The little girl had stayed by Zhang Heng's side these past few days. Although Zhang Heng still taught her little Wilderness Survival tricks from time to time as before, he no longer spent the rest of his time gathering food to improve their meals. Instead, starting three days ago, Zhang Heng had focused all his attention on setting traps.
All kinds of traps—ones in trees, underground, and in the water. Some were particularly lethal. The little girl had personally watched Zhang Heng place four sharpened wooden stakes beneath one trap. Though Zhang Heng claimed the traps were for hunting, she could still sense something unusual about them.
She had realized that something bad was likely about to happen, but she did not ask Zhang Heng, and he offered no explanation. He only told her to remember the locations of the traps. That was why Zhang Heng had brought her along: she and her grandfather lived deep in these mountains, and he feared that before any fighting began, his traps might hurt them first.
At noon that day, after finishing his meal, Zhang Heng took the little girl out to set traps as usual. It was then that he spotted birds taking flight from the distant woods.
Zhang Heng frowned and glanced at the little girl beside him. In truth, his trap deployment was almost complete. After that afternoon, he had planned to stop keeping her by his side. He knew that group had come for him. He had not wanted too much contact even with Shen Xixi and Fan Mei Nan before, much less drag this grandfather and granddaughter into it.
But judging by the direction the birds had flown from, that group was closer to the two caves than he was. Of course, they did not know his exact