About a kilometer from the village, the path ended. Ancient vines sprawled everywhere, towering trees blocked out the sky, and rotting leaves gave off a foul stench. Even the light had grown dim.
At this point, Number Two Barbarian seemed to have used some kind of vanishing technique and disappeared among the treetops. If Bai Yang hadn't known there was someone there, he could have easily forgotten about him.
Number One brought up the rear with a staff over his shoulder, while Number Three led the way, gripping a massive sword as broad as a door. The girl kept close to Bai Yang, a greatsword in hand, warily watching their surroundings.
Why do I feel like I'm the king of the forest right now...?
He muttered to himself. Since he didn't really need to worry about his safety, Bai Yang looked around at everything with curiosity—and suddenly realized that over ninety percent of what he saw was completely unfamiliar to him!
When Bai Yang got curious and leaned in to examine a mushroom as big as an umbrella, his shoulder tightened. The girl grabbed him and hauled him back more than ten meters!
"What's going on?"
Bai Yang looked at her, confused.
The girl flicked her toe, sending a fist-sized rock flying toward the giant mushroom. A small cloud of powder puffed up from it. The powder settled on the surrounding plants, and within seconds, they had lost all their moisture, turning brittle and yellow.
Seeing this, Bai Yang's eyes lit up instead of filling with fear!
"If we could get our hands on some of this Mushroom Powder, wouldn't it be an essential for home and travel?"
Number One Barbarian came around in front of Bai Yang from behind, his face full of horror as he gestured frantically. His basic point was that the mushroom was even more terrifying than the devil!
"Uneducated. Mushrooms are dead. Once you know what they can do, isn't it easy enough to deal with them? Carefully gather some Mushroom Powder. If someone ticks you off, just give them a little..."
Bai Yang thought they were overreacting. He decided that if he got the chance, he would definitely collect some and carry it around!
Atomic bombs were dangerous too, but didn't every country still want to stockpile them?
They kept their distance from the giant mushroom and continued deeper into the forest.
They hadn't gone far when Bai Yang, about to lean against a tree and catch his breath, was gently pulled away by the girl again. She tapped the tree with her greatsword. With a crack, a palm-sized hole appeared in the trunk, and a swarm of densely packed red ants, each as long as a finger, came crawling out!
"Let's go around."
Instinctively stepping away from the tree, Bai Yang turned his stiff neck and headed the other way.
Whoosh! An arrow came flying from somewhere in the trees and landed right by Bai Yang's foot. The soft earth split open, and an almost eight-meter-long python twisted and thrashed on the ground, its head pierced by the arrow and pinned down.
A bead of cold sweat slowly rolled down his forehead. If the arrow had landed just a little to the side, he would have been the one pinned down. Worse, he had nearly stepped right on the python...
"When are we going back? This forest is no place for people to live..."
The complaint looped endlessly in his mind. Bai Yang regretted his decision to venture into the forest, but since he was already there, he could only grit his teeth and keep going.
An hour later, Bai Yang was close to losing it. The forest was full of dangers, and walking through it felt like taking the road to hell. You couldn't touch any of the plants, and deadly poisonous insects kept appearing where you least expected them. If he hadn't been with several "wilderness survival experts," Bai Yang felt he'd have been lucky to last ten minutes—and only because the Goddess of Fortune had taken a liking to him...
The reason he hadn't gotten into serious trouble the last time he'd wandered around the forest for a few hours was simply that the Barbarians had already passed through those areas. After all, he'd been feeling his way along the safe routes they had traveled.
During a break, the girl gestured to Bai Yang and spoke in a language he couldn't understand. She meant that in this forest, outsiders who came in almost never made it out in one piece. Only natives like them, who had grown up here, could manage it!
That was probably what she meant...
"Different lands nurture different people. If you blunder into a place you don't know, either you'll survive with your head bloodied, or you'll bring about your own destruction."
