Where there was money, evil would sprout. As the saying went, without buying and selling, there would be no harm.
None of this had anything to do with Ye Qin, but he was now living on this mountain. The poachers' arrival had shattered its original tranquility.
There was no guarantee they would not discover his existence.
Besides, Ye Qin had just seen that bearded man catch a great many snakes.
What did he want so many snakes for?
Whatever the man's reason, his very existence was a tremendous threat to Ye Qin.
An inexplicable sense of danger welled up inside him.
Moreover, these people clearly weren't kind souls. Their desires had no bottom line. Ye Qin feared that many of the animals across the entire mountain would fall victim to the two men's ruthless hands.
Ye Qin disliked this feeling. Rather than sit and await death, he would be better off striking first.
Following the footprints left by the two men, Ye Qin quickly gave chase.
Seeing that the heavy snow would not stop anytime soon, the two men had not bothered to conceal their tracks. Even if they left marks, the snow would bury them again in moments. Besides, no one could possibly come up the mountain at a time like this, so they had not taken any precautions.
Who could have imagined that a snake would be following behind them?
Following their trail, Ye Qin smoothly made his way to their base.
The wooden cabin in the distance had presumably been built by the former forest rangers. It had later been abandoned and left unused, but now it had become the poachers' base.
Snakes had keen senses of smell. His bright-red tongue flicked through the air, and even from far away, Ye Qin could smell the heavy stench of blood drifting toward him.
"Looks like quite a few animals have already fallen victim."
With a stench this thick and foul, there were probably dozens of them.
Yet the truth was far more brutal than Ye Qin had imagined.
He silently approached the cabin and climbed onto the window. When he got a clear look at the scene inside, astonishment flashed through his pupils.
More than a dozen bloody pelts hung inside the room. They had clearly only just been stripped off and had not yet been processed.
Bloody, mangled animals had been piled there like a mountain of blood. The sight was positively nauseating.
Besides that, several cages stood in the corner of the room, containing many small and medium-sized wild animals. Every one of them was rare or endangered.
Their fur was matted into clumps, and their bodies were covered in wounds. Blood had mingled with all kinds of filth. Their eyes were filled with gloom, as if they had already seen their own fate.
The tragic state of the room made it plain that the two poachers had reaped a rich harvest this winter.
Ye Qin's pupils abruptly contracted, transforming into vertical slits that made him look exceptionally bloodthirsty.
Beside the cages lay heaps of dead snakes. Every one was bloody, tossed beside them like garbage. The sight was utterly appalling.
So the poacher had already killed this many snakes! What Ye Qin had seen in the man's hands earlier had been only the tip of the iceberg.
"Poachers, you deserve to die!"
For killing and capturing all these wild animals, the two men could receive sentences of twenty years to life imprisonment.
He immediately stopped hesitating. Poachers were greedy by nature, and judging from the current situation, they would never stop until they had hunted the entire mountain clean.
How could he allow others to snore beside his bed?
Besides, when the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold!
This place could already be considered his territory. With people like this around, Ye Qin would be unable to focus even if he wanted to cultivate. He would also have to worry about whether they might find him.
He was no saint who wanted to stand up for the animals. He simply felt the danger.
Rather than remain passive, it would be better to deal with the two men once and for all. That would count as punishing evil and promoting good, as well as avenging the animals that had died unjustly.
A ruthless glint flashed through Ye Qin's eyes.
At that moment, the scar-faced man and Li Han were in another room, completely unaware that disaster was about to descend upon them.
This room was fairly neat. A pot sat in the middle, its fiery-red broth bubbling and steaming like fresh blood.
The scar-faced man deftly dropped slices of meat and vegetables into the hot pot, then took several bottles of baijiu from the side and bit open a cap.
"Today seems to be the Major Cold solar term. On a day this cold, nothing beats a hot pot. Brother Li, it's been ages since the two of us had a drink. Tonight, we drink until we're too drunk to return!"
Outside, the snow stretched white as far as the eye could see. Inside, the bonfire burned fiercely. As the room warmed, the two men removed their heavy fur coats and hung them to the side.
"After we finish this job, we'll probably make quite a bit of money. We can live it up for several years. This trip wasn't a waste for the two of us brothers."
"Drink a little less today. I've already arranged a time with the buyer. He'll take the goods tomorrow, so we can't let anything interfere with the important business."
Though he said that, Li Han still accepted a bottle of baijiu from the scar-faced man. After one swallow, warmth spread through his whole body, driving away the cold that had lingered for days.
The scar-faced man chuckled. "Brother Li, you know I just like this little pleasure in a cup. Don't worry, it won't delay anything. We've been busy for so many days. It's time we relaxed properly."
"Clink—"
Their baijiu bottles collided in midair with a crisp sound.
"Cheers to our wonderful life!"
The poachers' so-called wonderful life came at the cost of countless wild animals' lives.
The room was filled with enticing aromas. Plump slices of beef floated in the hot, spicy broth. When the chopsticks gently picked one up, it seemed almost to melt into the red oil, unbelievably fresh and tender.
The two men ate until grease shone on their mouths and sweat covered their foreheads. The rising steam lifted the temperature around them considerably. They even removed their sweaters, leaving only thin shirts underneath.
But in the other room, icy death followed like a shadow, while the stench of blood and decay permeated the air.
Corpses and several bloody pelts lay strewn carelessly across the floor. Countless animals were locked in cages, their throats emitting desperate wails and cries.
There was only a single wall between the rooms, yet they were like two separate worlds.
Large flakes of snow began falling from the sky again, settling over the little cabin. Its roof turned white in an instant, and from a distance it looked like a gigantic white tomb.
Cold snake eyes glimmering with a ghostly light took everything in. Ye Qin silently arrived at the room where the animals were imprisoned.
At the arrival of this unfamiliar visitor, several pairs of dim, ghostly eyes lit up in the darkness.
The animals were confined in iron cages, whose bars were only about two fingers thick. The cages were also locked from the outside, but that presented no difficulty for Ye Qin.
His tail coiled around one of the bars.
The animals in the cages quietly watched Ye Qin's movements. At that moment, it was as if they had gained human understanding and knew that Ye Qin had come to rescue them. Not one of them made a sound.
"Crack—"
There was only a faint, nearly imperceptible snap. The seemingly indestructible cage was forcibly pulled into an astonishing arc by his snake tail.
Ye Qin repeated the process, damaging another bar. The gap between them was just wide enough for the animals to escape.
After running out, the animals looked back at Ye Qin once, then vanished into the endless snowy wilderness.
Li Han and the scar-faced man, who were feasting next door, noticed nothing that had happened.
(End of Chapter)