Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

It was cold.

This person is completely out of breath.

Yu Qiutang put his hand into his arms again and found that his clothes were also cold.

It looked like he had been dead for at least an hour.

It was not the first time that Yu Qiutang encountered people frozen to death in the mountains. He had encountered it several times in his previous life. At first, it was hunters, and later it was inexperienced hikers who came in and couldn’t get out. They didn’t take protective preparations, suffered from severe hypothermia, and froze to death in the mountains.

But this is the first time I’ve seen it since my rebirth.

Moreover, he had met this person once before.

No, it should be twice.

It was him who he saw last time at Huzi’s residence, and later he ran to Huzi’s entrance to wait for the thin man.

But now he must have been stabbed in the back, and blood was flowing from behind to the ground, staining the nearby snow red.

Yu Qiutang turned around and saw many bloody holes on his back. After a rough count, there were at least twenty or thirty of them.

From the varying degrees of severity of these wounds, it can be seen that the person who stabbed him was not a professional and his hands were shaking so much that he could not control his strength. Some of the wounds were very heavy, while others went in directly at an angle and did not produce much force.

But he still couldn't hold on and was stabbed to death.

Yu Qiutang immediately thought of the fat man just now.

The man's hands were covered in blood. I wonder if it has anything to do with the thin guy's death.

The two used to be partners. It is not impossible that they would draw swords against each other if they disagreed because of uneven distribution of spoils or other conflicts of interest.

The only thing that doesn't make sense is, if the fat man killed the thin man, then why did the thin man appear here, and why did the fat man leave no drops of blood on the snow when he went out?
Also, when you saw the fat man, blood was still dripping from his hand, while the blood near the thin man had been coagulated for a long time and was even a little black.

If he was the one who committed the crime, the timeline wouldn't match.

If that’s the case, could it be that some other force has entered here, and the fat guy and the thin guy are both victims?
The thin man was killed, and the fat man escaped at all costs.

This is possible.

Otherwise, why would he keep looking back while running?

Yu Qiutang went back to the thin man, squatted on the ground and looked at his blue eyes and eyebrows, not knowing how to deal with this person.

Right now is a time of very strict control. Even if this kind of thing is reported, it may not be investigated thoroughly. Moreover, he himself is implicated, so it is difficult for him to explain the whole thing.

Besides, if he is the one who reported the case, there will be a lot of trouble later.

He would not do such a stupid thing as to expose himself to unknown risks and possibly implicate his family before he figured out the relationship behind it.

After all, he had no relationship with this person, and the other person had even brought him danger before.

She is not so saintly as to repay evil with kindness.

He makes a living in the mountains, so he should go back to the mountains. Since this is his destiny, no one can help him.

Yu Qiutang thought about it and prepared to get up and leave.

But just as he stood up, he suddenly saw a faint red hidden in the snow in front of the thin man.

He squatted down again.

Using a branch to slowly scrape away the snow, a silver dollar appeared before my eyes, with two lines of words written in blood underneath the silver dollar.

[No matter who you are, if you see this, please take the silver dollar to see my master and tell him that Li Kun harmed me. I will reward him handsomely.]

The first few words were written quite neatly, but they became increasingly blurred towards the end, probably because of shaking hands.

The words "Li Kun has harmed me, and I will reward him handsomely" were distorted beyond recognition, and if you don't read carefully, you can't make them out at all.

Yu Qiutang took out his handkerchief and picked up the silver dollar.

His eyes suddenly lit up.

This silver dollar is very similar to the one Lao Qin showed him, which is said to be a set of seven, each worth one or two thousand yuan.

If nothing unexpected happens, it should be one of the six silver dollars that Lao Qin did not find.

If you bring the silver dollars directly to Lao Qin, you can earn one or two thousand.

This is much more than going into the mountains to hunt.

But Yu Qiutang only thought of this for a moment, and immediately thought of the sad message left by the thin man before his death.

Logically speaking, he didn't dare leave a message before the person who killed him left, as that would definitely be seen by others.

So I could only wait until the bad guy left before leaving these words.

He didn't know how he managed to keep this precious silver dollar from being looted, and how much he expected to place his last hope on this silver dollar.

You know, it's not easy to meet someone in this mountain, and most of the people who come in are here for profit, and it's even harder to find someone who is really willing to help him.

