Chapter 255: First Night: Ambush

Panzi said, "I told you these snakes are abnormal. They are definitely snake demons, almost becoming spirits."

Hearing the commotion ahead, it seemed the snakes were gradually gathering, but the canopy was still as if frozen. The sound felt like an invisible evil aura pressing toward us. My hair stood on end, and I asked Panzi, "Do you have any folk remedies from your hometown to deal with snake demons?"

Panzi said, "How could we deal with them? In the old days, these were considered deities. My grandfather said that in ancient times, they used to offer virgin boys and girls."

Fatty said, "Is there anything more reliable? Where are we supposed to find virgin boys and girls at a time like this?"

Panzi said, "I was talking about ancient times. Nowadays, in the city, where would you even encounter such things? I think a direct fight is absolutely impossible. You saw how A Ning died in an instant. Let's retreat. I'm a master of guerrilla warfare, damn it. Let's play hide-and-seek with them and see who outflanks who." He pointed in a direction and told us to follow him.

As I listened to Panzi, something suddenly struck me. After taking a couple of steps, I remembered and grabbed him, saying, "Wait, I feel something is off."

I said to them, "There's something fishy here. Think about it: when A Ning was hit, she had almost no ability to defend herself and died instantly. In reality, these snakes could kill us far too easily. They don't need to go through all this trouble. They could just hide in some grass and bite us as we pass by. Even if we had multiple lives, we'd all be dead. Why make it so complicated?"

"What do you mean? Make it clearer," Fatty asked.

"They had countless chances to kill us outside the canyon, but we're all unharmed. Snakes are different from humans; they don't make low-level mistakes. These snakes didn't use an ambush method. Instead, they're playing this bluffing trick now. Maybe their goal isn't to kill us."

Panzi shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. If they don't want to kill us, why did they bite A Ning to death? Maybe they're wary of us about something now."

I said, "Think about it, what is different between A Ning and us?"

The two of them looked at each other, and Fatty said in surprise, "Could it be because A Ning is a woman?"

I nodded. "That's very likely the reason. These snakes behave too erratically. We can't use ordinary animal behavior to infer their intentions. I don't think this is an outflanking at all. Behind this behavior, there is some other more sinister purpose. If we act rashly, we might fall into an even more incomprehensible situation."

Fatty frowned and said, "What you said does make sense. So what do we do? Should we fight head-on?"

I shook my head. "I think we shouldn't act rashly for now. First, we need to figure out their intentions, otherwise we're too passive."

Fatty grinned. "You really are innocent. We're not snakes, how can we possibly understand a snake's intentions?"

I said, "We can analyze human intentions, so why not animals? When people lose to animals, it's often because they underestimate the animals' intelligence. We should treat these snakes like humans. If a group of people, when we entered, killed the only woman among us, but didn't kill us, and instead used this method to keep our nerves on edge all the time, what would you think their purpose is?" The three of us fell silent. Fatty frowned and said hesitantly, "In that case, could they all be female snakes, lusting after our good looks?"

I thought to myself, what a time to be joking, but I realized Fatty was actually seriously considering this question.

At that moment, Panzi suddenly gasped and said, "Ah, Third Young Master, what you said this time makes so much sense. I think I know what's going on—have you ever heard of a kind of forest that you can't get out of once you enter?"

Fatty said, "You mean the 'ghost forest' in the Northeast?"

"I don't know what it's called. Over in Vietnam, they call it 'akong'. Woods themselves are places where you can easily get lost, but there's a kind of forest where the growth of trees is affected by some pattern. Whether by coincidence or necessity, it becomes especially easy to get lost. And there's a weird saying about this kind of forest: inside, you're disturbed by all kinds of sounds, and the forest traps you inside like it's alive." Panzi was a bit excited. He cut a vine, squeezed out some water, and took a few sips. "Locals say the forest has its own damn mind."

