Chapter 34: The King of the Forest Seven

  He found the footprints of wild boars in the field, a group of about 8 pigs. Judging from the depth of the footprints, the heaviest one did not exceed 150 catties. A male pig under 200 catties would not grow tusks and was not aggressive. Jin Huan decided to use the simplest ambush to hunt down a wild boar. The foraging route of the pigs was fixed, and according to the footprints, he chose a tree beside their必经之路 (necessary path) to set up an ambush.

  Half an hour later, the pigs came over with a grunt, completely unaware of the hunter on top of their heads. 7 pigs, in single file, led by a boar, not very big, followed by a half-grown boar, and in between were sows and piglets. Jin Huan chose the last one as his prey.

  A loud gunshot, the little pig fell to the ground, the sudden change and the huge sound made the pigs panic, a swarm of them rushed forward desperately, and in an instant they were gone.

  Jin Huang pulled the pig back to the creek beside the cave, first went inside to take a look, Lin Ruolan had been awakened by the gunshot and was sitting up, looking out of the cave in surprise. Seeing him appear, she let out a sigh of relief, "Where did you go? I seemed to have heard a gunshot just now."

  "It was me who fired the shot, I just killed a wild boar, and in a little while we'll have roasted meat to eat." He replied with a smile, looking as if he had just said he'd caught a fish.

  By the stream, he disembowelled the wild boar and only chose the better parts of the meat to take away. He used a mountain knife to chop open the leg bones and prepared to stew them in a soup. The pig skin was also kept by him, which made for good rope material. Carefully, he stripped out the tendons, dried them in the sun and twisted them into ropes, keeping them for future use.

  He carried a large pile of wild boar meat back to the cave, took out an army shovel and dug a hole under the tree, filling in all the unused parts to prevent pollution.

  Lin Ruo Lan looked at the large pile of tender wild boar meat on the spread-out pig skin and asked somewhat worriedly: "How can we finish eating so much?"

  "You can't finish eating, take it on the road to eat, when you return to the city, this fresh meat even if you want to eat, you can't eat it." Jin Huan used a steel helmet to stew pork bone soup, then strung wild boar meat on tree branches, took out a handful of leaves from who-knows-where and smeared them on the meat, then put it over the fire to roast, a special aroma immediately wafted up.

  "What kind of leaves are those? They smell so good."

  "Cinnamon leaves have the effect of removing fishy smell." Jin Huan was roasting wild boar meat, the tender and juicy wild boar meat was roasted over the fire, dripping with oil, emitting a fragrant aroma, and the fat sizzled.

  Lin Ruo Lan sat to the side, her eyes not moving, staring at the wild boar meat. Her stomach was growling with hunger, almost drooling. Jin Huan's face had a barely suppressed smile as he tore off a strip of lean meat and dipped it in the salt made that morning, placing it by her mouth. "Try some and see how it compares to the pork you've eaten before."

  Lin Ruo Lan cheered and didn't care about the burn, immediately stuffing it into her mouth. "Hū, ōu—— so hot——hū hū—— delicious!" She mumbled unclearly, her tongue burned but she couldn't bear to let go.

  Suddenly, a faint rustling sound came from the entrance of the cave. Jin Huan immediately grabbed his sniper rifle and looked in the direction of the sound. On the tree, a pair of green eyes were staring intently at them. It was a mountain cat, its body larger than a domestic cat, over half a meter long. It had probably been attracted by the smell of roasted meat.

  Jin Huang knew it wasn't a threat, so he put down his gun and continued to barbecue, ignoring it. It didn't leave either, just curiously staring into the hole, perhaps thinking, "What are these two things? I've never seen them before?"

  Lin Ruo Lan also curiously sized up the wild cat, "Doesn't it bite people?"

  "Wild beasts generally do not actively attack humans, to them we are an unknown species, unless they are very hungry or we take away their prey. Now it just wants something to eat and won't attack proactively." Jin Huan threw a piece of meat far out into the empty space outside the cave.

  The mountain cat slowly and cautiously approached the piece of meat, its nose stretched out to sniff it, but without hastily devouring it.

  Lin Ruo-lan occasionally turned her head to look at it, after a long time, probably feeling that there was no danger, she picked up the piece of meat and quickly climbed up a tree to eat.

  Jin Huan handed over a piece of roasted meat: "Eat, don't always stare at it. Animals are like us, they assess the risk of fighting, the less we provoke it, the less likely it is to attack us."

  The mountain cat started eating the meat and made a satisfied humming sound in its mouth. Jin Huan threw another piece of raw meat at it. The mountain cat picked up the meat, let out a "meow" and agilely climbed up the tree, disappearing from sight.

  "How did it run away?" Lin Ruolan felt a little lost. After eating a thinner piece of meat, she felt very full, and when Jin Huan handed her more meat, she stroked her belly and shook her head. "I'm so full, I've never tried eating so much meat in one meal."

  "Mountain cats are all like this, naturally suspicious, and run away after eating their fill." Jin Huan reached out to wipe the oil stain from her lips, "The soup can be drunk now."

  Sipping the delicious pork bone soup, Lin Ruolan savored it with relish: "So fragrant, even if I had to trade heaven for more lotus root stew, I wouldn't go."

  Jin Huang burst out laughing: "Little glutton, go back and cook it for you to eat."

  The rain was getting smaller and smaller, Jin Huan began to pack up his backpack, burying the unnecessary heavy equipment, leaving only light equipment, weapons and ammunition, and food. "We need to prepare to head in the direction of the highway, from here it will take about an hour to encounter a small river, after crossing the river we can see the highway, I don't know if the rain has caused the river water to rise."

