Volume 8 Chapter 36 The man in the fog
There was hardly any sound to be heard here except for the distant sound of water dripping. This voice was extremely abrupt, and suddenly, I was caught off guard and scared out of my wits.
My first reaction was to think that it might be one of Uncle San’s men. I thought to myself, “Could there be any survivors here?”
The voice just now was definitely a person speaking. I knew I wasn’t hearing things. I hadn’t expected to meet another living person, and the thought of it made me feel a little relieved. I stopped moving and looked behind the fat man, but there were only piles of dry branches, and it was hard to see anything in the poor light.
It must be one of Uncle San’s men. I had a thought. There couldn’t be anyone else in the forest. If I suddenly met someone, it would most likely be one of Uncle San’s men. Maybe it was the one who was calling me just now, and then it was washed here before I fell into the mud. From what I heard just now, it seemed that he was talking to someone else, and there might be more than one person.
“Who’s there?” I called out, squinting and looking hard in that direction. If I met Uncle San’s people here, it would be a blessing from heaven, and I could find out where Uncle San was and what had happened to him.
However, after waiting for a while, there was complete silence behind the fat man, and there was no echo. The beast’s mouth hidden by the branches over there seemed to have solidified, and there was no movement.
I immediately became alert, and a foreboding feeling came over me. I reached for a long wooden stick next to me, picked it up, and slowly walked over there. But after only a few steps, I heard a faint voice coming from deep within the pile of branches: “Little Master San?”
The voice was very strange, and it spoke very quickly, but it was definitely a person talking, and it was calling my nickname. I immediately let out a sigh of relief: “It’s me!” I immediately went over, pushed open the gaps in the pile of branches, and asked while pushing: “Who’s in there? Are you trapped? Don’t worry, I’ll come and save you right away!
”
“Little Master?” It asked again from deep within.
“It’s me! It’s me! I called out, and while I was doing so, I pried a hole in the pile of branches and peered through the gap between the branches to look for the person in the depths.
I pried open a very deep distance, but I didn’t see anyone. It was full of rotten branches, but the person inside didn’t say anything. I felt strange, so I cursed in Changsha dialect, saying, “What the hell, who is in there? What are you doing? Say something and tell me where you are.”
After calling a few times, there was still no response. I felt something was wrong. The person’s voice didn’t sound like he was injured or unable to move. He should have come over after hearing me say that. Why did he call for so long without responding? Or, did he not hear what I was saying clearly? Or was he also confused?
Thinking about it, I suddenly realized that although I was not affected, there was a lot of black gas in the swamp just now, and there must be some here. This person may also have been bitten by a snake. If the poisoning is very deep, he must be delirious. Even if he was not bitten, he may have hit his head because of the water flow just now and could not hear what I said.
Thinking about this, I stopped screaming, clenched my teeth, and dug in hard, trying to dig him out. If the other person was really poisoned, then there would be big trouble. I couldn’t take care of two people by myself, but I couldn’t pretend not to know.
The pile of branches was about six or seven meters high, which didn’t seem like much, but it was quite difficult to dig a hole in it to look for something. I endured the pain and used my hands to push against the branches, and it took me two or three minutes to dig through a space. Immediately, I leaned forward and looked through to see where the sound was coming from.
I thought I would see someone leaning against it, but to my surprise, there was nothing in the pile of branches. There was no one there at all, and behind it was the mouth of a beast.
“What’s going on?” I cursed, and before I could finish, a faint, ghostly voice suddenly came from the edge of the hole I had dug in the pile of branches.
“Little Master?”
The voice almost screamed in my ear. I was so scared that my scalp almost exploded, and I almost fell off the pile of branches. I turned my head sharply and saw that on the side of the hole I dug, in the darkness of the branches, there was a person lying down just like me. A pair of bloodshot eyes appeared in the gap, staring at me.