Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 159 Difficulties abound
After locking the direction, the two of them quickly headed over there.

Wang Haofeng said as he ran, "Didn't someone say they saw them going up the mountain? Can't we just ask where we saw them?"

Yu Qiutang shook his head. "What we hear is definitely not as real as what we see. Now we need to find the child, so we need the exact track. Look at Heizi, he is sniffing all the way forward, which means our route is correct."

"That's it."

“Well, when they came out, their minds were in a mess, and they must have wanted to find a deserted place to hide as soon as possible.

Comparing the surrounding areas, this is the only road I can take, and I am 70% to 80% sure of success.

At this time, time is tight and we cannot be 100% sure, so we can only rely on experience."

"You are so smart. How come I can't think of so many things? Look at my brain."

Wang Haofeng said with a smile.

Full of admiration and worship.

Yu Qiutang ignored the flattery and quickly went into the woods with Wang Haofeng.

This is a poplar forest.

It is early winter now, and the leaves of the poplar trees have basically fallen, with only a few hanging on the trees. The branches of the poplar trees are smooth and hang very high.

The two stood in the woods and could see far away at a glance.

After entering, the two walked for a distance, and Yu Qiutang stood still again and began to observe the situation from front to back.

"What's the matter?"

Yu Qiutang pointed to the left, "This is the west, right?"

"Yeah, you just came in and you're lost?" Wang Haofeng joked.

"Just to confirm," Yu Qiutang nodded solemnly, "Let's go this way."

Wang Haofeng followed closely behind.

After walking a few dozen meters, Wang Haofeng finally couldn't help but said, "Tangtang, why are you going this way? Isn't this a little further away from the mountain?"

“Because this is the east side.”

"What happened to the east?"

"I heard from Principal Zhang that they ran away in the afternoon, which was around 2 or 3 o'clock, when the sun should have gone to the west.

If they run towards the west, they will face the sun, which will be very uncomfortable for their eyes. In addition, they have just done something wrong, so they will subconsciously not want to see bright weather and will consciously run towards the darker side. "

Yu Qiutang stated his basis.

He added, "Of course, this is just my guess, I can't guarantee it 100%."

He could make this analysis because he was once a child too.

He was still a child who was often punished by his father.

When he walks on the road, he will subconsciously look for corners to walk in instead of walking in bright places with plenty of sunshine.

When the pressure was too great, he felt that the brightness of the sunlight was a stab to him.

He thought that the three frightened children probably had the same idea as him and did not have the courage to run facing the sun.

Wang Haofeng didn't figure this out.

He had no parents since childhood and had to eat at many people's homes. Even if he made mistakes, no one blamed him.

The only thing I fear is sleeping alone in a dark room at night.

So he is afraid of ghosts, but not people.

But even if he didn't understand, he didn't doubt Yu Qiutang. He just said "Oh" and followed closely behind him.

The two are very fast.

In less than half an hour, we walked through the woods and arrived at the foot of the mountain.

This side is naturally also within the scope of Houtouling.

However, the official entrance to Houtouling is the one in Wangjiazhuang, which is where Yu Qiutang and his friends often go.

There are also several small mountain trails, which can be climbed, but the climbing is very difficult.

It's possible with empty hands, but it's difficult to carry weights.

Moreover, these roads are not often walked by people, and the surrounding environment is also very bad, so they are relatively more dangerous.

Only those who are very familiar with the terrain will walk this way.

When he reached the foot of the mountain, Yu Qiutang didn't think much and continued walking eastward.

The cliff here is seven or eight meters high. Without tools and climbing skills, the children definitely cannot climb up.

Then they could only move forward and look for a place to go up the mountain.

really.

As they walked, Heizi suddenly became excited.

I lowered my head and sniffed around nearby, and finally found a fruit candy wrapper on a thorn bush. When I picked it up, it was still wet, probably because it had been licked by saliva. The thorn bush blocked the sun, and the temperature was low, so it didn't dry out.

"Look!"

Yu Qiutang handed the candy wrapper to Wang Haofeng.

"It's true, it's amazing!"

Wang Haofeng was tired of hearing such words of admiration.

But every time he couldn't help but say it out loud, and every time when he thought he had grasped the upper limit of Yu Qiutang's ability, Yu Qiutang would give him a new blow.

He had to admit that he was much stronger than himself.

Qualified to be his master.

