Bizarre Animal Behavior

  He fell asleep with a frown, probably not sleeping very comfortably. I thought for a moment, took off my jacket and crumpled it into a ball, gently lifting his head to support it underneath. After doing all this, I was stunned - why did I do that? Whether he slept comfortably or not had nothing to do with me.

  Staring blankly at the clothes that had been stuffed under his head, he finally stiffened and turned his head, not taking them back. Thinking to himself that he might have just short-circuited or been influenced by someone's low IQ, it must be so. As I muttered to myself, I finally fell into a daze, but felt like I had only dozed off for a moment before suddenly waking up with a start.

  I opened my eyes to find it pitch black, but I distinctly remembered that the flashlight was still on when I fell asleep. After a moment of silence, I realized that it wasn't just my imagination playing tricks on me, and there really were rustling sounds coming from beside my ear. Just as I was about to sit up and take a look, a dark shadow suddenly pounced at me from the darkness, covering my mouth and nose again. As soon as I struggled, the voice by my ear said, "Don't make a sound, that thing is outside." My nerves tensed up, and judging from his tone, it seemed like he had woken up early and discovered that strange noise too. What could be outside?

  The rustling sound continued for a while, then stopped. I immediately wanted to move, being half-pressed under him was very uncomfortable. But he suddenly leaned in close and whispered: "Don't move, it might still be outside." As soon as the words fell, the rustling sound came again. This lasted for about ten minutes before gradually stopping. This time, neither of us made any more noise, waiting silently for several minutes before hearing a considerable commotion slowly fading away.

  At this time, he let out a long sigh and sat up, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Xiao Jiu, you're really something. You didn't wake up early or late, but just when it was about to end. It almost got our tree bark worn through."

  I also sat up from the ground, frowning and asking: "What was that?"

  "If it's...," he paused intentionally, "a ghost......do you believe it?"

  "Can you speak seriously?" I asked irritably. A muffled laugh came, and in the darkness, he said: "I was just joking with you, you were too tense earlier, relax a bit. You can really sleep, it's already the third batch that has arrived, each time making quite a noise, yet you can still sleep so soundly. However, it's also strange, it seems like any animal passing by will stop outside our tree stump for a moment before leaving. Is it possible that all living creatures in this forest are naturally keen and can smell human scent through the bark?"

  I was startled by the message in Luyu's words, saying that several batches of unknown creatures had passed by, and I had slept for a long time, thinking that I had just dozed off. "What kind of animal just left?"

  "Can't you hear? It's a snake, quite a big one, it's rubbing its teeth on the bark of this tree trunk. After sharpening its teeth, it slithers away with its body. If I hadn't reacted quickly just now and it had heard our voices inside, I'm afraid we wouldn't be sitting here chatting so casually at this moment. In the middle of the night, I don't want to fight a snake."

  Just now, I was lying next to the tree layer, that is to say, only a layer of bark away from the snake, just a few centimeters apart. Judging from the considerable commotion it made when it finally left, this might have been a giant python. It really was a matter of life and death in an instant. Thinking about this, cold sweat broke out on my forehead, but I could still chat and laugh with him, which actually surprised me. But then I remembered his wiping sweat action earlier and suddenly realized that he was actually using conversation to cover up the fear in his heart.

  He woke up earlier than me, and after hearing the sounds of animals passing by and stopping outside the tree layer, his mood was probably like a roller coaster. So when I suddenly woke up and almost made a sound, he rushed over.