After waiting for a while and not seeing Edward Baker come to his senses, the big guy excitedly started shouting outside.

Edward Baker had been learning Yoruba from Walter Baker for several months now, and could understand simple daily conversations.

He could understand that Walter Baker was excitedly greeting people outside, saying that he had woken up, and that his waking up was truly a miracle.

Walter Baker's excitement was filled with genuine joy, which made Edward Baker feel comforted.

As the old capital and commercial center of Kanem, Deglamo could be said to be the most prosperous city in all of West Africa, but its public security was a mess.

In the past two years, more and more Chinese merchants and Chinese-funded enterprises had entered Deglamo, and violent crimes targeting Chinese merchants and employees of Chinese companies had occurred frequently; quite a few of these cases were even inside jobs, with local employees colluding with criminal gangs.

Therefore, even when Chinese merchants and Chinese-funded enterprises had no choice but to hire local employees, they remained extremely vigilant and guarded; correspondingly, local employees were also quite indifferent toward the management and Chinese staff of these companies.

Every time Edward Baker needed to go out on business, supervisor John Foster would always specifically emphasize that only after getting in the car could he tell the driver Walter Baker the destination.

The reason for this was the concern that if driver Walter Baker knew the destination in advance, he might tip off criminal gangs, who could then ambush and rob them en route.

Cases like this had happened more than once or twice in Deglamo.

At this moment, feeling Walter Baker's excitement over his awakening, Edward Baker couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for his previous wariness.

But on second thought, Edward Baker also found it a bit strange.

Logically speaking, Walter Baker's excitement at this moment could be for other reasons.

After all, if something really happened to him, Walter Baker would most likely lose this job, which was considered quite decent and well-paid locally—just think, how respectable it was to become a driver for a foreign company in China in the early 1980s!

Why was his first thought that Walter Baker's excitement was purely because he had woken up, with no other motives involved?

And this thought was even quite strong.

When did he become so quick to trust others?

And, what's more, to trust a local employee he had always been cautious and guarded against?

At this moment, an elderly man wearing a traditional local robe, hunched over, walked in. Seeing that Edward Baker could barely prop himself up, he excitedly shouted:

"Ibogu, Ibogu..."

Seeing this dark, wrinkled face, with skin like cracked tree bark, Edward Baker realized he was now in the tribal village where he had stayed before heading into the mountains.

The old man before him was the village chief and priest, named either Felician or Fianxili—he'd heard Walter Baker introduce him before, but had mixed up the name in a flash.

He also remembered that this shabby thatched hut was one of the chief's residences, with six or seven similar, slightly better but still shabby wooden sheds nearby, surrounding a small square like a drying yard—this was considered the chief's compound.

When staying in the village before, he'd heard from Walter Baker that the chief was the most powerful and wealthy person in the village. The land, the primeval forest for dozens of miles around, and even the gold mine deep in the forest, all belonged to the chief's family. Edward Baker had almost dropped his jaw in shock.

This tribal village was called Ibogu.

At this moment, hearing the chief excitedly shouting "Ibogu, Ibogu" over and over, Edward Baker was completely baffled, not knowing what he was trying to express.

After a while, Edward Baker finally remembered that Walter Baker had once taught him that the syllable "bogu" in Yoruba meant "snake," and "Ibogu" seemed to mean "spirit snake" or "snake god."

The reason he lost consciousness and fainted was indeed because, deep in the jungle, a palm-sized venomous snake had darted out from the bushes and bitten him.

Edward Baker didn't know what it felt like for others to be bitten by a venomous snake, but when he was bitten, he instantly felt a nerve-tearing pain. He even suspected that it wasn't the venom that made him lose consciousness, but that he fainted from the pain in that instant.

Seeing how excited the old man was, Edward Baker wondered if he was gloating over his snake bite, or if he thought it was a miracle that he survived being bitten by that green-banded viper.

Thinking of this, Edward Baker felt that he had really brought this on himself.

The city of Deglamo was already dangerous enough, but when he heard Walter Baker mention that there were locals mining gold in the primeval forest in the northwest of Oyo State, near the border with Benin, he was tempted.

Taking advantage of the fact that branch manager David Sullivan was away from Deglamo on business, he persuaded supervisor John Foster to bring driver Walter Baker along and drive to the edge of the primeval forest north of Deglamo.

Although Ibogu village and the Deglamo city where the branch was located were only about sixty or seventy kilometers apart in a straight line, there wasn't a single decent road connecting them.

They had to detour from the east, through the capital city of Oyo State, Katero, traveling over two hundred kilometers of bumpy, muddy dirt roads, asking for directions along the way, and it took them more than eight hours to finally reach Ibogu village.

They spent a night in the tribe, and the next morning set out early on foot through the dense forest to visit the site where the locals mined gold.

Edward Baker, who had only been in Deglamo for just over a year, had often gone out to the suburbs outside the city before, but this was his first time entering the primeval forest in the northwest of the country.