adminI was stunned by the actions of the chubby guy, and it took me several seconds to understand what he was trying to do. The silent guy checked our faces, but he didn’t check his own. The chubby guy, fearing that he might be playing some psychological game, wanted to see if he was wearing a human skin mask.
The silent guy remained motionless, just sitting there, glancing at the chubby guy. The chubby guy awkwardly laughed, “Just in case, little brother, you’re one of the four too. A little caution goes a long way.”
The silent guy took a sip of water, not angry but ignoring the chubby guy. I said to the chubby guy, “You don’t have to sneak attack him.”
The chubby guy retorted angrily, “What sneak attack? I just moved a little faster!”
I was used to the chubby guy’s antics and could only smile helplessly. He sat back down, probably feeling quite awkward, and changed the subject: “Now we can prove that the four of us are innocent. It seems that the meaning of ‘it’ might be different from its literal sense; it may not even refer to a living being.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It can refer to animals as well as objects. Maybe what Wenjin is avoiding is an object?”
The chubby guy always had sudden bursts of inspiration, but this seemed a bit far-fetched. “An object?” I replied, “Are you saying that for the past ten years, she has been avoiding something like our underwear or boogers?”
“Damn it, when I say ‘object,’ I certainly don’t mean those,” the chubby guy said. “What do you have on you that might be related to this? Let’s take a look; maybe we can discover something.”
I shook my head, thinking, what could I possibly take out? I didn’t even bring the snake-eyed copper fish. Suddenly, the silent guy furrowed his brow and said, “Wait, speaking of objects, we overlooked one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Aning.”
I was suddenly jolted: “You mean, the corpse?”
That was indeed a possibility. We fell into deep thought, but it seemed like we didn’t have direct evidence. However, the events surrounding Aning were quite bizarre; perhaps there really was a connection.
The chubby guy clapped his hands and said, “Hey, Xiao Wu, do you remember what happened to us in the woods last night? It must be related. Aning had a problem, so when she died, she turned into that thing.”
I opened my mouth, thinking about how to respond. This was purely speculative and couldn’t prove anything; the corpse was gone. If we were talking about bizarre occurrences, everything here felt sinister.
I couldn’t take it anymore and immediately waved my hand, saying, “I think we shouldn’t discuss this anymore. The premise is still unclear. It’s possible that Wenjin has truly gone crazy. At this point, trying to identify one of us among these few people seems unlikely. We should think of something more practical, like how to catch her.”
The chubby guy lost interest, stood up, and said, “What are you thinking? I told you it’s impossible to figure this out. A dog might have a better chance of thinking it through. You don’t have your grandpa’s skills. The practical thing now is how to get through tonight. Let’s stop discussing this nonsense.” With that, he walked over, picked up the tube they used to dig up the sludge, and headed towards Panzi’s tent to wash it.
I looked at the clock; it was already night. The last glimmer of twilight had long since disappeared. To be safe, we should indeed take protective measures first, so I sighed and went to help.
We covered the tent with mud and then placed a waterproof tarp on top to prevent rain from getting in at night. I went to check on Panzi; he was still fast asleep, with a normal temperature. The fat guy told me he had woken up once but hadn’t fully regained his senses, so he had given him a few sips of water before he fell back into a deep sleep. However, the low fever had subsided, so those injections were effective.
Next, we needed to find weapons. The fat guy was not at ease without a gun. We rummaged through the gear of these people but found no firearms in the camp. The fat guy picked up a lot of stones and piled them to one side, saying that if it came to it, we could learn from the Five Heroes of Wolf Tooth Mountain. I replied that at least they had a cliff to jump from; once we ran out of stones, we would have to surrender.
The fat guy stoked the campfire, making the flames larger, and then lit several fire points around the camp for both warning and drying purposes. The red flames illuminated everything brightly. After finishing all this, it was nearly 10 PM. Just as I began to feel a bit of safety, the surroundings became hazy again; damn it, the fog rolled in. In less than an hour, the entire camp was enveloped in thick fog, making it impossible to see anything.
