Having discovered the traps, Petru moved even more cautiously, not daring to be careless in the slightest. In particular, many of these old traps were covered by fallen leaves and newly grown weeds, leaving no trace on the surface, making them difficult for even the most experienced hunters to spot.
Qingmu and Su Huilan each took a branch and, imitating Petru, began to poke at the grass on the ground. Hanran continued to lead the way, acting as a lookout. It wasn't afraid of traps; apart from animal traps, few traps in the jungle could work on a cat, a light and extremely agile animal. But the primitive tribes probably still had powerful metal animal traps.
Moreover, on an island with a limited area, it is almost impossible for humans and large animals to coexist. Any animal exposed to humans would quickly perish. Therefore, on islands in the South Pacific, even those with an area of 500,000 square kilometers like Rapa Island and Tubuai Island, the most abundant animals are birds, and apart from snakes and rats, insects are basically the only other creatures on the ground.
The traps designed by the primitive people here were likely aimed at humans, not animals. Later, they discovered two more traps, and their location and size confirmed their deduction.
"Damn it!" Petru cursed, but inwardly he was grateful to have escaped naked through the thick fog from such a trap-ridden island. He began to wonder if he had made a mistake coming here; God wouldn't let one person have good luck in the same place every time.
Besides the traps, there were many snakes and poisonous insects in the forest. Although they kept using branches to scare away the snakes and were able Hanran spot and drive away some of them, insects still crawled onto their shoes and trousers.
Su Huilan couldn't help but worry about Qingmu, who was wearing flip-flops. Petru also glanced at him every now and then, silently cursing him as a "monster" in his heart.
They hadn't walked far when they climbed up a hillside the Crow had pointed out.
The Boss Coal perched on a branch of a large tree, warily observing his surroundings.
After Qingmu came up, the Crow flew down and landed on his head, whispering, "There are people in the valley ahead."
What kind of person?
"They look like wild men, four or five of them. They're too far away for me to see clearly. Should we fly over and take a look?"
"Okay, but don't get too close," Qingmu said.
The Crow agreed and flew away.
"We need to find a place with a good view," Petru said, as he nimbly climbed a tree, perched on a branch for a while to observe the surroundings, and then climbed down.
Seeing that his expression wasn't good, Qingmu knew that the scene he had seen was probably not quite the same as he had imagined.
Petru pointed to the left and said, "There's a jutting cliff over there; let's go there."
Led by him, Qingmu and Su Huilan arrived at the cliff he had mentioned. Although the location here was lower than the previous spot, it opened up into a depression with no trees to block the view, offering a wide vista. The jagged rocks on the cliff also provided cover for them.
Looking out from here, you can see the island's rolling mountains, covered with lush trees. Because the cliffs are not at an absolute height, you can't see the sea beyond the island, but the sapphire-like lake in the heart of the island, like a jade plate, is immediately visible.
To reach the lake, they would need to cross two hills, which weren't very high, probably only a little over a hundred meters above sea level. However, given the traps they had just discovered and the presence of savages on the island, getting there quietly and calmly might not be easy.
Qingmu sensed the spiritual energy emanating from the distant lake and the Tushu. This energy was incredibly powerful, yet its fluctuations were remarkably stable. If he hadn't known beforehand about the existence of something like the Tapu, he would have been terrified by such powerful and stable Mental Power on his first visit to the island. In his past understanding, Mental Power was a unique energy fluctuation possessed by consciousness; how could anyone possess Mental Power powerful enough to cover an entire island? If this was a person, they would be nothing short of a god!
He looked at Su Huilan, and Su Huilan was looking at him too. They both saw the same shock and confusion in each other's eyes.
"This is the real Tapu!" Su Huilan said.
Petru gazed into the distance for a moment, then picked up his binoculars, a strange expression on his face. He said in a low voice, "This isn't the place I was last time."
Qingmu said, "Are you sure? Don't forget it was foggy last time you came."
Petru said, "No matter how thick the fog was, I could still tell the terrain from where I had been. And the fog wasn't thick all over the island; I could see the island in the middle of the lake from a mountaintop. Most importantly, this island was bigger than the one I visited last time. I could forget other things, but I wouldn't get the size wrong. If I had come here last time, I wouldn't have been able to get back to the boat so quickly."
Su Huilan asked, "Is that lake the same as the one you saw before?"
Petru said, "The shape is about right, but now I'm a little unsure. Damn, is there really a lake like this on every Ghost Island? Or is it, like you said, a pentagram?"
Qingmu said, "Never mind that for now, let's find out where those people the Boss Coal mentioned are."
They had brought two binoculars, one on Petru and one on Su Huilan. Petru handed his binoculars to Qingmu, then took off his sniper rifle and looked at the scope. "I'll use this."
Qingmu took the binoculars and looked in the direction the Boss Coal had indicated. It was a long, narrow valley, filled with dense trees, and he couldn't see anything.
Petru, with his superior experience, was the first to spot the target.
"One-thirty direction, eight hundred meters away, five targets, wind speed..." He gave a few reminders, then suddenly remembered that he wasn't on a sniping mission, and there wasn't a sniper or spotter next to him, so he changed his words, "Do you see the black smoke in the valley to the right front?"
Qingmu moved his binoculars and noticed a faint black smoke floating above an area. It was so thin that it would be easily missed if you didn't look closely. As expected, a jungle warfare veteran like Petru was still needed.
A bird flashed through the telescope lens, displaying a flight pattern he was very familiar with, characteristic of Boss Coal. He immediately turned the lens, locking onto the Boss Coal's figure, and saw it flap its wings and land on a large tree on the hillside.
The Crow hopped a few times between the branches, stretched its neck, and stared intently at a certain spot.
Qingmu followed its gaze downwards and saw a relatively sparsely wooded depression. The area was dark because the massive mountain blocked the light, so he hadn't noticed it before.
He saw a fire burning on the ground, and four or five people with brownish-yellow skin sitting around it. They wore hats woven from rattan and feathers, grass skirts around their waists, and were bare-chested, revealing their strong muscles.
Su Huilan had clearly spotted them too, and she exclaimed in surprise, "What are they grilling? How could there be such a big animal on the island?"
Her words reminded Qingmu and Petru, who turned their attention to the bonfire among the savages, from which the black smoke was rising.
Something was roasting over the fire; because it was blocked by the savage's body, only large chunks of sizzling, oily flesh could be seen, resembling a white-skinned, hairless prey like a goat. But would there be goats on such an island? Although wild goats are extremely resilient, unless the island's tribe had developed animal husbandry, it was impossible for goats to survive human hunting.
A terrifying thought suddenly flashed through the minds of all three: Could it be... a human?