Chapter 6
The group set out on the road, chatting and walking without stopping until noon.
It was finally time for a break, and Lu Shiyu felt his legs were shaking.
She didn't know if it was her illusion, but she felt her backpack was heavier and it was becoming more difficult to walk.
"Phew, I'm so tired."
Lu Shiyu put down his backpack and started rummaging through it for some water.
A few of them found a tree to sit down and rest in the shade. The occasional breeze relieved some of their fatigue.
Shaoxing Yang suddenly said that he was going to the toilet and would be back soon, then ran into the bushes not far away.
Tang Zeyu took out the map to confirm the route again. Lu Shiyu moved forward curiously, and only when he got close to Tang Zeyu's cheek could he see the map in Tang Zeyu's hand clearly.
The map only roughly depicts the terrain, rivers and lakes. Overall, it is not very detailed and there are many strange markings. Lu Shiyu felt confused when he saw it. This is probably the internal map of the exploration team.
"Did you see anything?" Tang Zeyu asked.
"Well, there's a river!"
Tang Zeyu was silent for two seconds: "That's a canyon."
Lu Shiyu scratched his head embarrassedly. "I guessed wrong, but why do you want to use this kind of map? I remember there was some kind of navigation equipment. The base wouldn't be so stingy as to not even give away something like this, right?"
"The base does have this thing, but it's not very useful to us," Tang Zeyu pointed to the canyon. "From here, signal reception becomes difficult. It may be intermittent, or there may be errors. The interference is too strong, so we simply don't use it."
"As for this area, the exploration team has already searched the area thoroughly. They are so familiar with it that they don't need a navigation aid."
Tang Zeyu adjusted the map and said, "The map can only serve as a general guide. We can only see how to proceed step by step."
Lu Shiyu recalled and asked, "But I've seen very detailed maps before."
"That's the area around the base. Farther away, only this level of detail is available," Tang Zeyu carefully put the map away. "Besides, those maps were also recorded bit by bit by the explorers. Familiarizing and recording the terrain is also one of the exploration team's tasks. However, the Eagle Team doesn't participate in those low-difficulty, high-cost missions."
"Oh, I see." Lu Shiyu nodded.
Lu Shiyu seemed to hear the sound of something heavy falling to the ground, followed by a scream that broke through the bushes. Everyone in the Eagle Squad was instantly on alert, and saw Shaoxing Yang running out in a panic, clutching his pants tightly with both hands.
“Help!”
Seeing that it was Shao Xingyang, they were slightly stunned. They found that something seemed to have followed him out of the bushes, and they looked behind him.
A creature that looks like a rabbit jumped out from the bushes, but unlike a normal rabbit, first of all, the size of this rabbit is abnormal. A rabbit is as big as a medium-sized dog. Secondly, this rabbit has a long horn on its head. If you look closely, you can find that the rabbit's teeth are also long and sharp. It ran after Shaoxing Yang on all fours, and you can clearly see the rabbit's four long legs.
Yan Hong retracted the knife that she was about to draw, and her eyes twitched as she looked at Shao Xingyang who was being chased again.
"No, he's afraid of bugs, that's understandable, but why is he afraid of rabbits?"
Chen Yunliang pushed his glasses up. "No, I remember he'd been around rabbits before, and he didn't look like he was afraid of them."
Shao Xingyang saw that they were indifferent and tears were about to burst out: "What are you standing there for! Save me!"
Tang Zeyu drew his long sword, but his eyes clearly revealed his disbelief. He said, "Shaoxing Yang, are you still afraid of rabbits?"
Shao Xingyang was truly devastated, and started cursing, "I'm not afraid of a bullshit rabbit! There's something wrong with this rabbit! If it gets pushed, I'll die!"
Lu Shiyu looked into the rabbit's eyes. She didn't know if it was influenced by the Shaoxing dialect, but she felt that the rabbit's eyes seemed to reveal murderous intent.
Shao Xingyang said so, and the others immediately rushed forward to rescue Shao Xingyang, but the rabbit was very agile and always managed to dodge most of its attacks, and the remaining ones only suffered minor scratches. Only after they really started to deal with it did the others realize how difficult this rabbit was.
Tang Zeyu didn't want to delay and prepared to chop off the rabbit's head with his sword. But just as he was about to strike the rabbit's neck, the rabbit suddenly turned its head, and the blade collided with the sharp horn on its head. To everyone's surprise, the rabbit's horn was not directly severed by Tang Zeyu's sword, but only left a gap. The rabbit shook its head, as if it was numb from the blow.
"It's so hard."
Yan Hong gritted her teeth. No wonder Shao Xingyang was so scared. Even Tang Zeyu couldn't cut him with one knife, let alone Shao Xingyang. No, didn't Shao Xingyang bring a weapon?
Yan Hong looked back at Shao Xingyang who had finally escaped from the rabbit's pursuit. She saw that Shao Xingyang, who had finally stopped, was putting on his pants and had no weapons to fight back with.
Yan Hong: “…”
After Tang Zeyu's knife strike, the rabbit's target of attack changed from Shaoxing Yang to Tang Zeyu. The man and the rabbit confronted each other. The rabbit stepped back and kicked the sand, growling, as if it would attack at any time. Tang Zeyu also paid attention to every slight movement of the rabbit, predicting the opponent's next move.
In the end, the rabbit couldn't hold back anymore and rushed towards Tang Zeyu at an extremely fast speed. Tang Zeyu didn't choose to defend himself directly. When the rabbit rushed towards him, he ran to the side. The rabbit missed and turned around to continue attacking Tang Zeyu.
The rabbit followed very closely and ran in circles. The two targets were entangled, making it difficult for the others to intervene.
