Volume 7 Chapter 44: Snake Swamp Ghost City (Part 2)

The stones were relatively dry, so I put Aning’s body down. Everyone was exhausted and sat down to rest.

We took off our clothes and spread them out on the rocks to dry. The fat guy wanted to build a smokeless stove, but after searching through our luggage, we couldn’t find one. It seems that they were all lost in the chaos last night, so we couldn’t build a fire. We used the wick from the fuel can to make do. Unexpectedly, the swamp here is actually salty water. It seems that it is connected to the water system of a large salt marsh nearby. Fortunately, the rain washed down from the canyon, and there was basically no smell at the mouth, otherwise we might have problems drinking water. I first put in some disinfectant tablets and boiled some tea to drink. Then I went to wash myself.

After being soaked in the water all night, my skin was all wrinkled. I took off my shoes and my feet were all white. Even if I fastened the shoe laces tightly, after taking off my socks, I could still see small things similar to leeches sucking on my feet. I picked them up and looked at them, but I couldn’t see what kind of bugs they were.

However, if the swamp is salty, the number of insects should be relatively small, at least it is unlikely that there are salty leeches here, which is good news for us to enter the depths of the swamp.

Pan Zi handed me his cigarette, saying that it was local tobacco. He asked Zha Xi for it when they were leaving, and it could resist dampness. In this kind of dampness, people would be ruined in a week. I took a few puffs to hold on, so that I wouldn’t be unable to walk when I got old.

I took it and started smoking. The tobacco was wrapped in a plastic bag, but after last night’s ordeal, it was damp too. I took a few puffs and it was so harsh that I was choking and tears were streaming down my face. But it did have a certain effect. I don’t know if it was physiological or psychological, but it made me feel a lot clearer-headed, and the fatigue wasn’t so obvious all of a sudden.

Fatty also asked for some, and Pan Zi gave him half a cigarette. He lit it up and took a few puffs, but then he asked Pan Zi for more, and Pan Zi refused. At this time, we saw that Mian Youping was silent, looking at the swamp on the side thoughtfully. Pan Zi probably felt embarrassed to be without him, so he also handed him half a cigarette. I thought he wouldn’t take it, but I didn’t expect him to take it either. He just didn’t light it, but put it in his mouth and chewed it.

“Damn it, little brother, if you don’t know how to smoke, don’t waste it.” The fat man protested, “This thing is not for eating.”

“You don’t know shit. It’s more fun to eat tobacco than to smoke it. There are plenty of people chewing it in Yunnan and Burma,” said Pan Zi, but after saying that, he also felt puzzled and looked at the smoldering oil bottle: ‘But you don’t look like an old smoker, do you? How do you know how to chew tobacco leaves? Have you ever run a boat?’

The smoldering oil bottle shook his head, chewed a few times, and then spat the tobacco on his own hands to smear the wounds on his palms. I glanced at him and saw that the flesh on the palm of his hand was pale and raised. Although there was no bleeding, it was obvious that the high temperature here also made it difficult for the wound to heal. After applying the medicine, he looked at Pan Zi, who stared at him with suspicion and distrust, but he still didn’t say anything. He turned his head to look at the swamp on the side and ignored us.

We were used to this situation. The oil bottle seemed to be very secretive about his situation, but I understood that he didn’t know the answer to a lot of these questions. “A person who appears out of nowhere, with no past and no future, seems to have no connection to this world.” This was his assessment of himself, and occasionally it really seemed very appropriate.

He was naked, and with the evaporation of the moisture on his body, he felt a little bit more comfortable. He felt a little better, and the fat man took out some compressed meat to give us to eat. We ate it with some tea, and we didn’t know what it tasted like, but we were full. When we were full, we got sleepy, so Pan Zi used his backpack and the things inside it to make a place to block the sunlight. He kept watch, and we all huddled in. Everyone knew that once we entered the swamp, we might not have another chance to rest. Now, sleeping soundly was a kind of blessing. We didn’t have any extra thoughts. As soon as we lay down, our eyes almost went black and we fell asleep.

We slept for a long time in the dark. We woke up in a daze, but found that it was dark all around us and our bodies were sticky. We rubbed our eyes and found that it was dark and raining. Pan Zi was lying on his luggage and had fallen asleep. The fat guy was next to me, snoring loudly.

The fuel canister in the distance was still burning, but it was blue from the rain and couldn’t be seen from far away. I took out the lantern and lit the flame, then tried to wake up the others. At this time, I discovered something was wrong.

It turned out that the sleeping bag that was wrapped around Ning’s body had been opened by someone at some point, and Ning’s upper body was exposed.