Chapter 53

Chapter 53

At Chen Yuhui’s quiet urging, the group dragged their heavy feet forward once more. No one dared stray far from the woods. The tangled trees were their only cover.

Stepping out into the open, exposed on a road where Madmen might be roaming, would be no different from walking to their deaths.

At first, they still exchanged the occasional word about which direction to take. But as time wore on, they fell completely silent. Their throats were so dry they felt scorched, and even swallowing sent sharp pain through them. Their vision began to swim. Soon, the only sounds left were ragged breathing and shuffling footsteps.

Lin Hao carried Zhou Yaping in his arms. Sweat rolled from his temple into the corner of his eye, stinging fiercely, but he could barely summon the strength to wipe it away.

Every step demanded everything he had. The pack on his back and the child in his arms were slowly draining the last of his strength.

Clenching his teeth, he repeated to himself with every ounce of will he possessed: Hold on, Lin Hao. You have to hold on. Your cousin and his wife are gone. You’re all Pingping has left. Protect her… the way they protected you. Move, legs. Damn it, move!

He strained to take another step, but his leg suddenly buckled, pitching him forward uncontrollably. Just as his heart nearly stopped, a pair of hands caught him firmly by the arms from behind.

It was An Xiaolin. Her brow was furrowed, her face exhausted. “Give me the child.”

Lin Hao opened his mouth to refuse, but he was too weak even to get the words out.

“Consider it repayment for lending me your clothes earlier.” Seeing through his hesitation, An Xiaolin’s tone hardened. “I’m only carrying her for a while. I’m not that useless.”

“…Thanks,” Lin Hao finally rasped through cracked lips. Guilt and gratitude tangled in his eyes. The instant he released the child and the weight left his arms, his entire body nearly gave out. His aching arms fell limply to his sides, trembling faintly.

An Xiaolin took Zhou Yaping. The child obediently curled up in her arms, her little face bloodless from the long journey and sickly pale. An Xiaolin adjusted to the weight, her frown deepening, but said nothing. She merely tightened her arms around the girl to hold her more securely.

Qingshui glanced at them without speaking, continuing to listen vigilantly for the slightest movement around them.

After they gritted their teeth and pushed on for a while longer, Chen Yuhui, who was leading the group, suddenly quickened her pace. She jogged across a stream and swiftly vanished into an unusually dense cluster of weeping willows ahead.

The abrupt movement instantly put everyone behind her on edge. Ji Feifan immediately crouched into a defensive stance, the muscles in his calves tensing. His voice was barely above a whisper, but sharp with urgency. “What are you doing?!”

The willow leaves rustled, and Chen Yuhui’s face appeared through a gap. She quickly waved at them, raising her phone with her other hand. “It’s fine! There’s… a cave here!” Suppressed excitement colored her voice. “We’ve walked at least three kilometers. We have to rest, or we won’t make it.”

She looked toward Qingshui at the rear. “What do you think, Qingshui?”

Qingshui stepped forward and parted the dense willow branches. A shallow natural cave came into view. Its entrance was somewhat narrow, but there was a decent amount of space inside, and it was well concealed.

She quickly surveyed the surroundings and nodded. “It’ll do.”

“Find some dry branches that snap easily and scatter them around the area. If anything approaches, the noise should give us time to react.”

Ji Feifan immediately rummaged through the thick layer of fallen leaves nearby. He soon pulled out several dead branches of a suitable thickness. “Will these work?” he asked, holding them up.

“Yes,” Qingshui confirmed. “Bone-dry leaves will work too. The more, the better. Spread them out.”

Then she turned toward the deeper woods, where the trees grew more densely. That was the direction the Madmen were most likely to approach from.

“Yuhui, come with me,” Qingshui said quietly to Chen Yuhui, who was helping arrange the branches.

Chen Yuhui understood at once. She set down what she was holding and followed Qingshui.

The two women slipped back into the shadowy forest. They walked another two or three hundred meters before stopping.
“Here.” Qingshui pointed at the tangled vines overhead. “I’m going to set up an early-warning system.”

She explained to Chen Yuhui, “We’ll use tough, flexible vines to string a few concealed lines about shin-high off the ground. They shouldn’t be too taut; they need to snap easily when something catches on them.”

“I understand.”

Chen Yuhui nodded and began gathering suitable vines with Qingshui.

Under Qingshui’s guidance, they tied one end of several vines to the bases of nearby tree trunks, then stretched them sideways and secured them to other trees.

The vines were about thirty to forty centimeters above the ground. Their color blended almost perfectly with the fallen leaves and shadows around them, making them difficult to spot without looking closely.

They set up three such tripwires in different directions.

“The lines alone aren’t enough,” Qingshui said quietly as she secured the last vine. “We need to connect them to an alarm.”

Chen Yuhui blinked. “An alarm?”

Qingshui swept her gaze over the surroundings, her mind racing, before finally looking up.

The branches of the trees in this area were not particularly dense.

Qingshui picked up several thin, dead twigs and tied a few vines to them. Then she quickly climbed a tree and laid the twigs across its branches, forming an unstable “platform.”

She piled plenty of dry leaves and small stones on top of it as well.

Then she had Chen Yuhui carefully loop one end of each vine around the vines serving as tripwires below.

Once everything was in place, Qingshui carefully slid back down.

“Done.” She brushed the dust and debris from her hands. “If anything comes from one of those directions and trips a line, it’ll throw off the balance up there.”

She pointed overhead. “Those twigs and stones will fall, and they’ll make plenty of noise. The falling debris might also interfere with the Madmen a little. At the very least, we’ll know which direction they’re coming from.”

“Okay.”

The two of them quickly cleared away the obvious traces they had left behind, then quietly retreated toward the cave.

By the time they returned to the entrance, Ji Feifan and the others had mostly finished setting up the area around it.

Scattered dead branches, a layer of fallen leaves that would rustle easily, and a stone they would need to move together to block the entrance.

Qingshui inspected their work and nodded.

“We’ll rest in shifts, two at a time, switching every hour. Yuhui and I will take the first watch,” Qingshui said, rapidly assigning the shifts. “Keep quiet and recover as much strength as you can. We’ll stay here for three hours at most.”

No one objected.

Utter exhaustion finally overwhelmed their fear. Lin Hao and An Xiaolin practically collapsed in a relatively dry corner of the cave.

Apart from everyone’s heavy breathing, the cave was silent.

Grrr–

The sound of an empty stomach echoed through the quiet cave, followed by a second and then a third.

Qingshui sat just inside the cave entrance with her back against the cold stone wall.

“Does anyone have any food left?”

A brief silence followed.

An Xiaolin buried her face in her knees, her voice muffled. “I finished mine ages ago.”

Lin Hao held Pingping in his arms. Moving somewhat stiffly, he felt around the deflated backpack at his side and answered softly, “Um… I still have a little water.”

Chen Yuhui was leaning against the opposite wall of the cave. At his words, she merely shook her head slowly without speaking. Beside her, Ji Feifan kept his eyes closed and shook his head as well.

Qingshui exhaled softly. With one hand, she reached into the backpack beside her leg and felt around at the bottom.

After a rustle, she pulled out a plastic packet.

It was a pack of instant noodles.

Qingshui poured out some of the crumbled noodles for herself. Then she turned slightly and handed the rest of the packet to Chen Yuhui, who was closest to her.

Chen Yuhui took it and carefully tilted the packet, pouring a small handful of noodles into her palm. Then she silently passed it to Ji Feifan beside her.

And so the small pack of instant noodles made its way around the group.