Tang Zeyu was prepared to play a protracted war with the rabbit. Humans can recover their strength while exercising, but rabbits cannot. After a while, the rabbit will exhaust itself to death.
Sure enough, the rabbit's speed began to slow down gradually after a while, but at this time the rabbit suddenly stopped. Tang Zeyu did not think that its physical strength had been exhausted.
The next second, the rabbit turned its head and looked at Lu Shiyu who was sitting under a tree to rest.
"not good!"
The rabbit gave up the prey that was difficult to catch up with, turned around and stared at Lu Shiyu, the weakest among the group, and rushed towards her with the last of his strength.
Just as Lu Shiyu reacted and tried to get up and run, the rabbit was already in front of her. Just when Lu Shiyu thought she couldn't escape, she suddenly felt someone grab her collar and lift her up into the air. There was a loud crash beside her. Lu Shiyu opened her eyes and saw that it was Yan Hong who had lifted her up and saved her life. The rabbit hadn't stopped in time and crashed straight into the tree, half of its corner was embedded in the trunk, and it didn't move at all.
Lu Shiyu patted his chest with lingering fear.
"I was so scared, I thought I was dead."
Yan Hong loosened her grip on Lu Shiyu's hand, and Lu Shiyu sat down on the ground, holding his butt in pain.
"Are you okay?" Tang Zeyu walked away quickly, his tone full of concern.
"I'm fine. Luckily Yan Hong was quick, otherwise..." Lu Shiyu looked at the rabbit with its horn still stuck in the tree and said, "I guess I'll have to pierce a hole."
When everyone thought it was over, a strange noise suddenly came from the tree hit by the rabbit. Then, cracks began to spread from the place where the rabbit hit the tree. Then, due to the unstable center of gravity, the tree broke completely. The whole tree fell to the ground, leaving behind a stump with an uneven cut.
"I take back what I said," Lu Shiyu swallowed, "I guess this isn't as simple as a piercing."
Tang Zeyu stepped forward and grabbed the rabbit by the scruff of the neck and lifted it up. The rabbit was still kicking its legs reflexively even though it was unconscious.
Shao Xingyang came closer and sighed: "It's not dead yet. This rabbit is too stubborn."
Tang Zeyu brought the rabbit to Lu Shiyu and asked, "Can you cook rabbit meat? How about having this tonight?"
Lu Shiyu pinched the rabbit and it was hard.
"Of course, you can, but I'm afraid it will be too dry. How about braised?"
"Braised rabbit meat! Great!" I get excited when I talk about eating Shaoxing Yang.
"So should we deal with this rabbit now or wait until dinner time?"
"Let the blood drain first, and we'll deal with it later in the evening."
Lu Shiyu asked Tang Zeyu to help hold the rabbit down to prevent it from suddenly waking up and struggling. He found an open space, took a kitchen knife and cut the rabbit's neck to start bleeding. After the blood was drained, he simply rinsed it with water and saved the rest for processing at night.
"Let me carry it."
Shaoxingyang took the initiative to take on the task of carrying the rabbit meat. Lu Shiyu did not refuse. He handed the rabbit to Shaoxingyang and prepared to put the cleaned kitchen knife back into the backpack.
Suddenly, Lu Shiyu felt something in his backpack move. He opened the backpack and lifted up a pot underneath. Inside, there was a tiny rabbit that had just woken up lying comfortably. The rabbit showed no fear when it saw Lu Shiyu, and was even washing its face with its paws.
Lu Shiyu looked at the tiny horns on the little rabbit's head, and his whole body seemed to freeze.
When Chen Yunliang saw that Lu Shiyu had not moved for a long time, he walked over to ask what was wrong.
"I think I know why that rabbit is chasing us..."
Lu Shiyu smiled awkwardly and took out the little rabbit under the gaze of everyone. The little rabbit sat steadily in Lu Shiyu's hand, looking around with its two little eyes as big as black beans.
Shaoxing Yang's smile, which looked like that of an old farmer enjoying a good harvest, slowly disappeared, and he quietly hid the rabbit behind his back.
Yan Hong walked forward and poked the cute little rabbit, and the poked little rabbit just made two soft cries.
"Ahhh, ahhh."
Yan Hong saw that the little rabbit had turned over and there were still a few grains of rice stuck on its belly and paws. She said with a complicated expression:
"Could it be that it stole some biscuits last night and hid them in your bag? Then its mother discovered it was missing today, so she came all the way here to look for it?"
"I think it's very likely."
Shaoxing Yang was silent, Shaoxing Yang broke the defense.
"Fuck! Then why are you chasing me? I'm the one who was wrongly accused of cheating, and I'm the one being chased!"
As soon as he finished shouting, Chen Yunliang slapped him on the back of the head.
"What are you yelling about? You're going to attract some deformed creature and throw you out to attract attention."
In the end, the few people had no choice but to release the little rabbit where it was. They couldn't go back to the place where they sent it back, nor could they treat it as food like the big rabbit. They could only let it fend for itself. If it was eaten by a carnivore before it had the ability to protect itself, it would be bad luck for it. The probability of death for a cub without the protection of its mother was too high.
The little rabbit placed on the grass rolled around happily on the ground, seemingly completely unaware of what it was about to go through. Seeing this, Lu Shiyu inexplicably felt a pang of guilt.
"Don't look at it," Tang Zeyu turned his head away. "If it were one of those irregular explorers from the past, it would probably have been captured and taken back to the base to be sold as a pet. When it grew up, it would have been treated harmlessly according to the rules because of its aggressiveness. Perhaps it could have survived well in the wild."
"Captain Tang, do you feel pity for it?"
"In the aberrational apocalypse, everyone is pitiful."
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