Zhou Peng's sudden rush into the valley caught us all off guard. By the time we reacted, he had already run more than ten meters and was still running forward frantically.

"Damn it! This idiot!"

Watching Zhou Peng run further and further away, Song Laosan slammed his fist on the ground: "What do we do now?"

"Zhou Peng is the only translator in the team. Without him, we can't communicate with Sasha and Ivan! Follow them!"

Seeing Zhou Peng getting closer and closer to the houses, I grabbed my gun and chased after him. Sasha and Ivan followed us.

Our hillside was only fifty or sixty meters long. After Zhou Peng got close, all the dogs around started barking wildly. Then, the door of a wooden house was pushed open, and a white man came out and yelled something at him before rushing up and knocking him down.

Seeing this, Song Laosan pointed his gun at the man and roared, "Don't move! Let him go!"

Upon hearing the shouts, the white men controlling Zhou Peng also began to yell and shout. Soon after, several burly men rushed out of the wooden house, pointing their guns at us, and the situation became tense.

At that moment, Zhou Peng suddenly shouted a few words in Russian, and then said to us, "I grabbed this man's arm, he's warm, he's not a ghost! This is a transit point, they are all people!"

Sasha then stepped forward and exchanged a few words with those people. He then voluntarily lowered his gun and pressed his palm down towards us, indicating that there was no danger here.

I saw a satellite phone hanging on a person across from me, and there was mist coming out with his breath. I hesitated for a moment, but then lowered the gun barrel.

After a brief exchange, we were led into the cabin by those people. Through our conversation, I learned that this was not a transit point, but the residence of the forest rangers.

The Far East has a harsh environment where many crops cannot grow, but many valuable medicinal herbs also grow in the forests among the mountains, and wealthy people who like to explore often come here in groups to hunt.

To protect themselves from wild animal attacks, the forest rangers who were stationed here year-round gradually came together to live in the area, and this settlement became an inn and lodging for herb gatherers and hunters.

With this explanation, we were finally relieved. Zhou Peng also told those people that we were tourists from abroad who came to hunt, and that we got lost because we lost our package, which is why we ended up here by mistake.

This settlement was inconveniently located and inaccessible by road, so supplies could only be transported by horse. As a result, the prices of goods were exorbitantly high. We took out all the cash we had, plus Monkey's gold necklace and Song Laosan's gold ring, and that's how we got two guns, a small amount of supplies, and the right to stay for one night.

After the supplies were lost, we had been eating animal meat for several days in a row. This night, the vegetable soup and rye bread made me so full that I could hardly stand up straight.

After a satisfying meal and in a safe environment, everyone was finally able to relax and rest.

With Zhou Peng translating, we had a conversation with Goncharov, the owner of the inn.

Goncharov, sipping Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor) which cost less than vodka, waved his hands repeatedly when he heard that our destination was the mountain to the west: "There are many suitable hunting grounds here, but you absolutely cannot go to that mountain to the west!"

When I saw Goncharov mention that mountain, a complicated expression appeared on his face. He asked casually, "Why can't we go? Is it some kind of important protected area?"

“Our place is barren and desolate, there are no protected areas here. I won’t let you go there because the mountains there are very strange and are forbidden areas that you should not enter.”

Goncharov was a drunkard, and after a bottle of wine, he became more talkative: "Every year from this time until winter, a large number of herb gatherers come here. Some of them can get rich overnight by gathering herbs, while others return empty-handed. In order to prepare for going into the mountains, these herb gatherers often need to spend the money they have saved up from working all year. Even so, if they cannot find any herbs, they will not venture into the mountains, because there are wild men in those mountains."

"Savage?"

This was the second time I had heard this claim. I glanced at Sasha and asked Goncharov, "Have you really seen a savage?"

“No.” Goncharov shook his head. “However, some people have seen those wild men more than once. Around this time last year, I received a group of herb gatherers. There were five of them in total, but only three came out. According to them, they got lost in the mountains after a heavy rain, stumbled into the Western Mountains, and discovered a large area of ​​wild medicinal herbs.”

The herb gatherers were overjoyed, thinking they would take all the herbs after the rain stopped. They even said the stories about wild men in the Western Mountains were fabricated by us forest rangers to prevent others from entering our herb-gathering territory.

Song Laosan became interested: "And then what?"

"At the time, those people found a cave nearby to take shelter from the rain. When they went inside, they found that it was lined with straw, as if someone had lived there. But the rain was so heavy that day that the herb gatherers just used the cave as a temporary hunter's hut and moved in without thinking much about it."

Goncharov paused for a moment: "According to those who returned, they were asleep that night when they suddenly heard someone scream. When they turned on their flashlights, they found several naked, long-haired ape-men wielding stones and smashing them against the people living at the cave entrance. Those ape-men were very strong and could easily lift an adult. The herb gatherers fought desperately and managed to escape from the cave."

The monkey interjected, "You just said those savages were completely naked. Do they have any hair on their bodies?"

"I'm not too sure about that either. It's said that those wild men walk more like gorillas, with their arms hanging down unnaturally."

Goncharov paused for a moment: "We've also speculated about the ape-men of the Western Hills. During World War II, when the German army attacked the Soviet Union, due to insufficient preparation, a large number of troops froze to death in the Far East. Their proud blitzkrieg lost its advantage there. Although the mountainous area where we are is not on the German army's offensive route, German troops were present at the time. Those German troops did not understand the local environment and adopted a forced march strategy, which meant they could not spare manpower to cut down trees. So they launched a frenzied plunder in the Far East."

According to my elders, the German army would massacre and loot villages one by one, and also abduct many Soviet women. Even now, in these mountains, remnants of weapons and tanks from World War II can still be found from time to time. It is said that many German soldiers hid in the mountains of the Far East after Germany's defeat, and perhaps the wild men here are their descendants!