Chapter 66: The most important person
Translator: Letty / Editor: DarkGem / Jello
"Seems like I have gotten a preview of the death of our future enemy." Chang stared at Qing shui, "No wonder my parents always told me don't provoke someone that is smart…"
"Come on, I am no conspirator. I only do this for survival; there is never too many ways to protect ourselves." Qing shui lightly pressed the iron box in his pocket, asked "How far are they?"
"We are getting there; it isn’t too far."
"Let’s take off the outer layer, there is too much pollen on it."
"I agree." Chang and Qing shui stopped and peeled down the uniform with caution.
"Do you think we can get to Zheng zhou today?" As Chang was removing the cloth, he asked "I am just thinking of the theory of Food Web that you just told me, the aggressiveness of every species around us is on a whole new level that we didn’t foresee."
"You are right, especially those are evolving to bigger size, they need to obtain tremendous amount of nutrient; and the best and the most convenient way to do so is to predate others. Therefore…we should at least expect the rest of the journey is going to be tougher than before."
"Regardless its toughness, we will endure it like we always did." Chang took off the outer layer of pants, then he followed Qing shui to rejoin the troop.
"Did you find the compass?" One of the soldiers noticed their return and shouted with rejoice.
"Here it is." Qing shui took the compass out from his pocket and waved to the troop. He immediately looked for Dr. Huang and asked "How is everyone?"
"There are 2 serious injured persons, but the rest are fine." Dr.Huang pointed at a wounded soldier, as well as Jing.
"How is Jing?" Chang carefully hunkered down to Jing and gently stroked on her forehead. He had a bad feeling that Jing had hurt herself severely before he left with Qing shui. Otherwise, she would have been following him around.
"Well… She is too young, even she had similar condition to others, she just got worse faster than others."
"Chang…" Jing tried to mumble with her pale lips but only one word slipped through.
"Don’t worried about me. Stay still and avoid talking, you just lost quite amount of blood, you’ll get better when you wake up." Chang touched Jing’s hair and smiled grudgingly.
"I…" She still replied to him with one word. Apparently, she had been fighting to keep awake, but her will consumed all her strength in weakness. Therefore, after ensuring Chang’s safety, she fell into deep coma for excessive blood loss.
"Ah…" Chang again emitted a long sigh – Without Jing’s ability, the road ahead was more difficult.
Unusually, Qing shui groaned with frustration. He looked aside, said "Ming Yi, can you carry the other guy?" He referred to the soldier that had become immobile.
"Of course." Ming Yi took the order, he pulled up the soldier and dragged him onto his back with ease.
"Alright, we are all well rested, I assume. Let’s move! We can’t afford any delays, so throw away things that you don’t need. Now, stay in line!" Qing shui naturally became the leader of the troop after Zhao passed away. "Chang, stay with Ming Yi at the front, and Pangzi, please carry Jing with you. Everyone else, pick up your rifle and we are leaving, now!"
"Roger that!" The size of the troop was significantly reduced, they tightly followed Qing shui as how they followed Zhao before.
This time, they abandoned most of their backpacks and they had drunk up their water. Although everyone was injured in different extent, they didn’t slow down at all.
"Getting to Zheng zhou before sunset…it sounds impossible for me if we can’t speed up." Qing shui recalibrated the compass with his brows knotted "And this is under the assumption that we don’t run into trouble…"
"Ah!!" Qing shui’s voice was cut off by a scream from the back. When everyone realized what happened, that person’s face had already turned pale and green. At the same time, a bug that was in size of fingernail flew out from his neck.
"He is dead." Dr. Huang went forward and pressed on the dead man’s neck with 2 fingers, announced.
"Go, go, go!" Qing shui stopped the soldiers from coming forward – they only processed with few steps and they lost one already.
There were only 10 of them now.
The whole troop marched in the jungle, where it had become denser and lusher as they went further. Varieties of plants crowded together and competed for living space; some places became so narrow that the gap is as small as half a human. Therefore, Qing shui purposely appointed Ming Yi to go in the front so he could break down those thick branches with a machete. Although his posture looked extreme weird with a wounded soldier on his back.
"To be honest, if we let go of that wounded one, we could have gone faster." Chang whispered to Qing shui as he noticed Ming Yi’s difficulty.
"I wish I could, but I have no power on deciding other people’s life." Qing shui replied with the lowest volume of his voice, while he looked back to the other soldiers. "I can’t even say this out loud; this troop won’t be following us if I ever give up that person, I am not trying to say I wanted to buy people over, but that is also my bottom line. I can’t leave anyone behind."
"True…Without him, they will feel unsafe for coming with us." While Chang was talking, something caused a sharp sting on his ankle. He cried out simultaneously as he fell on the back when he lost balance.
"Ah!"
"What was that?" Qing shui turned back and bowed to check if Chang was alright.
"Little bastard! It got a slice of muscle on me!" Chang clutched his ankle when he saw a dark shadow in size of fist quickly disappeared in a tree hole with his flesh, it was so swift that he didn’t even see what attacked him.
"Is it serious?"
"Not too bad I guess…It didn’t get my sinew though, otherwise I can’t even walk." Another piece of cloth was teared off from his tattered shirt, he used that to cover and tighten the wound to prevent further bleeding. "It is too dangerous in here without Jing, I had no idea there was attacker until it bite on me!"
"With Jing, we can bypass most of the danger." Qing shui held Chang to stand up by his arm. "In this vast, borderless jungle, Ming Yi, You and I are much powerless compare to Jing. She is the most important person in the troop."