Chapter 254: First Night: Approaching

I instinctively moved my body in the opposite direction and lowered my voice: "No, listen to that sound—it's the same as what we heard before. Damn it, we felt like we were getting closer to it, but that might have been an illusion. It's not that we were approaching the sound, but that the sound was approaching us."

At that moment, I noticed my calves had been trembling uncontrollably for who knows how long. If it were just a corpse, maybe I wouldn't be so scared, but this was A Ning. God, heaven knows how someone I knew had turned into this. What had she become? I couldn't face it; I wanted to turn and flee.

However, that thing was pitch black, and we couldn't see it clearly, so it wasn't certain whether it was A Ning. I really resisted that idea in my heart. Fatty crouched down, wanting to shine his flashlight at that figure, but Panzi grabbed his hand: "Damn it, don't do anything rash. Listen to our surroundings."

We listened intently and noticed faint, extremely light hissing sounds coming from the tree canopies around us—from all directions.

"Those snakes are in the treetops, and there are a lot of them. That sound just now was probably made by them, luring us closer."

We stiffened all over. Fatty turned to look around; the sounds were everywhere. "Damn, it's like we're being wrapped up in dumplings?" He raised his machete.

Panzi shook his head at him, pressed us down to keep low, telling us to hide, then took out an alcohol stove from his backpack and quickly unscrewed the cap: "What use is your knife? We'll have to use your fire-man tactic."

"Didn't you say that would burn us to death?" I whispered. "I'd rather be bitten to death by snakes."

"Of course I'm not talking about burning our clothes," Panzi said. He made us crouch, quickly pulled out a waterproof tarp from the backpack, draped it over our heads, and poured all the alcohol onto it.

I immediately understood his intention and thought, sure enough, it's a good trick. His experience really is something.

Panzi said, "Hold on tight, don't let go no matter what. You have to endure even if the skin burns off. I'll give a signal, and then we charge forward."

The hissing sounds around us drew closer. We immediately nodded. Panzi took out a lighter and lit it right away. The waterproof tarp caught fire on top. He quickly ducked under it and yelled at us, "Run!"

Carrying the flaming tarp over our heads, we immediately charged in one direction. The snake mass in the surrounding trees stirred noisily. We ignored everything and ran with all our might for twenty or thirty meters. The alcohol burned out, and the tarp caught fire. Panzi shouted, "Throw it away!" We immediately shed the burning tarp and sprinted.

It was a completely insane run—ignoring everything, seeing nothing. I didn't even feel the pain as sharp thorns cut my skin. Gritting my teeth, we ran about a mile before stopping. We immediately crouched in the grass, panting and listening for sounds behind us. To my surprise, there was no sound of snakes, not even the eerie walkie-talkie noise.

I couldn't quite believe we had escaped like that, but it gave us some relief, though the dead silent forest wasn't exactly normal either. My hand was burned, but I didn't bother to check it. Now I rubbed it and found it was just a scald—at the time I thought I'd lose a finger.

"Seems like they didn't chase us. I guess these snakes are scared of reckless people too," Fatty said. "Da Pan, you've got it; you know how to adapt. I'll remember that trick. How much waterproof tarp do we still have?"

Panzi was panting, his face flushed from running. "We have plenty of tarp, but damn it, we only have one can of alcohol left. We can't use this trick often. Move quickly. This place is too evil. Don't bother with any more meddling. I don't have a life to waste on a second round. They might be nearby, just not making any sound." He checked the compass.

I knew Panzi was right, so I gritted my teeth and stood up, still panting heavily. Panzi confirmed the direction and immediately pushed us to move forward.

I looked back into the darkness and thought of that figure half-human, half-snake, and shuddered. We didn't dare stop again; we walked faster and more alertly, speeding up at the slightest sign of movement. This doubled our physical exertion. The previous high-intensity effort hadn't fully recovered in such a short time, and the brief ease after resting had vanished during our escape. We walked with extreme difficulty. Fatty was panting like a bellows; I almost followed that sound as I moved forward.

At this point, I felt some comfort, because in the past, every time there was some movement, something would always happen. This time we managed to avoid it, which clearly showed our luck was turning—something that had never happened before.

However, as we walked on, I suddenly heard faint hissing sounds again from the forest ahead, intermittent, like ghosts whispering.

We all froze. Fatty immediately pressed us both down to hide. I was exhausted to the point of collapse. Fatty panted, "Damn it, Da Pan, how did you lead the way? Did we end up back where we started?"

Panzi looked around, his face gradually twisting. "We didn't come back."

We looked around and indeed saw no signs of having been here before. The forest around us was unfamiliar. Panzi said, "Damn it, they didn't chase us—they were outflanking us."