I knew this theory. Some say it's a manifestation of evolution: all forests are complex and mysterious, and the more evolved they are, the more complex, because the forest wants to trap everything that enters to provide it with nutrients. This is a kind of collective intelligence of the forest.

But I didn't believe it. That kind of talk was too mystical. I believed more in another explanation: that this phenomenon is certain animals herding prey into an encirclement.

Panzi also said, "The current situation might be similar. I feel that these snakes are indeed forcing us to go to one place. They are correcting our direction."

Listening, I broke out in a cold sweat. It was all too unbelievable.

We didn't dare go toward the sound, and we couldn't go back, so we would definitely choose to take a detour. Then, as long as they made sounds in the direction we were going, after several detours, we would certainly reach a certain point. Thinking about it, it was actually very similar to the invisible walls in Devil's City.

Panzi pointed in the direction of the sound. "I know a kind of wolf that uses this method to corner large prey. If the prey keeps avoiding the wolf's sound, it gets driven to a dead end, like the edge of a cliff, and then the wolf forces it to fall. So once we start taking detours, we've fallen into the trap."

As he spoke, a fierce glint appeared in his eyes, and he said to us, "Thanks to Third Young Master's suspicion, otherwise we would really be in deep trouble."

I thought to myself, are you praising me or insulting me? Fatty asked, "So what do we do now? Can we only go back the way we came?"

Panzi said, "I'm afraid there's no turning back either. Since they've blocked the way ahead, they've certainly blocked the way behind. This is called being forced to go up to Mount Liang. We have no choice but to go meet them. Since they don't want to kill us, maybe we're of some use to them. Let's take a gamble and see if we can break through."

Originally, I thought we could avoid danger all the way and find Third Uncle first, but now it seemed truly impossible. Panzi suggested we take the initiative to attack. No matter what the enemy was, we couldn't let ourselves be lured into a trap. There might be things waiting for us worse than death.

Fatty said he'd wanted to do this all along, and we had insisted on detouring and wasting time. So we started preparing. However, in this environment, our weapons were almost useless for self-defense. Panzi's gun couldn't fire automatically; if the first shot missed, it was less useful than a dagger. At this visibility, hitting a target was almost entirely a matter of luck.

The three of us discussed it and made several torches: two short-handled and one long-handled. Most animals are afraid of fire. Even large beasts like bears wouldn't dare approach three flames recklessly.

As long as the flames helped us intimidate the enemy, Panzi would have ample time to shoot and reload. We should be able to handle danger, but of course, we wouldn't know the real situation until the time came.

Panzi said that if the enemy were humans, he could sneak up on them without a trace—he was quite skilled at sneaking through the woods in Vietnam. But if they were snakes, that would be suicide. Besides, there was that thing, whatever it was. He didn't know if it was A Ning or not, but since the sound was coming from this thing, it must also be ahead. So we should try to avoid direct confrontation, with the main goal being to get through, and only fight for our lives if absolutely necessary.

Once we were ready, we lit the torches and slowly crept toward the direction of the sound.

This was actually quite contradictory. In the midnight rainforest, holding a torch was undoubtedly the biggest target, even more conspicuous than driving a tank. But all three of us were crouching low, as if we were going to sneak up on someone, a bit like barging into a women's restroom holding a sign that says "I'm an idiot, I'm here to peep."

The kākākākā sound wasn't far from us, only about two or three hundred meters. All our attention was focused on the surroundings and that sound. As it grew closer and clearer, the feeling of radio static became more and more distinct. I couldn't help swallowing. But even so, we still couldn't make out what the sound was saying.

Soon, the sound was so close it was almost right above us. Panzi raised his hand to signal us to stop. He looked up at the ghost-like tree shadows overhead, tried to identify them for a moment, but couldn't make them out.

Here, the moonlight couldn't reach the area under the canopy. Our torches weren't long enough, and the light couldn't reach up there either. We only saw a pitch-black space between the tree crowns, from which the sound came. We couldn't even describe the overall shape of the trees; anyway, the canopies here were almost merged together, and we couldn't tell which tree was which.