Chapter 1207: Delicious Humans

Some of the puddles and pits that were hard to traverse in the past now have surfaces slightly frozen over; walking on them is like stepping on a crisp crust—*crack! *—and then there is moist soil underneath.

Fortunately, however, it is impossible for crocodiles to exist in such puddles, so it is very safe, because crocodiles are cold-blooded animals and cannot survive the Winter in such an environment, unless they can hibernate like snakes and other such animals.

Many poisonous insects, snakes, and scorpions also vanished rapidly after this heavy Snow; either they died directly because they didn't have time to hibernate, or those with better luck hurriedly burrowed into the ground to ensure they could live until next Spring.

However, the large Jin Hu does not hibernate; in such weather, it actually likes to come out to look for food. When it snows and there is nothing to eat, it is unbearably hungry, and the snow can better dampen sound. That coat of fur, on the already withered and yellow earth, is not very conspicuous even against the backdrop of the snow.

But Bing Zhu and his group are very unfortunate; they have already been targeted by a large Jin Hu, or rather, they had been targeted for a long time. How could a beast not like such a team of delicious humans?

These beasts even prefer humans, because human blood contains more salt, higher than that of other animals. Humans know how to autonomously seek out and refine salt; they have already passed the era of needing to rely on licking stones to survive.

And refining salt, which allows for the intake of more salt, is perhaps also closely related to another reason: that is, the most developed sweat glands in humans, the cooling system.

Human skin can expel heat to the greatest extent while simultaneously carrying away moisture and salt. Other animals do not have this ability; human sweat is delicious to other animals.

Salt is too luxurious for wild animals, and since they also need thick fur to keep warm, it is naturally impossible for them to have such developed sweat glands for cooling, so they can only cool down by opening their mouths to dissipate heat. A few animals have relatively excellent sweat glands, but no animal can compare to humans.

The advantage that developed sweat glands and a cooling system bring to humans is unparalleled endurance. Even people who live in cities for a long time and never exercise can still walk for ten hours straight if forced to.

Humans in special eras walking for a day and a night without sleep or rest is not a problem; let alone walking, they can even run in a forced march. But other animals cannot; they would be directly exhausted to death, their body temperatures would become too high, their muscles would dissolve, and they would die outright.

In ancient times, the "eight-hundred-li urgent" dispatches involved changing horses but not riders, precisely because they were afraid of exhausting the horses to death. Being a person riding on horseback is not an easy task either; a primary school student can run a dog to death—this is the greatest advantage of humans.

But there is also a disadvantage to sweating too much; besides wasting water and salt, it is that the scent is strong.

When a group of salt-exuding humans is in the middle of the Wasteland, the beasts smell them and their drool flows in torrents, just like humans smelling the pungent scent of hot pot from hundreds of meters away, so greedy they cannot move their feet.

Therefore, humans are more likely to attract beasts, and the team of Bing Zhu and the others is naturally like this. Moreover, because they did not bring thick clothes, their thin garments cannot block the smell of sweat like heavy hides, nor can they use the fishy stench of animal skins to mask the human scent.

That large Jin Hu likely had not eaten human flesh before; after all, although human flesh is delicious, if one is not careful, it is easy to lose one's own life.

But ever since that Jin Hu ate one person, it could never forget that taste. The human scent carried on the wind made it unable to help but follow these humans, wanting to wait for an opportunity to catch another one to eat.

In the vast mountains and forests, there are many beasts, but there are not many large predators like it. After all, one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers. The Siberian Jin Jianceng, with its massive size and extremely strong combat power, can be said to have absolutely no opponents; even a large bear would not dare to provoke it upon seeing it.

Such a tiger can sleep in the snow with its belly exposed without the slightest worry; the only thing that can kill an adult Northeast Tiger is a larger Northeast Tiger.

Unlike the South China Tiger, the South China Tiger does not even count as a little brother in front of the Northeast Tiger, and the South China Tiger was once extremely rampant, just like wolves and leopards.

But the Northeast Tiger has never been rampant; there is only talk of it being few or even fewer. If such an extremely ferocious beast were to become rampant, wouldn't a forest be eaten to extinction?

However, Bing Zhu and the others are also very afraid of the Northeast Tiger. They do not have the concept of "Northeast," so they call it the "large Jin Hu." Its size is large enough to make people afraid, its speed is fast enough that you cannot react in time, and its strength is great enough that it can slap a person to death with one paw.

Let alone this era of cold weapons, even in the era of hot weapons, if you are holding a Hanyang-made rifle or something similar with relatively low lethality or low accuracy, if you do not hit with the first shot, there is a high probability that you will not have the chance to fire a second.

The exceptionally vigilant Qianxi clearly heard the sound of branches being snapped in the woods. He had heard it before, but he could not be sure what it was; perhaps it could have been their tribesmen who had discovered them, and he was confirming their identity.

But after one sound, to be able to make no movement for so long—that is a top predator in the natural world. As a sufficiently experienced old hunter, Qianxi quickly judged that it might be a large Jin Hu; after all, they had already had one Soldier eaten.

Even though this place is infinitely close to the main camp of their Jiuli, the large Jin Hu that has become addicted to eating human flesh will not care about that. Moreover, the large Jin Hu considers itself the king of this forest; whether it is humans or monkeys, they are all its food—it is just a matter of whether they are easy or hard to catch.

Qianxi, who had basically confirmed that there was a large Jin Hu nearby, immediately shouted to the Soldiers: "Brothers, there is a large Jin Hu nearby, everyone get ready!"

Everyone's heart immediately jumped into their throats. Bing Zhu did not say a word, picked up his large axe, and began to guard the surroundings.

Everyone began to shout loudly and curse wildly at the surroundings, attempting to use sound to scare the tiger away. This way, there is a probability of scaring the large Jin Hu off. Facing beasts in all places, one can do this; it mainly depends on who gets scared first and who has the higher momentum.

However, it seems the large Jin Hu does not care about the humans' shouting; this is no different from monkeys hooting and hollering after seeing it.

As a top hunter, it certainly wants to capture prey in the most effortless and secure way; it cannot waste its own physical strength, and furthermore, it cannot scare the prey away.

Once the large Jin Hu saw that the prey had discovered it, it no longer pretended. It seems the humans are not running, then that is fine; it will just move in directly.