Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Qingshui and the others wove through the mountain forest. The layer of fallen leaves beneath their feet grew thicker and thicker, swallowing their feet with every step.
The madman’s voice had grown distant and indistinct among the dense trees. It seemed they had shaken him off for now.
But their relentless sprint and constant vigilance were rapidly draining their strength.
Zhou Yaping was already stumbling as Lin Hao pulled her along, her legs moving on nothing but the instinct to survive. An Xiaolin limped beside them, each step sending an excruciating stab of pain through her ankle. Whenever the wind blew, the cold sweat mingling with her drenched clothes made her shiver uncontrollably.
“Why don’t you take off those wet clothes and wear my jacket?” Lin Hao finally asked An Xiaolin.
An Xiaolin said nothing, but her eyes darted furtively toward Qingshui.
“Change. Quickly.”
Qingshui stopped up ahead and answered without looking back. Lin Hao immediately took off his jacket and handed it to An Xiaolin. “Don’t worry. I won’t look.”
Under the circumstances, An Xiaolin obviously didn’t care whether anyone saw her naked. She simply hadn’t expected Lin Hao to give her his jacket.
She had thought… that in a situation like this, everyone would look out only for themselves.
An Xiaolin bit her lip, quickly stripped off her wet clothes, and put on the dry jacket. Her pants were still soaked, but this was already much better than before.
By then, Lin Hao had led Zhou Yaping over to Qingshui. He was holding a T-shirt he had taken from his bag.
“Qingshui, why don’t you change too?”
Qingshui didn’t stand on ceremony. She swiftly stripped off everything above the waist, ignoring Lin Hao as he awkwardly turned his head away, and pulled on the dry T-shirt.
“Let’s go.”
An Xiaolin caught up, and the group continued onward.
Qingshui remained at the front. She kept looking up through gaps in the canopy, using the sun’s hazy position to orient herself as she sketched out a rough map in her mind.
“This way.” She stopped at the foot of a steep dirt slope. Climbing up first, she turned and took Zhou Yaping from Lin Hao, then hauled the nearly exhausted An Xiaolin to the top as well.
An Xiaolin and Zhou Yaping sank to their knees at the top of the slope, gasping for breath. Their faces looked deathly pale in the dim light. Lin Hao climbed up after them, his chest heaving violently.
Qingshui studied their exhausted faces and pursed her lips. “Hold on a little longer. We shouldn’t be far from the end.”
She was about to get her bearings again when her raised head suddenly froze.
It looked like… night was falling.
It wasn’t an illusion.
The light, already dim beneath the dense canopy, was fading at a speed visible to the naked eye. In mere seconds, every outline before them blurred, then sank into complete darkness.
Night… had fallen.
“Hey!” An Xiaolin let out a short cry before clapping a hand over her mouth. She reached out and grabbed Qingshui’s wrist. “Q-Qingshui?”
“Mm…” Zhou Yaping whimpered, on the verge of tears.
“Don’t be scared. Your cousin-uncle’s here. I’m right here!” Following the sound of her voice, Lin Hao hurriedly felt his way over and swept Pingping into his arms. His own voice was trembling too.
The darkness had completely robbed them of sight, and the unknown magnified the terror behind every faint sound.
Qingshui closed her eyes, then opened them again. Her night vision was slightly better than an ordinary person’s, allowing her to make out their surroundings just barely.
Damn it.
The one thing she’d feared had happened.
Before Qingshui could decide what to do, a sound came from the darkness.
“Woooow…”
A low, raspy laugh rang out without warning.
Then came heavy footsteps. More than one set. They crushed fallen leaves and dead branches underfoot with heart-stopping cracks. Their direction was difficult to pin down, as though they were prowling around them-or drawing closer.
Everyone instantly held their breath, their hearts pounding hard enough to burst from their chests. Even Zhou Yaping seemed to sense the mortal danger. She bit down hard on her lip and stifled her sobs, though her small body continued trembling uncontrollably in Lin Hao’s arms.
The sounds… were close!
Less than thirty meters away!
The darkness served as a barrier between them and whatever was out there, but it was also a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
“Don’t move. Don’t make a sound,” Qingshui whispered as softly as she could, her steady voice strangely reassuring in the darkness. “They can’t see either. Breathe slowly.”
Her mind raced. They couldn’t stay where they were. They needed to hide!
Qingshui strained her eyes and rapidly scanned as far as her limited night vision allowed.
