The First Order

Speaking of survival instincts, Xu Xianchu and Yang Xiaojin were the two least pretentious people in the team other than Ren Xiaosu.

When Ren Xiaosu said that the substance extracted from the pine needles was drinkable, the two of them did not hesitate and climbed up the tree to search for suitable pine needles to extract. They even plucked a whole lot of pine cones as well.

In fact, only someone like Ren Xiaosu who had been surviving out in the wilderness would know that nature was generous. It doesn’t care who gains from it. So long as you put in the effort, you can depend on nature to survive.

Someone lamented, “It’s better off being an animal if I have to do this. How I wish that I can be reborn as an animal in my next life.”

Ren Xiaosu glanced at him. “Animals do not lead as carefree a life as you think. I’ve heard that giraffes, which are the tallest land animals around, can defend against their predators due to them being bigger in size. However, its mating process can get very complicated. That’s why the male giraffe needs to drink the urine of the female to determine whether she’s in heat before he starts courting her. If it doesn’t turn out as he expects, the male giraffe will have drunk the urine for nothing….”

The rest of the team suspected that Ren Xiaosu was deliberately trying to gross them out.

No, this refugee kid was definitely trying to gross them out!

At this moment, Ren Xiaosu’s confidence was boosted since he possessed a gun now. There were only 11 people and 7 guns within the entire group, with 3 of the guns already in the hands of Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin.

Moreover, Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin had the advanced firearms skill and perfect firearms skill respectively. Unless they clashed head-on with Xu Xianchu, their simple alliance would definitely ensure them a complete victory over whoever they came up against.

While waiting for everyone to pluck the pine needles and pine cones, Ren Xiaosu had nothing much to do. He then remembered his still unused Skill Duplication Scroll. He glanced at Yang Xiaojin and said decisively in his mind, “Use the Skill Duplication Scroll.”

“Randomly copied target’s advanced skill: Bomb making.”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned. He immediately learned the skill but was a little puzzled. What kind of training did Yang Xiaojin receive in the past? Why were all her skills so violent?

Besides, the combination of her firearms, bomb making, and jumping rope skills were so mismatched. Were these skills really from the same person?

Ren Xiaosu got curious. He asked in his mind, “Does the target have an assassination skill?”

“This information can be revealed if it’s for a former target you’ve attempted to learn from. She has an advanced assassination skill.”

Ren Xiaosu suddenly thought of something and asked, “Does the target have Nursery Rhymes Singing?”

“This information can be revealed if it’s for a former target you’ve attempted to learn from. She has Advanced Nursery Rhymes Singing.”

Ren Xiaosu was left speechless. What a bunch of messed up skills…

He felt like he must have been really crazy to ask those questions, but he never expected her to really have those skills, and they were even advanced skills too.

By this time, the whole lot of them had finally finished plucking pine cones and pine needles. Ren Xiaosu sighed and said, “Can’t y’all pluck them from different trees? By taking everything from the same tree, it’s nearly been stripped bare by y’all!”

When everyone heard this, they looked up. Sure enough, the tree was nearly stripped bare.

Ren Xiaosu thought for a while and said, “Shouldn’t y’all be thanking me for teaching you how to survive in the wilderness?”

The others were taken aback. Then several people thanked Ren Xiaosu. However, Ren Xiaosu discovered that only Xu Xianchu and Yang Xiaojin were sincere in thanking him.

With his gratitude tokens at 86, Ren Xiaosu became even more eager to unlock the weapon. So he shifted his attention to the others around him.

All of a sudden, Ren Xiaosu realized that Luo Xinyu’s hands were still empty. Even Liu Bu was holding several pine cones.

When Luo Xinyu realized that Ren Xiaosu was staring at her, she said in embarrassment, “I can’t climb up….”

Since when had Luo Xinyu, a celebrity from the stronghold, ever climbed a tall tree like that? Hence, she was the only one who was empty-handed. When does someone feel the loneliest? When everyone has something, but not you.

For example, everyone has money, but not you.

For example, everyone has pine cones, but not Luo Xinyu.

Luo Xinyu hesitated for a bit before saying to Ren Xiaosu, “I’ll pay you 10,000 yuan, so can you help me pluck some?”

Ren Xiaosu’s eyes lit up. He immediately stuffed all of the pine cones and pine needles that he had wrapped in his clothes into Luo Xinyu’s arms. “You’re my bro from now on!”

Luo Xinyu was surprised. “Thank you.”

“Gratitude received from Luo Xinyu, +1!”

Ren Xiaosu had not sold his water earlier because bottled water was too precious. It was clean and convenient to carry around. But the pine cones and pine needles were different as they were readily available.

Furthermore, Luo Xinyu offered a lot of money! What could he do with 10,000 yuan? He could use it to live the good life in town for up to two years. There wouldn’t be a need to worry about food and clothing!