That was Bai Yang's conclusion.
The fact that they could live so comfortably in the forest was probably thanks to precious knowledge their ancestors had bought with countless lives!
Just as Bai Yang was busy reflecting on this, the atmosphere around them grew tense. Number Three Barbarian held his greatsword in front of him and crouched slightly, like a cheetah ready to pounce. He looked as if he were facing a formidable enemy, and goose bumps covered his neck.
Number One Barbarian, who had been bringing up the rear, came to the front as well. He held his staff across his body, eyes flickering, his frame trembling slightly. Even Number Two Barbarian, hidden in a tree, revealed himself above and to the side, nocking an arrow and slowly scanning the surroundings, his eyes full of terror!
The girl held her greatsword across her chest with one hand and gripped Bai Yang's shoulder with the other, slowly backing away. She was incredibly tense.
"What's going on?"
Caught up in the tension, Bai Yang's throat went dry. He couldn't sense any danger at all, but he had no doubt about the instincts these people, who had lived in the forest for years, were displaying.
Before Bai Yang could figure out what was happening, he felt himself grow weightless, as if he were soaring through the clouds. In the blur, the girl lifted him by the shoulder and carried him up into a tree at least thirty meters above the ground!
"How did we get up here?"
Bai Yang was bewildered. He couldn't imagine how the girl had managed to get herself and a man weighing over a hundred pounds up a tree. It had happened too fast; he hadn't seen a thing...
Watching the girl beside him, her lips pressed tight as her eyes swept over their surroundings, Bai Yang felt his worldview crumble. Was this really the same soft little girl who had once sobbed in his arms like a pitiful little cat? Had she been switched out for someone else?
Then Bai Yang stopped thinking about anything else. He could only wonder whether he should ask the girl to take him even higher...
Dull thuds came from far away, and the ground trembled faintly. Branches snapped and crackled without pause. A gigantic creature was approaching!
At some point, Number One Barbarian and Number Three Barbarian had climbed into the trees too. Just like Bai Yang and the others, they held their breath and nervously watched the direction the sounds were coming from.
The leaves parted, and a gorilla appeared in Bai Yang and the others' line of sight.
But when Bai Yang saw the gorilla, his face twisted like he was constipated. He wanted to laugh but didn't dare, and the effort nearly killed him...
It was a huge—absolutely gigantic—black gorilla, a match for King Kong in Bai Yang's mind. It was powerfully built, its thick limbs looking ready to explode with muscle. But that wasn't the point. The point was that the gorilla was wearing a pair of underpants! A pair of tiger-skin underpants from who knew where covered its lower body...
The gorilla was huge and terrifying. One of its arms was thicker than Number One Barbarian's entire body, even though he was the burliest of the group. But with the underpants on, the gorilla struck Bai Yang as inexplicably hilarious. He wanted to laugh but didn't dare, and almost gave himself internal injuries trying to hold it in.
The gorilla had clearly noticed Bai Yang and the others. It stopped and looked up at them.
Under the gorilla's gaze, everyone felt a chill run through them. It could probably swallow each of them whole without even chewing!
But the gorilla only bared its teeth at them, turned its butt, and sauntered off...
Bai Yang would swear on his little manhood that the expression on its face as it left had been pure disdain—as if it were mocking them: You're all trash!
They'd actually been looked down on by a beast. They had no choice but to endure it...
Only after the gorilla had completely disappeared into the forest did the group dare to breathe deeply. Before they knew it, cold sweat was streaming down them all.
"Has this damn gorilla become some kind of spirit? It can make human expressions, and now it even knows to wear underpants!"
Even after the danger had passed, Bai Yang's mind was still reeling. He figured his understanding of this world was still stuck at zero...
"Gorillas are intelligent primates to begin with. They're that huge, so it's not impossible for them to have some ability to imitate us, is it?"
In the end, Bai Yang used this far-fetched explanation to convince himself...
Before you continue