Yu Qiutang squatted down for the third time, stared at the thin man's face for a long while, and smiled helplessly, "Okay, who told me to be soft-hearted? I took your money and helped you do something, so we won't lose money."

After saying that, he used a knife to scratch out the bloody words on the ground.

He took one last look at the man, then turned and strode away.

If it was a warm day, he could help dig a hole and bury the poor man.

But now it is freezing cold, and the ground in the forest is full of tangled and complex tree roots, making it difficult to dig a hole in a short time.

Besides, even if he was dug out and buried, it would be useless. He was covered in blood and would eventually be found and dug out by these wild beasts with a keen sense of smell.

Right.

If you think about it this way, there should be no problem.

It's not that he doesn't want to, it's that he can't do it.

Just like that, Yu Qiutang quickly walked a few dozen meters, but the thin man's pale and bluish face was still lingering in his mind.

He couldn't reconcile himself with the thought that his body might be eaten by yellow-throated martens, other rodents, or scavenger birds.

Ugh.

He had no choice but to return.

It's really heartbreaking.

If he were a wild beast, he would definitely not care about the corpses of his own kind, and might even eat the corpses to restore his own physical strength.

But he is a human being.

People have conscience and compassion, they can't get over this.

Returning again, he struggled to put the man into the sack he brought with him, tied the sack, and carried the man on his back towards Hu Zi's residence.

The thin man didn't say where the master was, but Yu Qiutang decided to go over there to take a look.

Even if we can't find the thin guy's master, we can bury this guy in there.

The ground there shouldn't be frozen solid.

It is unacceptable to take someone's silver dollars and not help to settle the body.

The thin man was not very heavy, but because the body had no support point, it was difficult to carry. It was only because Yu Qiutang was very strong that it had no effect. Most people probably couldn't do anything to him.

Dahei kept barking at the sack in disgust, probably because he couldn't stand the bloody smell.

Yu Qiutang gestured to it to be quiet, but it refused to do so.

Then, Dahei's cries continued to echo in the empty birch forest.

Those yellow-throated martens that had originally fled did not actually go far and were still observing them.

Seeing the two people leave, his food was also taken away. He ran back to his original place helplessly and gnawed on the frozen snow stained with blood on the ground.

You'd better leave quickly, otherwise when I finish my work and come out, you won't be able to leave.

Yu Qiutang gave the two yellow-throated martens a warning look.

He took Dahei, who was still unwilling to give up, and followed the memory of the front to the main road, and soon saw footprints and bloodstains in the snow. However, the bloodstains here were more obvious.

Since this blood does not belong to the thin man, and the fat man does not seem to be injured, it must have come from a third person.

It is very likely that he is their master.

The old man who can use flying knives.

He kept thinking in his mind, wondering what had happened over there that led to such a tragic situation.

But one thing is certain, there must have been a conflict between the three masters and apprentices.

Otherwise, the thin man’s body wouldn’t have been there unattended.

It can also be confirmed that the injuries to thin people come from the back.

Now that the fat man can leave safely, the old man is probably in great danger.

After walking for half an hour, he saw from afar the place where he had come last time, the residence left by the bearded man.

But the last time I came here, I could still see vines and weeds on many roofs, and the surrounding area was also overgrown with weeds. The yard looked like an ancient wilderness village in a horror movie.

This time, the whole village was buried under the white snow, and only a few broken stone walls could be vaguely seen. At first glance, it looked quite nice, a bit like a winter igloo in a Nordic fairy tale world.

But the situation was exactly the same as last time, it was still very quiet here.

There is no sound.

Last time he was attacked because he was not paying attention, but this time his attackers were either dead or ran away, and all that was left for him were probably just a few rows of empty rooms.

"Wang Wang!"

"Wang!"

Dahei, who had been walking quietly with him, suddenly stopped, bared his teeth, and shouted at the house several dozen meters away.

"Ok?"

Yu Qiutang also stopped and asked, "Is there anything?"

"Wang!"

Dahei looked very nervous and a little anxious. Yu Qiutang stopped talking and quickly followed him forward.

When he arrived outside the courtyard wall, he immediately understood why Dahei reacted so violently.

This yard is a mess.

There were footprints everywhere on the ground, as if many people had run across the yard, but upon closer inspection, one could see that they actually belonged to only two or three people.

