To Mo Li's right, a girl in mountaineering gear was clutching the wooden railing and shouting loudly. She had long brown hair, but perhaps because it had not been combed in a long time, it was rather messy, with many blades of grass clinging to it.
The girl was quite beautiful, with distinctly Middle Eastern features. However, her pretty face was now haggard and carried a trace of fear.
"You're awake?" Just as Mo Li was staring at the girl in astonishment, another voice came from behind him. Upon hearing it, Mo Li turned around in shock and saw a man with a full beard leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking at him. On the ground behind him lay Zhong Lichun and Wei Dengke, both unconscious. Their breathing was fairly normal, so they should have merely passed out.
When Big Beard saw Mo Li looking at him, he smiled, but the smile was bitter and filled with helplessness.
"Where is this place? And how did we get here?" Mo Li asked in a puzzled tone. This place looked like a wooden prison. Though crude, it was extremely sturdy. For someone to build a prison like this, intelligent creatures must live here. However, Mo Li vaguely remembered that he, Zhong Lichun, and Wei Dengke had passed out from gas poisoning while swimming to the Lakeshore. After that, he had known nothing. Who exactly had brought them out of that Underground Cavity?
"Don't ask me. I don't know either. Although I've been captured here for four days, I've never left this prison." Big Beard shrugged as he spoke, then pointed at the wooden prison, clearly reminding Mo Li that they were prisoners now.
Hearing his answer, Mo Li frowned, then turned to look around again. The prison holding them seemed to be beneath a mountain cliff. Outside it was a dense forest, but to Mo Li's surprise, he did not recognize any of its vegetation. He had lived in Motuo for ten years, and knew all the plants there. Yet these plants clearly did not belong to the Primeval Forest around Motuo.
Another thing that puzzled Mo Li was the temperature. They had been on a snow mountain before, and it was early winter. The temperature should have already fallen below zero, but this place was extremely hot. Roughly estimating, it had to be at least twenty-seven or twenty-eight degrees. Why was it so hot here? Had they already left the snow mountain? But even if they had, the temperature should not have been this high.
Just as Mo Li was filled with questions, footsteps suddenly came from the distance. Upon hearing them, Big Beard, who had been leaning against the wall, suddenly became tense. He quickly rushed over to the still-shouting girl, grabbed her, and pulled her back. Then he rapidly retreated to the base of the wall and warily watched outside the prison.
Mo Li found Big Beard's nervousness inexplicable, but his doubts were soon answered. He saw a Yeti more than two meters tall walk up beside the prison. Its huge, ferocious face looked terrifying.
When it reached the prison, the Yeti leaned its enormous face close and peered at Mo Li and the others inside. When it saw that Mo Li was awake, a strange expression appeared in its eyes.
However, the Yeti did not do anything to harm them. Instead, it threw in a piece of thigh meat from some unknown animal, then left immediately.
Only after the Yeti had gone did Big Beard release the girl. He immediately walked over to the piece of meat and picked it up, then slapped away the blades of grass and dirt clinging to it. Big Beard handed the meat to the girl and said sternly, "Eat it."
"I don't want to!" The girl made a disgusted face at the meat in Big Beard's hand, then stubbornly turned her head away.
"Do you want to die here? If you die here, how heartbroken will your mother be?" Big Beard did not give up because of her refusal. Instead, he held the meat out even farther.
Hearing Big Beard's words, the girl stopped resisting. She bit her lip and struggled for a long while, then suddenly turned around, grabbed the meat, and shoved it straight into her mouth. As she gnawed on the raw meat, tears streamed uncontrollably down her face. She had been spoiled since childhood—when had she ever suffered like this?
Mo Li simply stared at the girl as she cried and gnawed on the raw meat. He had only seen her in profile before and had not paid much attention, but now that he saw her face, he froze. This girl was actually one of the three foreign adventurers they had come to find.
Seeing Mo Li staring at the girl's face, Big Beard instinctively stepped forward and blocked her from him. Then he asked, "Who exactly are the three of you? You don't look like mountaineers."
Hearing Big Beard's question, Mo Li felt both amused and embarrassed. Indeed, the three of them did not look like mountaineers in their current outfits. After all, who would go mountain climbing bare-chested and wearing nothing but oversized shorts? Wasn't that just asking to die?
Big Beard might already have taken the three of them for perverts. To clear up the misunderstanding, Mo Li told him who the three of them were and what they had come to do. Since the girl and Big Beard were among the people they had come to rescue, there was no need to hide anything.
After Mo Li finished explaining, Big Beard's expression as he looked at the three of them became extremely strange. After a long silence, he finally asked, "Your country's government sent just the three of you to rescue us?"
"Uh... We're an investigation team. The rescue team is behind us." This involved national dignity, so Mo Li naturally could not say that the three of them were truly the entire team. He immediately began spouting nonsense. However, he was not worried about his lie being exposed. They were all imprisoned here, so Big Beard had no way to verify it. Besides, they had been gone for so long without returning. The county police station and the county's rescue department could not possibly have shown no reaction. For all he knew, a rescue team had already been sent to search for them.
After answering Big Beard's question, Mo Li asked about their situation. He was curious about how the three of them had been captured and brought here.
Big Beard's expression became especially unnatural at Mo Li's question. He hesitated for a long time without answering. Just then, the girl, who had been gnawing on the raw meat, suddenly vomited with a loud retch. Everything she had just eaten came back up. She collapsed to the ground, clutching her stomach and screaming in pain.
When Big Beard saw the girl's condition, he hurried over and crouched down to examine her. Mo Li's gaze instinctively fell on the girl's vomit. The moment he looked, his expression changed. Among the vomit, he saw several tiny black-gray bugs writhing.
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