  "What if the water rises? Do I have to swim across?" Lin Ruolan was a bit worried, she had only taken a few swimming lessons in school and was basically a duck that couldn't swim.

  "That's called fording." Jin Huan stretched out his hand and flicked her nose, "Without special circumstances, generally don't ford. The troops have a saying: 'Deceive the mountain but not the water, deceive the water and become a water ghost!' Meaning: if you can't climb the mountain once, you can climb it again; if you can't swim across the water, it's hard to have another chance. If the water rises too high, we'll take a detour." As he spoke, he extinguished the fire and erased their tracks.

  The night sky carried the sound of gusts, sometimes mixed with the roars and screams of wild beasts, which was the sound of predators hunting. The mountain road after the rain became even more slippery, Jin Huan cut off a thick branch and handed it to Lin Ruolan to assist her in walking, put on night vision goggles, firmly grasping her hand, they advanced into the pitch-black forest.

  ……

  She tightly grasped the outstretched hands of Jin Huang, and with a light leap, Lin Ruolan jumped over a drainage ditch that was more than half a meter wide and deep, and finally stood at the side of the relatively flat highway.

  It's now 4 am, Lin Ruolan looked around and saw that the dark highway had no streetlights, nor pedestrians or vehicles. Fortunately, the road was much easier to walk on than before.

  Jin Huang distinguished the direction and pointed to the right, "Go this way."

  The mountain road had many turns, and Lin Ruolan followed him for less than a kilometer before turning two sharp bends. Jin Huan stopped with a wave of his hand at the intersection leading to a private farm, where an olive green military jeep appeared in sight. Three sentries stood guard at the temporary checkpoint on the road, while a lieutenant lazily sat in the car dozing off.

  Jin Huan pulled Lin Ruolan to hide behind a large grove of trees on the bend, observing carefully for a while and confirming that there were only four people on the other side. He said in a low voice, "I don't know what this checkpoint is checking for, you crouch behind the tree and don't get discovered." He took off his backpack and stood behind the tree, putting the sniper rifle on the backpack as well, and pulled out a combat knife to grip in his hand: "I'll go around from the mountain slope and take care of them."

  Lin Ruo Lan grasped his hand: "Or else let's go around from the mountain, there are four of them after all."

  Jin Huangyi sneered, "What's there to be afraid of for the likes of you winebags and rice sacks? Wait here!" He swiftly darted across the drainage ditch and returned to the slope, disappearing into the wildly overgrown shrubs in no time.

  When he was still five meters away from the sentry, Jin Huan switched his combat knife to his left hand and hid it behind his back. He suddenly jumped over the drainage ditch and appeared in front of the sentry.

  "What are you doing?" The three sentries raised their guns and shouted loudly in the local dialect, seeing that Jin Huan was not carrying any weapons, they rushed towards him with big strides.

  Jin Huangkong's right hand shot out like lightning, grasping the rifle barrel in the sentry's hand, lifting it up and pulling it into his arms. The soldier stumbled and spun around, pulled into Jin's embrace, facing his own comrades. Before he could even struggle, he was tightly locked in an iron arm around his neck.

  The other two sentries were stunned by this series of lightning-fast movements, and Jin Huan's left wrist flipped over, the blade of the combat knife hidden behind his back flashed, pointing straight at the captured sentry's eye socket. In a low voice in the local dialect, he ordered: "Put down your gun, I don't want to kill anyone! I just want to ask a few questions."

  Two sentries exchanged a glance, and the one on the left suddenly flashed a sly look in his eyes. His hand swiftly moved to the trigger, but before he could fire, Jin Huan's left hand shot up, and with a "whooshing" sound, a combat knife was lodged squarely in the sentry's forehead. The other sentry watched in horror as his companion silently died before him, then dropped his gun and raised his hands to cover his head.

  Jin Huan nodded in satisfaction, glanced at the jeep, and saw that the officer was sleeping soundly, completely unaware of what had happened. He raised his hand and slapped the soldier's neck with a loud crack, knocking him out cold. In an instant, he flashed over to the soldier who had already dropped his gun, reached out with his right hand, and pinched the soldier's throat, asking in a low voice, "Tell me, when was this checkpoint set up? What are you inspecting?" As he spoke, he applied slight pressure to the soldier's Adam's apple with his thumb.

  The sentry immediately turned pale and cooperated in a low voice: "It was set up early yesterday morning, our superiors ordered us to pay attention to a pair of men and women who are fleeing, they have weapons and are very dangerous, as soon as we find them, we will shoot them dead."

  "What kind of couple are they? What do they look like?"

  "I don't know what they look like, but the order from above is to shoot on sight anyone who comes down from this mountain with a weapon. All the roads leading down the mountain have been blocked." The sentry said while constantly sizing up Jin Hao, his face getting paler by the minute. Could it be that the person the higher-ups are trying so hard to capture is actually this devil right in front of him?

  The sentry's panicked words were like a thunderclap in Jin Huang's mind, "What have this man and woman done? Why does your superior want to kill them?"

  "I heard... I heard they... they killed M country special forces, killed a lot of them... it's none of my business... don't kill me... I have a wife and kids at home..." A pungent smell of urine rushed into Jin Huan's nostrils, the sentry's pants were wet with a large patch, his whole body went soft and collapsed into a heap of mud, he raised his face covered in snot and tears and begged: "I'm just a soldier, don't kill me, please!"