A Blink of an Eye

Once they set off again, Bai Yang noticed that the others all wore expressions of complete indifference, as if the previous encounter hadn't bothered them at all.

"Was it because they're thick-skinned, or because they run into situations like this in the jungle all the time?"

Bai Yang knew he would never get an answer to that question.

They changed direction and moved forward. Even using his ass to think, he knew that heading in the direction the gorilla had gone was pure suicide, and following the direction it had come from probably wouldn't yield any prey either...

As the saying goes, when the Beast King appears, all beasts lie low. That gorilla might not have been a lion or tiger, but just looking at its size made its terror clear. As a result, for the next stretch of the journey, they basically didn't encounter any animals at all!

Bugs didn't count...

All along the way, the girl who stuck close to Bai Yang's side without leaving an inch barely spoke, but she was the most alert. At the slightest sign of trouble, she would shield Bai Yang behind her in an instant, like the most professional bodyguard, always standing on the front line of danger. Countless times, she pulled Bai Yang back from the brink of unknown threats—truly a gem!

As for the issue of being protected by a girl, Bai Yang's inner thoughts were... let's talk about something else...

There was a question buried deep in Bai Yang's heart that he had long been unable to find an answer to: this girl seemed far too loyal to him. He had never given her anything, so why was she so wholeheartedly devoted to him?

He could only chalk it up to not being familiar with the local customs, so he couldn't get an answer...

Among the group, the biggest one, Number One Barbarian, was quite interesting. He could always find all kinds of food in the jungle. His nose was sharper than a dog's—whether it was strange fruits hidden in the bushes or plant roots buried in the soil, he could always dig up something edible. All along the way, he was just constantly eating.

The fact that the guy hadn't been poisoned was something Bai Yang couldn't understand. He figured there had to be some scientifically explainable causal relationship between the guy growing so big and his nonstop eating...

For the sake of his own life, when the guy repeatedly brought strange things and tried to share them with Bai Yang, gesturing wildly to indicate they were really edible and delicious, Bai Yang still politely declined.

Thanks for the kindness, but I don't want to die yet...

Number Three Barbarian was probably never going to turn back from the path of courting death.

Bai Yang felt that if the saying "a smile makes you ten years younger" were true, he'd probably regress a hundred lifetimes!

That guy's curiosity had broken through the heavens. Whenever he came across a crack or a tree hollow, he'd poke at it with his door-plank-sized greatsword, causing all sorts of ridiculous situations.

Just look at the bumps all over his head like a Buddha's—that was from poking at a tree hollow and stirring up a nest of bees that stung him...

But the interesting thing wasn't his curiosity; it was that he never learned his lesson. The umpteenth time he poked at a rock crevice, he stirred up a meter-long centipede that nearly bit him, and he still kept at it with glee!

That said, it was precisely his sky-high curiosity and incorrigible nature that made him the best pathfinder. After all, he'd discover any danger first...

As for Number Two, well, he was practically invisible, hiding in the treetops and barely showing his face. For this kind of almost ninja-like jungle concealment, Bai Yang figured that if he were fighting so-called special forces in a jungle back on Earth, he could probably take out a whole squad by himself...

This was a rare jungle survival experience, and they ended the trip by hunting down a brown bear.

The process of hunting the brown bear was thrilling, but Bai Yang didn't feel an ounce of danger—just pure boredom!

He was standing over fifty meters from the battlefield, with a girl whose combat power was off the charts protecting him. If he could still feel the tension and excitement of the hunt under those circumstances, that would be a miracle...

To put it simply, they found a brown bear that stood nearly three meters tall on its hind legs. Then the terminally ill Number Three tossed aside his greatsword, yelled something incomprehensible, and charged at the bear to test his strength. When he realized he was no match for it, he pulled out his signature move—the one Bai Yang had seen before—jumping onto the bear's back where it couldn't shake him off...

Then Number One walked over and whacked the bear right on the nose with his club, making it howl with tears and snot streaming down its face. Finally, Number Two, hidden somewhere in the trees, fired an arrow that pierced the bear's right eye, ending the fight.

The hunting process was often that simple and brutal. The real time sink was finding the prey. Bai Yang figured that back on Earth, the actual kill would be even shorter—one shot and it'd be done...

Big guy Number One acted as the pack mule, carrying the bear back alone without his legs even trembling...

That strength was something else. Bai Yang estimated that if Number One went to work on a construction site, a lot of laborers would lose their jobs...

The way back was much easier than the way there. Even though the jungle exploration had only lasted a few hours, Bai Yang felt a sense of surreal detachment.

"From now on, even if someone puts a knife to my throat, I'm never going into the jungle again!"

Standing at the village entrance, Bai Yang said this to himself. So what if someone put a knife to his throat? He could just run away...

Time slipped by in a haze of boredom, frustration, numbness, and more boredom. In the blink of an eye, ten days had passed since their last trip into the jungle!

Those ten days were local time. If you considered that a day here was nearly fifty hours long, then over twenty days had passed back on Earth!

According to scientific research, half a month is enough to completely change a habit. Try it yourself—get a dog, and every time you feed it, tap its bowl. Guarantee that after half a month, if you tap it again, the dog will come wagging its tail and trotting over in no time...

So after ten days, aside from still struggling with the language, Bai Yang wasn't much different from the villagers here.

During this time, Bai Yang had mostly been hanging out with the villagers, deliberately observing and learning their habits and language. By now, he could manage simple conversations with them.

What level of "simple conversation" was that? Let me give you an example.

It was roughly equivalent to talking to a foreigner back on Earth with something like, "How are you? I eat cold, good good..."—that kind of level...

But most of his communication with the villagers still relied on gestures.

The more he understood the villagers' way of life, the more Bai Yang realized how hard their existence was. The jungle, the treehouses—none of it was as comfortable or pleasant as it seemed on the surface.

The villagers went out hunting every day, and injuries or deaths were common. To survive, they had to enter the jungle to hunt, and entering the jungle meant facing all kinds of dangers!

It was a vicious cycle...

In the ten days he'd been here, Bai Yang had personally witnessed three cripples, six severe injuries, and two people who went into the jungle and never came back...

Life is a miracle—tough, always finding a way to survive in the harshest environments. But at the same time, life is incredibly fragile. In an instant, a living, breathing person can just be gone...

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