When Panzi brought this up, I suddenly remembered and felt it made sense; it should be like that. However, I did not agree with Panzi’s final opinion. At that time, the armed individuals who fled into the Gobi Desert were well-armed, even though they were not numerous. Their equipment was excellent, and if they really entered the swamp, they might not necessarily die. Perhaps they stayed inside for a while before leaving. This area is uninhabited, and many poachers enter Kokoxili from here. After hunting animals, they directly take smuggling paths to Nepal, and there’s no way to catch them.

It’s even possible that these people have settled down here, although the likelihood is very small since the conditions here are not suitable for outsiders to live. I thought to myself that it would be best if they didn’t; such people are too extreme, and if we encountered them, a fight would be inevitable. We have no guns or cannons, and if there were casualties, it would be a disgrace for the suffering we endured before. Even though many years have passed, their weapons should be obsolete by now.

Lost in thought, the胖子 (Fatty) woke up. I told Panzi to get some sleep, but he said he wouldn’t sleep. It was too damp here, and at his age, sleeping would definitely cause problems. With those few things around, we shouldn’t dwell on the dead anymore. “You all get some rest; we’ll leave here soon anyway, as the rain has lessened.” I suggested we walk a bit further; it should be dawn soon. By then, we could find a better spot to light a fire and rest slowly.

Though I said that, under such conditions, it was indeed hard to sleep even if we wanted to. We huddled together, smoked, and watched the darkness outside while listening to the sound of the rain and the wind blowing through the rainforest. Panzi was cleaning his gun, worried about its condition in this damp environment. The others chatted, and amidst the conversation, the Mute Oil Bottle fell asleep.

Panzi recounted his experiences during the war. He had joined the cooking team at a very young age. Once, their logistics team encountered Vietnamese special forces. How could cooks and porters compete against those who had been fighting Americans since childhood? They were later forced into a swamp because the Vietnamese mistreated prisoners. In the end, they decided to go down together. At that time, the guard company issued each of them a hand grenade for their final sacrifice.

The Vietnamese were clever; they didn’t show themselves but dispersed and lurked in the jungle, closing in on them. They fired shots from different directions, making it hard for the others to know where the attack was coming from. They fought while retreating, eventually backing into the center of the swamp, where the mud wrapped around their thighs, making it impossible to move. At that moment, the company commander ordered them to prepare.

Everyone held their hand grenades and sank into the mud, covering their faces with mud so that only their nostrils were visible. This made the Vietnamese panic; they didn’t know why and dared not enter the swamp. Instead, they sprayed bullets into the swamp, and when their ammunition ran low, they retreated.

Panzi and the others were too afraid to move in the swamp, fearing it was a trap set by the Vietnamese. They endured the entire night, and only when they saw the Vietnamese had truly left did they cautiously come out. However, upon counting heads, they realized two people were missing. They thought they had sunk into the mud, so they used bamboo poles to search the swamp. Eventually, they hooked the bodies of those two individuals, only to find that they had been completely devoured, leaving just a transparent skin, with something unknown pulsating inside their chest cavities.

After this experience, Panzi began to fear the swamp. Later, when he was transferred to the Spearhead Squad to fight in the rear of Vietnam, the entire squad was ambushed, leaving only him and the communications soldier alive. When they fled to the edge of another swamp, Panzi would rather take the risk of killing all the pursuers than step into such a place again.

As Panzi spoke, he kept yawning, and I was listening in a daze, my eyelids heavy, and I fell asleep again.

In a half-asleep, half-awake state, I don’t know how much time had passed when I felt like I was about to dream again, but then I sensed someone shaking me. It was the most uncomfortable moment for me, and I just wanted to push them away and continue sleeping. When I tried to push them away, suddenly my mouth was covered.

At that moment, I opened my eyes to see that it was Anning covering my mouth, while Panzi was gently shaking Fatty, and everyone seemed to have just woken up, looking around.

I turned to look as well and saw a large branch swaying above us, with the massive tree canopy trembling, as if the wind had picked up again. However, when I concentrated, I couldn’t feel any wind around us. Looking up again, I noticed a brown python slithering down from another tree nearby, making its way toward us.