However, seeing how well he hid it, if something really happened, I doubt he could retrieve it quickly in an emergency.

With a knife in hand, I feel like I own the world!

My courage immediately swelled. Relying on this machete, I happily jumped out of the car, vigorously chopped down the tree that had been bent by the car, freeing the trapped vehicle, and then lowered the car to the ground—

Strangely, although chopping down a tree so big it would take two people to encircle it would normally be unimaginable for me, this time the labor didn’t make me feel tired at all.

“It’s all thanks to the knife,” I thought cheerfully.

This “COLDSTEEL” machete is ridiculously expensive. I once heard Boss say: this knife is extremely sharp for chopping wood and cutting hemp rope; it can even be used to shave...

I didn’t expect Boss to secretly own such a good item. He must have said that because he had just bought the knife and was excited. Unfortunately, he never got to use it.

After chopping down the tree, I used branches to cover the wreckage of the car, sat on the ground, and devoured another round of peanuts. Only when there were barely any left did I reluctantly stop eating—who knows how vast these mountains are, I have to save some food for the next meal.

I tore the towel blanket off the car seat, wrapped up everything I thought might be useful, tied it up, slung the big bundle over my back, held a baseball bat in my left hand and the machete in my right, whistling as I set off into the world, full of excitement.

After eating so many peanuts, my mouth was dry and my tongue parched. The first task was to find water.

After crossing a few mountain tops, I heard the sound of running water and eagerly rushed toward it.

Finally, I found a small stream. Using my travel pot, I scooped up a ladle of water and drank my fill. Then I scooped up a second pot, sighing with satisfaction, “This water is so sweet!”

Looking at my reflection in the stream, I realized I looked a bit disheveled: flushed skin, messy hair, clothes covered in wood chips, face streaked with sweat and dirt, and a big bundle slung over my shoulder—I looked just like a refugee fleeing disaster.

“I need to wash my face,” I muttered to myself, lifting the pot of water to my lips.

Wait, something’s off about the color of the water—it seems a bit red.

I paused, noticing a few streaks of blood in the water. I quickly licked it with my tongue and realized: there really was a faint taste of blood in the water.

My gaze fell on the stream, and I saw that the water had been stained red, with faint traces of blood throughout.

Looking upstream, I noticed the stream bent not far away, and at the bend, on a small hillock, half a human head was faintly visible, along with the sound of quiet voices.

Blood? People?

A vendetta? An assassination? A murder?

Cold sweat broke out all over me. I quickly dropped the bundle from my back, gripped the baseball bat in my left hand and the machete in my right, and crept quietly upstream.

After only a few steps, the head at the bend in the mountain had already disappeared.

Suddenly, everything around me was eerily silent. Wiping away cold sweat, I unconsciously moved my legs, heading toward the bend, thinking as I walked: I’ve stuffed myself with peanuts and cold water—some meat would be nice. What are they butchering? Surely not a person.

Rounding the slope, I breathed a sigh of relief—the thing soaking in the stream was a sheep. Its skin had already been peeled, its body soaking in the water, and half the innards had been removed... It looked like someone had been washing the blood off the sheep in the stream, getting ready to clean it out and then...

“Barbecue!” I couldn’t help but shout, “Count me in! I’ve got some leftover liquor here, and some barbecue spices—chili, cumin, fennel, star anise, chicken bouillon—just no salt...”

I shouted these words loudly, because there was no one in sight near the sheep.

I called out loudly to the sheep’s carcass, hoping to draw someone out.

Suddenly, something sharp pressed against my back. Before my brain could react, my hand moved first—I nimbly turned around and, with a casual swing, chopped through the weapon in the other person’s hand. Then I wondered, “How did my hand get so fast?”

Standing in front of me was a wild man.

I call him a wild man because he looked even more ragged than I did: an untreated sheepskin draped over his body, hair as messy as a pile of weeds, face blackened as if it hadn’t been washed in years; his pants were just a skirt made of a few pieces of sheepskin, and he was actually barefoot.

I still had a name-brand machete, but his weapon was crude—just a greenish metal object, and from the break, it looked like a piece of bronze—such an ancient weapon still in use, who knows how many years this guy has been hiding in the mountains. Could he be a tomb raider?

Just now, this person had crept up behind me and pressed this rough, indeterminate knife-or-club weapon against my back, but I managed to turn around in a single breath and casually chop his weapon in half before he could react. Not bad!