the wolf tooth and wear it around your neck. Don't you dare lose it."

"I will," I nodded.

Once I had everything secured, I felt a sense of comfort with the wolf tooth hanging around my neck. Old Chen looked at me then, his expression turning serious. "Sanqi... can you promise me one thing?"

"What is it?" I asked, startled.

"If one day you make it out of these mountains alive... don't go looking for revenge. Not for your parents, and not for the boss..."