In fact, you would never know whether you would become Ren Xiaosu’s brother before giving money to him. This was also known as Schrödinger’s brother ¹ !

Luo Xinyu took the pine cones and pine needles from him. However, she realized that Ren Xiaosu did not go and pluck any more. She asked curiously, “Aren’t you going to pluck some more pine cones? What are you going to eat at night?”

Ren Xiaosu smiled and said, “I’ll eat the chocolate.”

Luo Xinyu was speechless.

Ren Xiaosu still had the chocolate with him that he had traded with Luo Xinyu for. It happened that the chocolate had melted a little while he was carrying it on his person for the past few days. Although it was late fall, his body still transmitted heat through his pockets.

At the beginning, he did not believe Yang Xiaojin when she said the chocolate would melt. After all, he had never eaten chocolate before. He had planned on bringing it back for Yan Liuyuan to try, but it seemed that he could not bring it back.

In an instant, Luo Xinyu’s gratitude vanished. That chocolate was the one he had scammed from her!

…

Before evening fell, Ren Xiaosu found a huge hollow that was suitable for setting up camp. A rock protruded out of a cliff, creating a huge overhang that formed a natural, semi-open shelter like a cave.

Ren Xiaosu noticed some cirrocumulus clouds in the sky when he passed through a clearing. Although he did not understand the principle behind it, he knew it was a sign of rain.

Now they could rest better as they found a cliff face that would shelter them from the wind and rain.

While they settled down beneath this rocky overhang, the rain began to pour. Xu Xianchu turned to Ren Xiaosu and asked, “Can we drink the rainwater?”

“No.” Ren Xiaosu shook his head. “Even though it’s not so acidic anymore, you can still die from drinking acid rain.”

Ren Xiaosu was still unsure of how acid rain formed and what criteria classified it as acid rain, so he could only use “acidity” to roughly describe the hazard level of acid rain.

Suddenly, some strange sounds came from the forest outside the hollow. But it traveled far away in an instant, not giving Ren Xiaosu and company time to react.

Right at this moment, the person deepest in the hollow said, “Look, someone etched some words over here.”

Ren Xiaosu and Xu Xianchu went to the wall and were surprised to see two lines of crooked writing etched by someone at the top of the hollow: “We saw some strange shadows moving in the forest. They’ve disappeared, all of them have disappeared.”

• 

  pacat

  Thanks!

When everyone saw the two lines of writing, the atmosphere in the hollow plummeted to a freezing point.

Since entering the forest today, the group did encounter any more dangers. Other than exhaustion from a sleepless night, no other strange occurrences took place.

This gave everyone the wrong impression that this place was safer than the canyon and the other places they had been to earlier in the journey. They’d nearly even forgotten about the warning that was written outside the canyon.

But it was all coming back to them at this moment.

The missing corpse of Xu Xia, the horrible face bugs, and those words carved on the cliff wall that warned: “Stop here, ye who live.”

“Has anyone gone missing so far?” Xu Xianchu’s first reaction was to count the number of people in their group. However, he found that no one was missing.

“Could someone be playing a trick on us by etching those words here?” Liu Bu wondered. “There are no signs of any struggle in this hollow, and we didn’t even see any skeletal remains of humans or wild animals along the way.”

‘Wait a minute!’ Liu Bu’s words startled Ren Xiaosu. Actually, that was the strangest thing that had been happening. Some skeletal remains would usually be scattered throughout the forest. Be it birds, snakes, or any larger wild animals, their skeletal remains should be commonly seen.

But the strangest thing about this forest was that Ren Xiaosu had yet to come across any skeletal remains even once, other than the one belonging to the rat he had thrown away.

At this moment, Ren Xiaosu wanted to turn back to confirm if the rat skeleton had disappeared as well. After all, it hadn’t been thrown away for too long, and some bones still remained when he had gone to check on it in the morning. But by now, the bones might have disappeared.

It was the same for Xu Xia’s body and the fish scraps and bones.

There was something creepy about this huge forest. A soldier asked, “It seems like some people have been here within the past year, and it was even quite a large group too. But almost no one from Stronghold 113 have come out here to the Jing Mountains during this past year.”

“It might’ve been the people from Stronghold 112 who were traveling to our stronghold, but something unexpected happened to them.” Xu Xianchu searched his memory. “But since we’re the lowest ranking troops in the private army, we can’t possibly know who’s been here.”

Xu Xianchu was right about that. They were the most insignificant people within the private army, so why would the higher-ups tell them all the information they knew?

Someone said, “Could it be that we were sent here because something happened to the team that came out here? And when the higher-ups in the stronghold found out about it, they sent us in to investigate? If that team had carried a satellite phone, they should’ve been able to transmit information back to the stronghold, right?”