Three seconds later, she found what she was looking for: an unusually thick old tree about five meters ahead and to the right.
The tree was tall, but its many spreading branches crisscrossed and intertwined, forming a relatively dense space where they could hide.
It was worth a gamble!
Qingshui carefully pulled her phone from the pocket of her soaked pants. The wet screen was sluggish, but it still lit up, its faint glow illuminating part of her face.
She quickly closed every background app, switched on the flashlight at its lowest brightness, then used her body to block as much of the light as possible. She aimed the pitifully weak beam at the lower trunk of the old tree and its lowest branch.
“See that tree?” Qingshui whispered, speaking rapidly. “Climb it! Hurry!”
There was no time to explain and no time to hesitate.
Lin Hao reacted first. Taking a deep breath, he gently nudged Zhou Yaping toward An Xiaolin. “Look after Pingping for me. Thanks!”
Using the extremely faint light to confirm the tree’s location and find his handholds, he dashed over, wrapped his arms around the rough trunk, and began scrambling up.
Driven by the desperate will to survive, he hauled himself onto the lowest branch in just a few moves and steadied himself.
“Pass me the child! Hurry!” he called in a hushed voice, reaching down.
Enduring the searing pain in her ankle, An Xiaolin gritted her teeth, picked up Zhou Yaping, and staggered to the foot of the tree. Lin Hao leaned down and barely managed to snag Pingping’s clothes. With a mighty heave, he pulled her up and held her tightly in his arms.
“Grab my hand!” Lin Hao reached down to An Xiaolin again.
An Xiaolin looked up, but all she could make out in the darkness was a blurry silhouette. She planted one foot on a protrusion in the trunk, jumped, and caught Lin Hao’s hand.
“Ngh…”
“Ugh…!”
Lin Hao grunted as he pulled with all his strength. An Xiaolin desperately pushed against the trunk with her good leg, and at last, she clambered awkwardly onto the branch. She collapsed across it, panting heavily.
The instant An Xiaolin made it onto the branch…
“Hee-hee… I can smell you… Where are my little mice hiding?” The raspy, unnatural laughter sounded even closer now, accompanied by the sharp snap of breaking branches.
Qingshui immediately switched off her phone’s flashlight. After a two-step running start, she planted one foot against the trunk and nimbly vaulted onto another branch beside An Xiaolin, moving so swiftly that she barely made a sound.
Almost the moment her figure disappeared into the shadows of the canopy, the heavy footsteps stopped a short distance from the tree.
The darkness was as thick as ink. The four people in the tree pressed themselves tightly against the trunk or clung to the branches, breathing as softly and slowly as they could. In the silence, their pounding hearts seemed deafening, each beat hammering against their eardrums.
“Heh-heh… Where are my little mice hiding?” A voice came from almost directly below them, brimming with bloodthirsty malice.
“You little bitches! I’m going to peel off your skin!”
“I’m going to gouge out those sluts’ eyes… Hee-hee-hee…”
Several shrill, vicious voices chimed in.
Thud!
A dull impact sent a faint tremor through the trunk.
An Xiaolin’s and Lin Hao’s hearts leaped into their throats. They nearly cried out. Had Qingshui fallen out of the tree?!
“Don’t move.” Qingshui’s calm, breathy whisper sounded right beside their ears. She had not fallen. The thud had come from one of the lunatics below walking into the tree!
Qingshui adjusted her position slightly and strained to look down.
The lunatics stumbled and staggered as they walked. It seemed… the darkness affected them too.
Click.
A soft sound rang out.
Then a blinding white light suddenly flared to life, illuminating the mottled tree trunk and the fallen leaves scattered across the ground!
Someone… No, one of the lunatics had turned on a flashlight!
The beam jerked around erratically. It swept across the clearing, skimmed over the bushes, and then… began moving toward the large tree where they were hiding!
Lin Hao and An Xiaolin instantly went rigid. They held their breath with all their might, their blood seeming to freeze in their veins. Zhou Yaping buried her face deep in Lin Hao’s chest, too terrified to move a muscle.
The beam drew closer and closer.
Qingshui’s heart sank. She cursed inwardly. She had never expected these lunatics to be smart enough to use tools!
The flashlight beam might have been unsteady, but if it swept across the section of canopy where they were hiding…
At such close range, under such sudden, glaring light, there would be nowhere for the four of them to hide!