After walking for a few dozen meters, the first fork in the road appeared in front of them. Heizi jumped up at once, and the two followed closely behind him.

"It should be here, right?"

"should be."

Yu Qiutang saw that his judgment was consistent with the direction that Heizi was heading, and his confidence increased a lot.

Moreover, when we walked into the mountains, the sunspots were obviously more active.

This means that the aura left by the three children is getting closer and clearer.

As long as the general direction is judged correctly, we can definitely find them with the help of Heizi.

The two of them went up the path and found that it was just a small slope and not a normal road at all.

Many small trees on both sides were broken by humans, probably because people slipped while climbing and subconsciously pulled at them.

Yu Qiutang told Wang Haofeng to walk slowly and hold on to the ground firmly with every step.

So the walking speed of the two people dropped significantly.

In order to save power from the flashlight, Wang Haofeng did not turn it on and only used the light from Yu Qiutang's flashlight who was walking in front of him.

The light from the flashlight was very narrow and the illuminated area was very small. The alternation of light and dark made the night on both sides seem even darker.

From time to time, when there is wind or a small animal passing by, there will be a rustling or crackling sound around, making it quite eerie.

Yu Qiutang was not afraid of this environment at all.

He is basically the opposite of Wang Haofeng. He is worried about people because he knows that ghosts will not hurt people, but people can.

Before I knew it, I had climbed quite a distance.

Wang Haofeng was a little out of breath, and Yu Qiutang also felt tired. At this time, the two came to a flat hilly area.

The hills were covered with wild alfalfa, which was already full of fruits and rustled in the mountain breeze.

"What to do now?"

Wang Haofeng half-squatted and breathed heavily.

His endurance is much better now than before, but it is still far behind Yu Qiutang.

It is not easy to persist until here.

"Resit here for a while, don't move, and turn on the flashlight."

Yu Qiutang gave the order without further ado and walked directly into the alfalfa field and headed towards the end of the field.

"Don't run far."

"it is good."

Yu Qiutang responded and soon finished running through the alfalfa field of more than 100 meters. He found the hills at the end. They looked nothing special from a distance, but were very high when he got closer.

Moreover, the hills here have almost no slope and are more flat as if they were cut by a knife.

If you want to continue climbing up from here, it is impossible for ordinary people to do it without professional equipment and professionals.

To be on the safe side, he walked nearly a kilometer forward and backward.

Still no sign of being able to climb.

I had no choice but to return to Wang Haofeng's position.

"Where have you been? It's been so long, almost half an hour!" Wang Haofeng handed him a bun.

The hot buns I took before leaving were still warm at this time. I guess they were placed close to my body.

Yu Qiutang didn't hesitate to take it and took a big bite.

"I looked around and the mountain ahead was too high for the children to climb up. I guess it will still be this high.

There is no road if we walk further to the east, so we can only go to the west.

Rest for a few minutes, then we'll set off." A few minutes later, the two set off again.

Heizi was also a little confused and was running around in the alfalfa. Wang Haofeng couldn't figure out why, but Yu Qiutang understood that it was because the children, like the dog, had been running around in this place for a long time.

The result was that their scent was everywhere, which confused the dog.

Since the dog is of no use, he has to do it himself.

Fortunately, the direction is determined.

Yu Qiutang walked, observed and thought.

Judging from the children’s climbing speed, they definitely wouldn’t be as fast as them. By the time they reached this point, it should be almost dark.

So what will they do?
It is obviously impossible to continue going up the mountain because I don't have the ability to do so.

There is a cliff on the east side and we can't go down.

It would be too embarrassing for them to go back the way they came.

Then we can only continue to move west.

But as they walked, it got dark. After all, he was only a fifth grader and must have been scared.

I guess they were walking and if a gust of wind blew, they would be so scared that they would shiver.

I always feel like there are people in front and behind me.

So what will they do?

The most likely thing is to find a place to hide.

But this mountain path is not a normal path, and no one lives in the mountains. It would be difficult to find a cave or something.

There is no cave, so we can only settle for the next best thing.

Yes, I should find a big tree.

Yu Qiutang could only guess this.

If you can find a tree with a large canopy and a thick trunk, it will be a bit like a house, and children may curl up underneath it and feel a little safe.

If this speculation is correct...

He looked around and realized there were no trees in the nearby alfalfa fields, so he could only look at the dark forest ahead.

"Go faster."

"Good."

