Chapter 25: The Master’s Secret

After a moment of reflection, I said, "I can't really say when I started to feel it; it was just a sudden realization..."

"Sanqi!" Old Master Chen suddenly shouted my name.

"Yes?" I replied.

But after I answered, he fell silent again.

A long time later, he looked me in the eye and said, "Sanqi, to be honest... I also feel that the Boss's death is truly suspicious."

"You think so too?" My heart skipped a beat.

"Yes!" Old Master Chen took a deep look at the middle-aged man lying on the bed before saying to me, "Sanqi, I have been to many places with the Boss. Changbai Mountain, the Shiwanda Mountains in Guangxi—I've been there too! What I want to tell you is that every time I thought the Boss was going to die, she ended up pulling through and living."

"What?"

At that moment, I found it hard to believe. What did Old Master Chen mean by that? Every time he thought the Boss was dying, she survived? This...

I quickly spoke up: "But, Old Master Chen, this time it feels different! I saw it with my own eyes—that bullet pierced right through the Boss's head. She... she was dead, completely and utterly dead..."

However, Old Master Chen merely gave a cold laugh. "Xiao Liu, how can you be so sure that what you saw with your own eyes... was the truth? Sometimes, seeing isn't necessarily believing. You say the Boss died, but did you ever touch her lifeless body? Let me tell you, Sanqi, when I returned the next day, the bodies of all the other hunters who came with us were still there, untouched, but the Boss's body... was gone!"

I was completely stunned, frozen in place, unable to move a muscle. I didn't know what to make of what Old Master Chen was telling me. The Boss's body was gone... Could it be that she... wasn't dead?

For a split second, I was terrified by my own thought. I felt like I was losing my mind. I had to remember that I had seen the bullet pass through her head with my own eyes. How could this be possible?

"Alright, Sanqi, get some sleep! Just keep what I've said to yourself," Old Master Chen said. Without sparing me another glance, he stared at the middle-aged man, lost in his own thoughts.

"Old Master Chen..."

I wanted to say more, but he just shook his head slightly and ignored me. At that point, I knew. Old Master Chen was definitely hiding something from me, but he clearly didn't want to talk about it.

Sighing, I lay back down on the bed, watching Dahai rest, feeling a sense of unease in my heart.

***

Suddenly, a scene flashed through my mind. It was when we were heading to the Greater Khingan Mountains; the first thing the Boss did after getting into the vehicle was ask Old Master Chen if he was ready.

Old Master Chen said he was.

Ready for what?

Inexplicably, I began to feel more and more like I was caught in the vortex of a massive conspiracy. If the Boss hadn't died, then Old Master Chen's calm demeanor when she first "died" suddenly... made sense.

I didn't know if my intuition was right.

Outside the cabin, the howling of wolves drifted further away. Breathing in the unique, woodsy scent of the ancient forest mixed with the cabin's own atmosphere, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

***

The next morning, I was awakened by the smell of roasted meat. Half-asleep, I heard murmurs around me. I crawled out from under the covers and rubbed my eyes to see Old Master Chen and the middle-aged man chatting by the stove.

On the stove, a rabbit and a roe deer leg were roasting to a deep red... Old Master Chen was drinking with the man, and the sizzling fat from the meat made me swallow hard involuntarily.

At my movement, the two stopped talking and turned to look at me. "Sanqi, you're awake? Get up and eat!"

"Right!" After getting up, I looked at the middle-aged man and noticed he looked much better than the night before. Perhaps the alcohol helped; his face was flushed, and he looked healthier.

But... his hands were likely truly ruined. Seeing me looking at him, the man gave a slight nod but said nothing.

I put on my clothes and pushed open the door. A blast of cold air rushed in, making me shiver uncontrollably. Goodness. Outside the cabin... it had frosted over! The weather was starting to turn cold. Looking at the patches of delicate, snowy white outside, I whispered to myself: That was fast!

With the frost already here, heavy snow... probably wasn't far off.

I ran to the river to wash my face, then quickly returned to the cabin. The wolf pelts we had skinned yesterday were already hung on the wall by Old Master Chen to dry.

We ladled out some liquor, and the three of us sat around the stove. The middle-aged man smiled at me and said, "Sanqi! How is life in the mountains!?"

I took a sip of liquor. "Not bad! Haven't seen many beasts, but I've run into plenty of strange things!"

As soon as I said this, the man and Old Master Chen were stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter.

It was during our conversation that I learned the middle-aged man's name was Qi Yang. He was the deputy captain of the National Geological Survey Team, and they had come to the Greater Khingan Mountains for geological exploration.

The reason he ended up in such a state was that their survey team had inadvertently stumbled into Wild Boar Ridge.

I was taken aback. "Wild Boar Ridge? Where is that?"

Qi Yang gulped down his drink, opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, he didn't tell me.

Old Master Chen explained it instead. "Wild Boar Ridge is a very dangerous place in the Khingan Mountains. It's littered with human bones and grows all sorts of man-eating plants—blood-grass—and the place is roamed by wild boars weighing several hundred pounds. Never mind humans; even bears and Siberian tigers wouldn't dare go near it..."

"There's a place like that?" Hearing Old Master Chen say this, a chill ran down my spine...

***

At this point, some might say, "It's just wild boars, why not just charge in and kill a few for dinner?"

To anyone who says that, I’d say you really don't understand the ancient forests. In the hunting trade, the danger level of the beasts in the old woods is categorized by a saying: "First the boar, second the bear, third the tiger."

In other words, in our line of work, we consider the wild boar to be the king of the forest. Especially a boar king weighing several hundred pounds; even a Siberian tiger would have to take a detour if it saw one.