After traversing through the forest for a distance, the Golden Retriever stopped ahead.
Qin Ziwen stood in the distance, with a clearing visible ahead.
He had the others put down their backpacks and hide them in the nearby bushes, then he approached carrying his weapon.
A man was sitting by a tree root, leaning against the tree. The Golden Retriever ran over and rubbed its head against him, then barked several times in the direction they had come from.
Qin Ziwen kept some distance, hiding behind a tree as he asked, "What happened to you?"
Hearing someone approach, the man sitting by the tree root regained some spirit. He turned his head and said excitedly, "My leg is injured, it hurts terribly when I move. Can you help me?"
"How did you injure your leg?"
"A wild boar rammed me. We were hunting a wild boar earlier. After it got injured, it went crazy and kept charging at me, breaking my leg. In the end, the wild boar ran away."
"Where are your companions?"
The man gave a bitter smile, "They chased after that injured wild boar. I called out to them, but none of them responded."
The Crowned Eagle circled around the area once before finally landing quietly on a branch overhead.
Qin Ziwen felt reassured in his heart—it seemed there really was no one else around.
He stepped out and approached the man.
The injured man didn't look very old, probably in his early twenties. Perhaps due to excessive blood loss, his lips appeared somewhat pale.
His brown pants were soaked with blood, with one area torn open, revealing a bloody wound.
A finely crafted knife lay on the ground beside the young man.
"Was this injury caused by a wild boar?"
The young man nodded, "Gored by its tusks."
Qin Ziwu looked at the young man's wound and felt somewhat fortunate. Luckily, his older brother hadn't let him hunt that wild boar earlier, otherwise they might be the ones injured now, and they might not have found the kiwifruit either.
Judging by his condition, the injury was quite severe.
The young man looked at Qin Ziwen with hope, "Can you help me? I definitely won't let you help for free. By the way, I have a set of mountain pattern armor at home, made from cold-rolled steel plates! Absolutely good stuff—this thing can't even be pierced by wild boars! It's absolutely a dimensional reduction strike! Armor, full body armor, back in ancient times this was something that could get you beheaded."
"Mountain pattern armor? How do you have something like that?" Qin Ziwen asked curiously.
The young man said, "I'm an ancient costume enthusiast. I don't just have mountain pattern armor at home, I also have Hanfu clothing, various antique-style weapons. That set of mountain pattern armor is too heavy—you can't walk very far wearing it, so I didn't wear it."
Speaking of this, the young man gritted his teeth in frustration, "I teamed up with those guys from the residential complex because we all keep large dogs and often gather to walk them. So after crossing over, we formed a team together. I trusted them, thinking that since we came out together, there's strength in numbers, so I even lent them the cold weapons I collected."
"But at the critical moment, they abandoned me and went straight after the wild boar. I really misjudged these people."
Qin Ziwen had his brother pick up the knife from the ground too. "Let's go."
Qin Ziwu picked up the knife from the ground and waved it through the air a few times.
"What kind of knife is this? It looks pretty cool."
The young man said, "A Tang Hengdao. I had it custom-made through someone, cost me five figures. By the way, benefactors, I don't know your names yet. I'm Li Yue—Li as in Li Tang Dynasty, Yue as in Mount Tai's Yue."
"My surname is Qin, this is my younger brother, and this is my friend Old Deng."
Li Yue's eyes reddened, "Brothers Qin! Brother Deng! Thank you!"
Qin Ziwen said, "Alright, you're injured but still so talkative. Can you put any weight on your injured leg at all?"
"I can still use my uninjured leg."
Qin Ziwen and Deng Guang supported him on either side, with Li Yue hopping on one foot.
After traveling some distance, Li Yue's face grew even paler. The wound on his leg that had begun to scab over reopened and was bleeding again.
Li Yue said weakly, "Brother, I think we should stop the bleeding first."
They set him down, searched around, then used a knife to cut his shirt and tear off a strip, tying it tightly above the wound until the bleeding diminished.
None of the three were professionals, nor had they learned wound dressing. They didn't know if this method would work.
But presumably it was better than not stopping the bleeding at all.
"I'll carry you on my back."
The three then took turns carrying Li Yue back. Fortunately, Li Yue wasn't heavy—he was the tall and slender type.
According to what he said himself, he weighed only a little over 110 jin.
Qin Ziwu touched the blade edge, "Is your knife sharpened? I thought knives bought online weren't allowed to be sharpened?"
Li Yue, who was being carried by Deng Guang, said, "In principle, they're not supposed to be sharpened."
"Then I understand."
...
Some time after Li Yue had left.
A Beagle emerged from the bushes, sniffing the scent.
Three men followed closely behind, accompanied by a German Shepherd and a Labrador.
"I told you, we should have aimed for its legs first. How can we catch it without hitting its legs?"
"Easier said than done. You think I didn't want to? That wild boar runs so fast and is so strong, there's no stopping it."
"What about Li Yue then? His leg is injured, how do we get him back?"
"It's still so far, by the time we get him back it'll be dark."
As they spoke, they arrived nearby.
"Hey, where is he?"
"How come he's gone?"
"I remember he was right by this tree, with a rock nearby."
A man wearing a denim jacket with a wolf-cut hairstyle looked around, "Could he have been carried off by some wild animal?"
A man with a mole by his lip said, "Here, look—there's still blood on the ground. He was right here."
A middle-aged man wearing glasses looked worried, "Ah, what should we do then?"
The wolf-cut man glanced at him and sneered, "Alright, stop pretending. You were the first to suggest chasing that wild boar, without considering what to do then."
The middle-aged man's mouth twitched slightly, "At the time, Li Yue was calling out to us from behind, and you didn't respond to him either."
After these words were spoken, the three men's eyes shifted uneasily.
At that time, Li Yue was injured, and the wild boar also appeared quite wounded, so the three had simultaneously chosen to chase the wild boar. As for Li Yue... if something happened to him, there would be one less person to share the meat with.
Plus, they wouldn't have to return the borrowed weapons.
Previously, after Li Yue lent them the cold weapons, he pestered them every evening to return them.
These weapons were so handy to use, making it seem like they were unwilling to give them back.
But unexpectedly, not only did they fail to catch the wild boar—the injured boar ran incredibly fast, even the dogs couldn't keep up—the wild boar was very familiar with the local terrain and eventually disappeared.
The wolf-cut man looked around, "Damn, all the scenery around here looks the fucking same. Good thing we have the dogs, otherwise we probably wouldn't even find this place. Speaking of which, do you think Li Yue is hiding somewhere?"
The man with the mole by his lip said, "With his leg injured like that, what good would hiding do? He wouldn't survive past the next day in this forest at night. Alright, let's head back first."
The middle-aged man pondered, "I suggest we keep watch near his place after we return. In case he does come back, we can... resolve the conflict."
The wolf-cut man scoffed, "So what if he comes back? We came back looking for him—it's his own fault he disappeared, can't blame us. Are we supposed to apologize to him?"
Looking at the other two, the middle-aged man cursed inwardly—these two idiots.
The method of resolving the conflict he meant was definitely not apologizing.
Only making someone permanently silent is the simplest and most direct solution.
...