The two men and the dog ran quickly along the edge of the alfalfa field. After more than ten minutes, they finally saw the type of tree clearly.

It turned out to be a locust forest.

In this season, the leaves and locust flowers have fallen, and the trees are densely hung with tree pods, like small beans.

Yu Qiutang squatted down, let Heizi smell a few more pieces of clothes, and patted its head gently.

"Go, it's up to you!"

"Wang!"

Heizi rushed out immediately.

The area of ​​this locust tree forest is unknown, and its end cannot be seen even in the dark.

There are many small bushes under the trees, which look almost like humans from a distance.

If we rely on humans to identify it, it will probably take a while to find it.

However, dogs are dogs, and the two of them were not idle either, and continued searching carefully.

"You doubt they are here?"

Yu Qiutang nodded, "It's just a suspicion. Judging from the dog's movements, the general location should be correct, but the specific position still needs to be carefully studied.

I have never been to this place before, and I am not familiar with it, so I am not much better than you."

"Okay, as long as we can determine it roughly, we can find it." Wang Haofeng was full of interest.

Probably another half an hour.

It was already past two in the morning and they were all a little tired.

Although Wang Haofeng was still holding on, he had already started yawning and was trying hard to open his eyes wide, like bells.

Yu Qiutang also felt vaguely tired.

There were a few moments when he even suspected that he had made a wrong judgment. In fact, the children were not here at all, but had found ways to climb up the opposite mountain and slip away.

"Wang!"

"Wang!"

Just then, the sound of a dog barking was heard in the darkness.

It was joy, not terror.

"go!"

The two of them hurriedly followed the sound.

Heizi was barking non-stop in front of a thick elm tree.

It is normal to have elm trees in locust trees.

It’s just that the elm trees grow very slowly on flat ground, so they are not very thick, but it’s unexpected that you can see two of them together here.

If this were discovered by forestry experts, they would definitely study it as a treasure.

Heizi was barking at the elm tree.

But when they went over, they didn't see the children, but found some bloodstains under the elm tree.

"This……"

Wang Haofeng was stunned.

"Could it be..."

"will not!"

Yu Qiutang interrupted immediately. He squatted down and carefully examined the bloodstains. "It should be something scratched by the thorns of the acacia tree."

The locust tree is like a prickly ash tree or a rose, with branches covered with sharp thorns. The older the tree is, the longer the thorns will be, and the largest thorns can be two or three centimeters long.

This thorn is a modified structure of the tree stem.

The leaves of the acacia tree smell very fragrant and many livestock or animals like to eat them.

Without the protection of thorns, the leaves would soon be licked clean off.

"It must be because it was too dark and a child got scratched, so he took shelter here for a while."

Yu Qiutang continued to move forward with the flashlight, and indeed saw some sporadic drops of blood dripping slowly from the distance.

The closer you get to the tree, the denser the trees become.

However, understanding the situation did not make Wang Haofeng feel relieved, but made him even more worried.

"That's terrible. It's winter, and he's bleeding so much. What should we do? Something serious might happen."

Yu Qiutang nodded.

Indeed.

Bleeding in the wild in winter is a fatal blow.

It can easily lead to hypothermia.

It looked like there was already a lot of blood just under the tree, and we didn't know how much more had flowed on the road.

"There is no time to waste. We must find the child quickly."

Yu Qiutang said in a deep voice.

Of course he didn't delay, but he just felt it was still not fast enough.

Now he has to race against time. The earlier he finds the child, the lower the probability of something happening.

The naughty kids at that time were also naughty, but they were different from those in later generations.

Many naughty kids in later generations are simply bad.

In this era, many children are really forced into a corner by their parents and teachers.

Children have no human rights at all, whether at home or at school.

It doesn't matter whether you scold or not.

If things go wrong, he might just get beaten up.

Or just don’t give them food.

You may say that parents don’t feel sorry for their children. That’s not the case. They would rather go without food and drink themselves than give good things to their children.

But we can't treat children as independent people.

Yu Qiutang stood up and looked around with a flashlight. There were trees everywhere, which was really frustrating.

calm down!
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to think about how the children would react to this situation.

They were hungry, sleepy, cold, and one of their friends was injured. For them, who were only eleven or twelve years old, it was a hellish problem.

Since they were not under the tree, but could only see the blood dripping from the way they came, it could only prove that the way they left was in the same direction as when they came.

The blood should be fused together.

(End of this chapter)