The Monkey Troop, Mo Yuemei

The Avatar saw that the rock was hurtling toward Mo Yuemei in the group. Quick-eyed and quick-handed, he immediately pulled her aside, saving her from the attack.

When the white-haired monkey king saw that the rock had missed, he angrily beat a branch with the short wooden stick in his hand, issuing an order for the troop to attack as well.

The other monkeys held all sorts of

things and hurled them at the group: ping-pong-ball-sized rocks, nuts, sticks, branches, and all manner of other things.

The Avatar spoke to them urgently. "Turn your backs to them and run for the mountaintop."

After dodging several rocks, Wang An nocked an arrow on his compound bow, took aim, and fired.

A large monkey beside the white-haired monkey king was struck in the body. With a wail, the monkey fell from the tree.

Seeing this, the monkey king roared and screeched in fury, urging the troop to keep attacking. But before long, they had thrown everything they could.

Seeing the exploration team retreating toward the mountaintop, the monkey king finally couldn't sit still and jumped down from the tree to pick up rocks. The other monkeys followed his example, climbing down to pick up rocks and throw them at the team. But as the distance between them grew, even the occasional rock that hit had little force behind it.

The Avatar, who was covering everyone's retreat, saw that they actually dared to come down from the trees and attack them. He sneered.

He nocked another arrow, this time shooting at the monkey king. When the monkey king saw the hairless monkey shoot at him, he was startled and hurriedly pulled a monkey guard beside him in front of himself to block the arrow.

But after the guard monkey was hit, he drew more breaths than he let out.

Only then did the enraged monkey king come back to his senses. Seeing the state of the monkey that had been shot, he grew fearful and afraid. He immediately leaped onto a nearby branch and headed higher into the woods.

When the other monkeys saw their king flee, they tried to retreat too, but they were nowhere near as fast as he was. They could only climb the trees first and use the places where the branches touched to leap away.

In that short time, the four archery coaches came to their senses. They took out their compound bows, nocked arrows, and fired. Four arrows flew into the troop, but the monkeys were moving quickly, so only one was hit by Chen Zhenhua and fell. After wailing for a while, he fell silent.

Chen Yanshan and Liu Tingquan saw the coaches running toward the captain, so they too picked up rocks from the ground and ran over.

Seeing everyone fighting back against the monkeys, they immediately felt somewhat ashamed and tried to stammer something out to the Avatar.

The Avatar could tell what they were thinking from the way they looked. He said to them sternly, "You two are still reserve members. You only need to handle support work; for everything else, keeping yourselves alive comes first. You did nothing wrong. If you can't protect yourselves, don't join the fight. Otherwise, I'll have to divide my attention to protect you."

The Avatar did his best to train the two of them, explaining that they should do the work suited to their positions and concern themselves with things they shouldn't have to worry about.

As for the other four coaches, they had done fairly well too. Yuemei in particular had reacted the fastest and shown great courage, leading everyone in the counterattack. It was a fairly good start.

However, she usually used a recurve bow in training and competition, so her accuracy wasn't as good as that of a veteran coach like Chen Zhenhua, who had taught for more than ten years.

After reassuring the two of them,

the Avatar led everyone in cleaning up the battlefield, starting by recovering the arrows they had shot.

They had shot three monkeys dead this time: two monkey guards and a smaller one.

Several coaches excitedly asked Liu Tingquan to photograph them with the monkeys they had shot, but a memento of their operation this time.

In fact, the authorities had now relaxed restrictions on some animals on the protected list, such as wild boars.

Especially when it came to exploration teams entering the mountains, the authorities wouldn't inquire about the deaths of a few monkeys like these even if they knew.

What they mainly stressed was that people shouldn't kill creatures in protected areas on a large scale, as it could disrupt the ecological balance and cause certain unforeseen consequences.

After burying the monkey corpses on the spot, everyone returned to the mountaintop to cook and rest. They had frightened the monkey king this time, so he probably wouldn't attack again anytime soon.

The Avatar put down his luggage, got his weapons in order, and told everyone, "I'm going to see where this monkey troop's den is."

He then headed off in the direction the monkeys had fled.

Mo Yuemei, who was sitting nearby resting, saw the Avatar and thought he was going to get revenge. She immediately picked up her compound bow and followed him.

Hu Jun was just about to call Mo Yuemei back when Chen Zhenhua stopped him. Knowing the captain's strength, he wasn't worried in the slightest that they would encounter danger.

He said to Hu Jun, "You saw how the captain reacted when he encountered the monkeys earlier. If those monkeys come, he'll take them down one arrow at a time. They won't even have time to run. There won't be any danger."

Chen Zhenhua watched Mo Yuemei's departing figure and thought back to how the girl had kept calling and pestering them when she learned that several of them were going hunting in the mountains, asking whether they could let her join.

Only after she had pestered Chen Zhenhua to no end did he tell her that he could take him along only if his parents agreed, and that she had to obey the exploration team's coaches and not run around.

He hadn't expected her to actually persuade her parents to let him come to a place like this without worrying.

Hu Jun had of course also seen how the Avatar had acted.

To be honest, even if Hu Jun trained for another five or six years, he still wouldn't reach the captain's level. He didn't know what the captain's background was, either.

Li Guohua watched them thoughtfully.

The Avatar noticed that Mo Yuemei had followed him and knew that her excitement from the hunt just now hadn't worn off. He said to her, "I'm going to investigate the monkeys' den. If you want to follow, you'll have to follow the instructions you hear."

Mo Yuemei nodded earnestly. As long as she was allowed to follow, there would always be a chance to hunt.

Then Mo Yuemei asked, "Captain, how did you train? That distance earlier must have been at least forty or fifty meters, right? You hit it with one arrow."

The Avatar didn't answer Mo Yuemei.

Instead, he asked, "What made you want to join this exploration trip? Would your parents agree to let you take part in something like this?"

Mo Yuemei was silent for a while before saying, "Captain, people like you must have gone through a lot and faced a lot of danger to become so good at archery and survival, right?"

She continued, "Ever since I was a teenager, my family has arranged for me to take part in all kinds of sports."

"My parents were both top athletes, though they've retired. But they wanted to raise me to be an athlete, and after they discovered I had a talent for archery, they kept sending me to all kinds of training and competitions."

"Every day was training, competition, training, competition. I didn't have any time of my own or the life I wanted."

"So I wanted to experience what archery is really like-not at a training ground, not at a competition venue, but in the real wilderness, in the forest."