This was the first time that Ren Xiaosu heard of the term “satellite phone.” It had not even been mentioned before by Mr. Zhang at school.

He had wondered about this several times as well and believed that there should be some form of communication between the various strongholds. And it seemed that their communications were made through this satellite phone they were talking about?

Ren Xiaosu asked Yang Xiaojin in a whisper, “What’s a satellite phone? I’ve heard from Mr. Zhang that there’s something called a telephone in the stronghold, but what’s a satellite phone?”

Yang Xiaojin looked at him and said, “Mankind has taken control of several satellites from before The Cataclysm, so we can maintain communication between the various strongholds.”

Someone said indignantly, “If the higher-ups knew they’d gone missing, it’s obvious they intend to send us to our deaths by sending us out here. Were they thinking of using human lives to confirm whether the news was true? If we die out here as well, it would mean that this place is really dangerous. It’s no wonder that we weren’t even given any satellite phones this time. It seems like they’re trying to minimize their losses, right? Could our lives be worth less than a satellite phone?”

Xu Xianchu glanced at him and said, “Don’t go making wild guesses when you have so little information. Also, your speculation isn’t logical either.”

In reality, the soldier was too frightened at the moment and could not speak sensibly. As such, Xu Xianchu did not agree with his assumptions. However, Ren Xiaosu took a closer look at the two lines of words and said, “What was used to etch these words in the wall? I think it might’ve been something like a bayonet. It’s not possible to carve such deep marks into the rock surface using everyday items that normal people carry around.”

Xu Xianchu nodded. “It should be the soldiers from Stronghold 112.” He turned to everyone and said, “Sleep tight tonight. If anyone wants to head out of the hollow at night to relieve yourself, make sure to go together in groups of three.”

This arrangement was made to prevent inexplicable disappearances from happening again. Even if they got into danger, it was unlikely that three people could not scream for help.

Xu Xianchu continued, “And tonight, everyone has to take turns to keep watch. How about this? I’ll take the first shift before the others take over. The ladies don’t need to keep watch.”

Ren Xiaosu accepted the arrangement but thought there wasn’t really any point in keeping a night watch. Not only did they have to guard against external dangers, they also needed to guard against internal dangers from the team.

After all, Yang Xiaojin and he had just seized a gun from a soldier, so it was quite likely that the soldier would try to sneak attack him in the middle of the night.

But at this moment, Yang Xiaojin said to Ren Xiaosu, “You keep watch for the first half of the night while I’ll take over for the second half.”

“OK.” Ren Xiaosu nodded. Their temporary alliance had another basic foundation: They did not have any reason to harm the other.

“I’m going outside for a while,” Yang Xiaojin said.

Ren Xiaosu thought, ‘Aren’t you afraid that something will happen to you?’ He asked her, “Do you need me to go with you?”

Yang Xiaojin paused for a while before saying in a low voice, “There’s no need.”

Ren Xiaosu was a little puzzled. Isn’t this girl a little too brave? Just what kind of skill is she hiding?

Beside them, Luo Xinyu stood up and said, “Let me accompany you.” She then turned to Ren Xiaosu and gave him a look. “You’re really ignorant.”

Ren Xiaosu felt his face burning with embarrassment. He just realized what was going on!

The two girls braved the rain and went outside. Xu Xianchu saw them but did not say anything.

A soldier whispered mockingly, “It would be such a pity if those two girls went missing.”

But less than five minutes later, Yang Xiaojin and Luo Xinyu returned to the hollow as though nothing had happened.

Had something changed? Could it be that the team was not targeted by the “strange shadows” in the forest?

When two soldiers saw that they had come back, they stood up and said, “We’ll also go outside to relieve ourselves. Can’t hold it in any longer.”

The two men had actually let the two girls go ahead to scout out the route before they dared to head outside themselves. Furthermore, the both of them nearly even pissed their pants out of fear. They really couldn’t hold it in any longer.

In fact, they had planned to relieve themselves in the hollow. But didn’t Yang Xiaojin and Luo Xinyu come back just fine? So they had to muster up their courage and head outside.

Xu Xianchu nodded and said, “Come back quickly. Don’t waste time smoking out there.”

“Don’t worry ’bout it.” The two soldiers put on their clothes and went out.

Ren Xiaosu was eating the chocolate and watching Yang Xiaojin, who was drying herself in the hollow. Curious, he asked, “Didn’t anything happen to you two out there?”

“No,” Yang Xiaojin replied simply.

Someone in the hollow started a fire. After everyone threw the pine cones into the fire, they started squeezing the liquid substance from the pine needles and licked it to quench their thirst.

The pine cones crackled as they roasted in the fire. Everyone was warmed by it. They felt like they were getting brought back to life.

Right then, Xu Xianchu looked out of the hollow. “Those two… why haven’t they returned?!”