Looking around at the murky surroundings, I felt cold sweat trickling down. Visibility was completely gone; even the flames couldn’t be seen clearly beyond two or three meters. At this point, it was impossible to be vigilant or on guard.
My nose was filled with a damp smell mixed with the scent of earth, and it seemed that the color of the fog here was somewhat different from that in the forest. For some reason, the fog had a bluish tint, which made me feel uneasy.
I wondered if this fog was toxic. Yesterday, in the rainforest, I couldn’t pay much attention to these things, but now I needed to be cautious. I had heard that there were often miasmas in the rainforest, which would rise at night when the temperature dropped, especially in swamps. These miasmas contained a lot of toxic gases and even volatile heavy metals. Breathing them in too much could lead to chronic poisoning and even slowly rot the lungs.
Thinking of this, I asked the fat guy if we should check the gear in those tents to find some gas masks for backup.
The fat guy said, “This is definitely not miasma. Miasma has a strong odor, and it’s not this intense. Breathing in too much miasma might give you arthritis at most, or tuberculosis. The southwestern mountainous areas are humid and have a lot of miasma, and people there eat spicy food to counter it. You might as well see if anyone here has brought chili peppers; we could make some spicy rice later—it’ll definitely be flavorful.”
I replied, “Don’t be careless; this place is different from others. I still think we should find a few masks for safety.”
The fat guy and the silent oil bottle started to smear mud on themselves, which was certainly an uncomfortable process, so he spoke with a bad tone and shook his head. “If you want to bring them, then bring them. In this weather, wearing a gas mask, damn it, you can’t even see the trees. How are we supposed to keep watch? If you have time to think about this, you might as well get some sleep; who knows, we might not get to sleep later.” After saying this, he spat a few times, “Crow’s mouth, crow’s mouth, good luck and great fortune.”
I told him with resentment, but deep down I actually hated myself a bit. The two of them were keeping watch, Panzi was seriously injured, and yet I could sleep for a whole night. This was simply on par with being an injured person. At that moment, I wondered if my presence here was indeed a burden.
Lying down in the tent, I thought, how can I sleep like this? My mind was a mess, and every part of my body hurt. The outside was muddy, and the light from the campfire couldn’t penetrate in. I used a mining lamp for illumination, but to save battery, I couldn’t use it for long, so I turned it off and forced myself to sleep in the darkness. I could hear Fatty sharpening his machete outside, and as I listened, I really started to doze off.
In that state, I wasn’t sure if I was really asleep. It was hazy; there were still thoughts in my head, but they weren’t clear. This state lasted for a long time, but I didn’t fall into a deep sleep. In the middle of the night, I was woken up by the urge to urinate.
When I woke up, I listened for sounds outside and heard nothing. I thought it should be fine, so I reached out to lift the tent flap and prepare to go out to relieve myself.
As soon as I lifted it, I was startled to find that it was pitch black outside; all the campfires had gone out.
What’s going on? I immediately became fully alert, pulled back into the tent, and thought: it’s over, could something have happened?
But there was no sound at all. I hadn’t fallen into a deep sleep; I knew I was in a semi-conscious state. With my clumsiness, could anything have made no sound at all while getting caught?
I calmed myself and listened; there was no sound outside. I started to panic a bit but didn’t dare to call out. I quickly felt around and found my mining lamp, then turned it on. However, after fiddling with it a couple of times, I realized it wasn’t working. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my lighter, but when I tried to ignite it a few times, it didn’t light up, not even a spark.
I cursed under my breath, took a few deep breaths, and told myself to stay calm. I thought, if things are going to break, let them all break at once. I put it away and intended to check the glow of my watch. But when I put it away, I noticed the lighter was very hot.
I was puzzled and thought, how could it be so hot? Just a moment ago, it didn’t even have a spark. I pressed the lighter again and held it in my palm. Suddenly, my hand felt an intense heat, and I quickly pulled it back.
I was taken aback and thought, the lighter is lit.
But in front of me, it was still pitch black, with not a single glimmer of light.
