Chapter 258: First Night: Fight

Fatty was no pushover; with such a fat body he reacted so quickly, rolling aside in one smooth motion. As he dodged, the torchlight suddenly illuminated behind him, and I immediately saw the true form of that shadow—it was a brown-gold giant python as thick as a bucket, covered in blood. Its massive head drooped down, and I could see it was riddled with bullet wounds, bloody and mangled.

My mind flashed, and I instantly recognized it—this was one of the two giant pythons that had attacked us in the canyon, and we had run into it again here.

The giant python's strike missed, and without pause, it pulled back its head, opened its bloody maw, and lunged at the rolling Fatty.

This time Fatty had no way to dodge; his butt was caught in its jaws. The python's strength was immense—it coiled its body around Fatty and lifted him into the air, preparing to constrict him to death.

Fatty didn't have Poker-face's bone-contracting escape skill; he was instantly immobilized, his gun thrown aside, and he yelled as he spun head-over-heels several times in the air.

I don't know where I found the courage, but I rushed over and struck at the snake with a torch—a really stupid move. The coiled snake body slammed into me, sending me flying. The torch hit my own pants, setting what little remained of them on fire. I rolled to extinguish the flames, and Fatty was already wrapped up in the tree canopy.

I panicked, but then my hand touched Fatty's rifle. I grabbed it immediately, and lying on the ground, I fired a single shot at the snake's head with one hand.

It had been a long time since I fired a gun; the recoil split the web of my thumb, but shooting one-handed was too awkward. At such close range, I actually missed, and the bullet veered off and hit a tree trunk beside me.

I got up to fire again, but suddenly from the tree came a voice gritting its teeth: "Third Young Master, give me the gun!"

I looked up—Panzi was actually still alive. From among the branches, he reached down a hand streaming with blood. "Quick!"

I immediately tossed the gun up to him. He caught it, steadied himself against a branch, and instead of aiming at the snake, he aimed at the huge branch the snake was coiled around. Gritting his teeth, he fired three shots in succession. At close range, even with the small caliber, the force was immense. That branch, thick as a man, was blasted open with a gap. The giant python was incredibly heavy, and Fatty immediately pressed the branch down until it snapped. The branch crashed heavily to the ground, nearly like a tree falling.

The fall was extremely heavy; the python was dazed and coiled up sharply, not knowing who had attacked it. In the instant the snake raised its body, Fatty pulled himself out of its coils and rolled to my feet. By then he was flushed purple from constriction, too weak even to stand. I grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him behind a tree, but he started vomiting.

I thought, this is bad—maybe his internal organs were crushed. I quickly asked him how he was.

He pushed me away, stood up with great difficulty, and spat out another big mouthful, then said, "Snake-sick, damn it, worse than a roller coaster—"

Before he finished, the giant python lunged again. Its bloody maw swept around the tree trunk, bit Fatty's shoulder, and yanked him away, flinging me along with it. I tumbled into a bush, while Fatty yelled and crashed into a tree, then rolled to the ground. The python didn't stop; it arched its head again, opened its huge mouth full of hooked teeth, and prepared to deliver a fatal blow to Fatty.

I thought, this is it. At the critical moment, a small branch was thrown down from the tree, hitting the python's head.

The python looked up, saw Panzi, and immediately changed its target, springing toward the tree. Panzi, holding the rifle with one hand, thrust it hard—the rifle and his shoulder together plunged into the python's throat. Then the python whipped its head, lifting him off the tree. Before it could constrict, there was a muffled explosion, and suddenly several holes burst open in the python's throat. In agony, it rolled over.

Panzi was flung away and fell into the darkness. The python, enraged like mad, thrashed wildly around, its immense force sending surrounding bushes flying, and branches rained down like a storm.

I covered my head and hid behind a tree, seeing all the bark knocked off, too scared to move. I waited for over ten minutes until it gradually quieted down. I peeked out and saw the giant python had flopped over, twitched a few times, and lay still.

I was completely stunned, until Fatty started groaning. I snapped out of it, stood up, and ran over. Fatty was completely dazed. I helped him up, and he looked at me, babbling, "Drag that snake driver over here—before Fatty dies, let me wring his neck."

Seeing he could still babble nonsense meant he was okay. I laid him down and ran off to find Panzi. That guy was probably in grave danger.

Panzi lay under a tree about six or seven meters away, covered in blood, still clutching the rifle whose barrel had burst open—the muzzle was blown into a trumpet shape.

I rushed over. As soon as he opened his mouth, he spat blood, staring at me unable to speak. Looking at this pile of a man like mud, I was so anxious I grabbed my head. I slapped myself several times to calm down a bit, then immediately started unbuttoning Panzi's clothes.

When I lifted his clothes, I felt nauseous. His body was covered in gashes, all caused by the python dragging him rapidly through the bushes. Fortunately, his skin was already scarred and tough, so the wounds weren't deep.

I pulled out my canteen to clean his wounds first. He laboriously raised one hand and pushed something toward me, his mouth moving with difficulty.

I took it and saw it was his compass. Despite such violent dragging, his backpack had been thrown off, yet he had managed to hold onto this.