Along with the footprints, there were bloodstains all over the ground. The black water mixed with the footprints clearly recorded that a fight had taken place here not long ago.

And at the end, there was clearly a dragging mark, extending directly to the small stone house on the side.

Yu Qiutang looked at the sky. Unlike the early morning when the snow stopped at the foot of the mountain, the climate in the mountains often had a lag.

The snow here should stop around dawn.

Looking at the footprints in the yard, they were covered with a thin layer of snow, which meant that these things happened near dawn, not much later than now.

This also corresponds to the time when the fat man left.

He was curious about the thin guy and why he was there.

Not in this yard.

But there was no point in thinking about this right now. He leaned over the wall and shouted inside, "Is anyone there?"

There was nothing inside except the sound of the wind.

He asked twice more, and Dahei called out several times intermittently, but there was still no movement inside. Yu Qiutang then leaned the thin man's body against the courtyard wall, jumped over from the small courtyard, took out the gun, loaded the chamber, and quietly moved forward.

The first place he looked at was the main house.

Since the dragging marks reached the toilet, there must be traces of human beings in the main house.

But when he looked in through the window carefully, he found that the place was in a mess. Some old utensils and clothes were thrown on the ground and trampled in the mud. The lids of all the things were open and there were many footprints on the walls.

But there was no one in sight.

After he confirmed it repeatedly and was about to turn around, he heard Dahei calling anxiously from next door.

Go there immediately.

Suddenly he was shocked.

A man in black clothes was lying on the ground with ropes tied around his body, motionless at the moment.

Dahei shouted anxiously beside him.

Yu Qiutang held the gun tightly and tried to go in. After confirming that your arms and legs were all tied up, he let down his guard and shouted, "Are you okay?"

The man didn't respond.

Yu Qiutang turned his body over, looked at his front face, and sighed slightly.

From the back, I could actually see the white hair on his temples, and I guessed that he was the old man from last time. When I turned him over, it was indeed the same.

When he was turned over, the old man's body was extremely stiff. He must have been dead for some time, but not very long, so the body had not yet recovered from the hardening stage to the softening stage.

He noticed that the old man's face was ashen, his eyes were tightly furrowed, as if he was in great pain, his mouth was half open, and a lot of blood was flowing out, staining the front of his clothes and body red.

"Wang!"

When Dahei saw that the old man was dead, he half lowered his head and made a sobbing sound.

Yu Qiutang felt a little puzzled. Logically, this old man and Dahei shouldn't know each other, so why did Dahei look a little sad?

The hound has been specially trained, so it will be more alert to strangers and will definitely not feel grief for an old man whom it has only met once.

Unless it had seen this old man before and had a good relationship with him.

He was wondering when he suddenly had a bad feeling, and the next moment he saw a shadow rushing in from outside.

He subconsciously rolled away and raised his gun to shoot, but he found that the person coming was the macaque he met last time, the one who snatched his water bottle and followed the old man.

And it was obvious that the macaque's target was not him, but the big black one next to him.

He quickly moved the muzzle of the gun, and in a few tenths of a second, fired the bullet out of the window.

"Damn it, I almost beat you to death!"

I couldn't help but scold.

This monkey has a connection with him. Last time, it stole his water bottle, and this time, it was almost shot to death by him.

The monkey jumped in, jumped onto the dog's back, and started playing with the dog's ears. Yu Qiutang thought the monkey was going to bully the dog, and was about to help, but he saw the dog happily wagging its tail.

I actually know him.

It seems that they have a close relationship.

Yu Qiutang now confirmed that Dahei really knew the monkey's owner.

The monkey played for a while, then noticed the old man on the ground. He jumped off the dog and began to frantically help the old man untie the rope.

As expected, he had been trained by the old man for a long time. He untied the rope in no time and began to shake the old man vigorously, even putting his face against the old man's chest and listening.

As if he were a skilled doctor.

Yu Qiutang looked at the monkey quietly without disturbing it.

Animals will understand human nature after being raised for a long time. Monkeys are primates with higher IQs than ordinary animals. They can also better understand human feelings and empathize with humans.

But when he saw that the monkey could not shake it, and was beating the old man's chest, he could not help but sigh, "Your master is dead."

"Bah!"

The monkey seemed to understand what he said, and turned to him with a grin! (End of this chapter)