Survival of the Fittest

Hunting prey like black bears required patience. Black bears were also very intelligent; the slightest flaw would make them wary and render the trap useless.

Sure enough, when Zhao Ya arrived at the trap the next day, he found nothing.

Zhao Ya was not discouraged. He reset the trap and placed some bait inside.

Niu Yuan had specifically explained bait as well. First, it had to be something with a salty taste.

To wild beasts in the mountains, salt was the most precious thing. A piece of fresh salted meat was irresistibly tempting to them.

Second, it could not be too obvious.

Beasts were not fools, especially mutated beasts, which were extremely intelligent.

If the bait was too conspicuous, it would be useless.

Following Niu Yuan's instructions, Zhao Ya carefully set out the bait, then found a place to hide.

Patience was the most basic quality of an excellent hunter.

Zhao Ya remained silently hidden in the forest for over two hours, his eyes fixed on the animal trail.

At last.

Apparently having caught the scent of the bait, the distant grass began to rustle, and then a massive black bear slowly emerged.

The moment Zhao Ya saw the bear, his eyes lit up.

This was clearly a mutated black bear.

Zhao Ya waited quietly in the shadows.

The black bear was extremely vigilant. It slowly approached the bait but did not go closer, clearly observing something.

At last.

It could no longer resist the bait's allure and tentatively extended a foreleg to test the ground.

Nothing happened!

Zhao Ya had anticipated this, so he had set the trap's trigger threshold very high.

The black bear finally relaxed its guard. It walked into the trap and was just about to bite the bait.

At that moment, the wire snare buried beneath the dead leaves sprang into action, trapping the black bear's hind leg. At the same time, numerous logs flew in from all directions, each studded with blades that viciously pierced the bear's body.

Unable to bear the pain, the black bear let out an angry roar.

At the same time, Zhao Ya drew his bow and nocked an arrow, firing straight into the black bear's gaping mouth.

After firing, Zhao Ya drew the Meteoric Iron Saber and charged forward like a gale.

He did not slowly wear down the prey as Niu Yuan had taught him.

Though Niu Yuan and the others had abundant hunting experience and decent blade skills, they were ultimately ordinary people and possessed nowhere near Zhao Ya's powerful vitality and blood.

As long as he found the prey and trapped it, the rest was simple.

Zhao Ya rushed forward and severed the black bear's spine with a single slash.

After it crashed to the ground, Zhao Ya drove his blade directly through its eye, ending its suffering.

After the successful hunt, Zhao Ya swiftly cut open the black bear's belly, removed its gallbladder, and placed it in a medicine bottle he had prepared beforehand.

He did not waste the rest of the flesh either. He packed up the bear paws and any other edible portions before returning to the city.

After returning home, Zhao Ya first preserved the bear gallbladder with several antiseptic herbs, then eagerly began cooking the bear meat.

But after working for half the day, Zhao Ya wore a disappointed expression when he finally tasted it.

He could not sense much vitality and blood in the meat. It was practically no different from the pork sold on the market.

Worse still, it tasted awful.

Zhao Ya finally understood why Dancing Elephant City had so many martial artists, yet so few went hunting in the mountains.

The flesh of these wild mutated beasts had hardly any nutritional value at all.

Only certain parts, such as this black bear's gallbladder, possessed medicinal properties, and even those needed to be combined with other herbs before they could be consumed.

No wonder the dried earthworm meat and dried Green Bamboo Snake that came out of the inner city were all farmed.

Over the next few days, Zhao Ya went hunting outside the city every day. His hunting skills advanced by leaps and bounds, and he soon became a seasoned hunter.

However, as time passed, Zhao Ya discovered that the situation outside the city was growing worse and worse.

At first, the refugees could still enter the city, but as their numbers increased, Dancing Elephant City reached the limits of its capacity.

The three great families of the inner city then sent people to guard the gates and prevent the refugees from entering.

Unable to enter the city, the refugees had no choice but to gather along the edge of the forest, quickly forming countless groups of various sizes.

Whenever Zhao Ya entered the mountains, he often saw refugees driven to desperation by hunger, risking their lives to hunt in the forest.

But after enduring hunger for so long, their strength had already been severely depleted. How could they possibly survive in such a dangerous forest?

Without exception, they all ended up as meals for the beasts of the mountains.

Beyond that, public order in the places where the refugees gathered rapidly deteriorated.

For people starving to death, no law or morality was as real as a moldy steamed bun.

Without any outside restraint, these gathering places quickly transformed into jungle societies where the weak were prey to the strong.

As long as you had strength, you could freely take away another person's possessions, even their life.

In just the past few days, Zhao Ya had personally witnessed no fewer than a dozen fights and murders.

There was nothing Zhao Ya could do about it. He could only watch in silence.

He could save one or two people, but with so many people, even if Zhao Ya possessed heaven-reaching abilities, he could not save them all.

One day, Zhao Ya was preparing to enter the forest to hunt as usual when, shortly after setting out, he suddenly heard a weak voice beside him.

"Sir, please have mercy on me and save my child!"

Zhao Ya followed the voice and saw a woman holding a child at the edge of the forest, leaning against a large tree and looking at him.

When she saw Zhao Ya stop, the woman struggled to stand and said in a trembling voice.

"Sir, they want to eat my child, so I fled in here. Please have mercy on me. Give my child something to eat! I am willing to do anything for you!"

As she spoke, she did her utmost to puff out her chest. But prolonged starvation had reduced her to skin and bones, and even the symbols of her womanhood had withered away.

Zhao Ya fell silent.

He saw that although the woman had wasted away to the extreme, almost like a skeleton, the child in her arms was actually doing fairly well. Though thin too, the child's cheeks still carried a trace of color as the child looked at him curiously.

"Sir, just a piece of steamed bun for my child will do!" Seeing Zhao Ya remain silent, the woman began to beg.

Zhao Ya sighed and took a small bag of rations from his pack, handing it to her.

"Hide here and eat it quietly. Do not let anyone see you, understand?" Zhao Ya warned.

After receiving the bag of rations, the woman dropped to her knees and frantically kowtowed to Zhao Ya.

"Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!"

Zhao Ya shook his head. "All right, there is no need for this. Hurry and eat."

With that, Zhao Ya turned and entered the forest.

After he left, the woman tremblingly took out a flatbread from the ration bag, put it in her mouth, and chewed it a few times before beginning to feed it to her child.

After starving for so long, she had long since lost her milk and could only nourish her child this way.

Meanwhile, Zhao Ya, who had entered the deep mountains, was in a somewhat gloomy mood as well.

He did not consider himself a saint, but what he had seen today still deeply wounded him.

A mother was willing to pay any price for her child, yet in such circumstances, someone actually intended to eat that child.

Zhao Ya suddenly did not know how to describe how he felt.

He could only let out a long breath and mutter softly.

"What a damned world."

Today's haul was not bad. Zhao Ya killed two Golden Flower Snakes and obtained their gallbladders, adding another useful medicinal ingredient to his supplies.

By evening, Zhao Ya left the deep mountains with the day's gains. But when he reached the edge of the forest, he did not see the woman from earlier that day.

Zhao Ya's heart sank. He quickly walked out of the forest and saw smoke rising from a refugee camp in the distance, along with the faint scent of meat in the air.