The compass was covered in blood, but I could still see the marks and angle scale he had made. He struggled to utter, "Find Third Uncle... careful... snake will..." Then his whole body convulsed, and he couldn't speak anymore.

"Snake will what?" I didn't know what he meant, but it didn't matter anymore. I cursed under my breath, took the compass and put it in my pocket, and told him not to talk anymore. He spat several mouthfuls of blood and even breathing became difficult.

I thought, how can there be such a determined person. I hastily rinsed his wounds with water, then rummaged through his backpack, took out antibiotics, and injected them into him.

Nearby, Fatty had recovered somewhat. He limped over, holding his wound, and asked me the situation.

Actually, I had no idea what the situation was. I didn't even know if Panzi could be saved, but I didn't have the courage to confirm that; I could only try my best to save him.

Fatty also cleaned his wounds with water from his canteen and injected himself with antibiotics. We moved Panzi next to the snake's corpse, and I sat down on the ground and started a full-body examination on him.

His limbs all had pulses, and they didn't seem weak. I couldn't help but sigh in relief, but I didn't dare relax. I immediately checked his whole body. He had lost so much blood along the way—it was likely arterial bleeding. I had to find that wound; if not treated, he would certainly bleed to death.

Finally, I found the wound on the back of Panzi's left thigh. It was terrifyingly deep, but amazingly the bleeding had already stopped, forming a large scab covered with crushed leaves. Probably Panzi had taken emergency measures while being dragged.

This wound needed to be cleaned and stitched, otherwise it would get infected and he might lose his leg. But we had no wound-treatment equipment—we had all discarded it for light travel.

At this point, we definitely had to rendezvous with Third Uncle, and the sooner the better.

I took out the compass Panzi had given me, wiped off the blood, and tried to find the direction. But I couldn't understand the markings at all. I showed it to Fatty, and he also shook his head. I slapped my forehead, cursing myself for not learning it properly at the time.

Fatty was also utterly exhausted, with no strength left to struggle. He said, "All right, we'll just have to wait for dawn. Who knows how much time it'll take to get to your Third Uncle? We're covered in blood and easy to attract things. Safer to stay here. And if we don't let Big Pan rest, he won't survive the long haul."

I looked at Panzi; his consciousness was fading. If I had such severe injuries, I would definitely be dead. This guy's willpower was truly something. But indeed, his injuries were real; moving him might not be possible. So I cleared an open area and temporarily settled Panzi. I checked my watch—it was almost dawn. In my heart, I prayed that he would hold on.

I took off my shirt to cover Panzi for warmth. For a moment, I also couldn't recover. After such exhaustion and then such a violent struggle, I felt a bit light-headed.

I sat down to catch my breath and drink water. Fatty picked up Panzi's gun and showed it to me, saying, "That guy's a real man. He plugged the gun muzzle with something, causing the gun to blow up inside the snake's throat, breaking its spine. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been easy to kill it."

I thought about it and found it strange. Earlier in the canyon, Panzi had shot it in all the vital spots, almost blowing its head off. I thought it was a goner, but who would have thought the snake wasn't dead yet and could still attack us.

Fatty said, "This kind of big snake is highly intelligent. It probably remembered Panzi after being shot several times by him earlier, and has been tracking us, waiting for a chance to take revenge."

I shook the torch to brighten it, stood up, and shone it on the snake's corpse. Looking closely, I found that this snake was truly huge, almost like a dragon. Just looking at it sent chills down my spine.

The snake's entire body was covered with large brownish-gold scales, each the size of a palm. The thickest part was as thick as an asphalt barrel. There were many wounds on its body, some of which were already rotting and stinking.

I carefully walked to the snake's head and shone the torch on it. I found that the snake's tongue was still moving, obviously not yet completely dead. The entire head was almost blown to pieces. Its black, venomous eyes reflected the torchlight like a demonic dragon from hell. At the snake's neck, where the gun had exploded, there were several gaping holes with the flesh turned out, bleeding profusely, already pooling on the ground.

This snake wasn't so easy to kill outright; it might even revive. Fearing it might suddenly lash out and injure us, Fatty pulled out a machete to chop off the snake's head. But after two chops, there wasn't even a mark on the snake's body.

He scraped the machete across the snake's scales and found them incredibly hard, almost like armor. Fatty leaned in close to the snake's wounds and discovered that this snake actually had two layers of scales, thick-skinned and tough. No wonder Panzi couldn't kill it no matter how he shot it.

He broke off two or three huge scales from near the wound. Fatty said these could be taken back to brag about and would definitely impress a bunch of people. As he spoke, he put them in his pocket. I told him to clean them up properly—there were often parasites under python scales. Before I finished, Fatty let out an "Ouch," as if his wrist had been bitten by something.

Turning it over to look, I found a small spider-like insect biting into his forearm. We had all seen this insect before—it was a grass tick. I heated the machete with the torch and promptly burned it off. At that moment, I felt a pain in my crotch. I reached down and also came up with a handful of blood.

I immediately sensed something was wrong. I brought the torch close to the bushes on the ground and discovered that the bushes all around us were already crawling with these terrifying insects. Some had already climbed onto our exposed calves.