Jiang Si hadn't run far when she heard Xiao Lan'er's vicious threat.
As she ran, she leaned back, and in an instant, a tree branch seemed to have eyes, wrapping around Xiao Lan'er's ankle.
Xiao Lan'er was horrified: "Ah, what is that? What's tangled around my foot?"
The tree branch that had wrapped around her ankle was uprooted.
"Ah, help!"
Amidst her terrified screams, Xiao Lan'er was lifted up and hung upside down like a scallion.
Jiang Si withdrew her gaze, quickened her pace, and ran ahead of Wei Chi, spreading her mental energy to accurately avoid him.
Sunlight filtered through the thick foliage, casting dappled patterns on the ground.
Half an hour later.
The two of them stopped.
Wei Chi's energy had subsided, and he felt his body had reached its limit. He gasped for breath, "I can't take it anymore, I need to rest for a while."
"Then let's rest for a while." Jiang Si stopped and took off the bag she was carrying. "Don't move here. I'm going to change my clothes. Call me if you need anything."
Wei Chi's throat was dry and sore. He waved his hand and said, "Okay, don't go too far. Come back soon."
Jiang Si took the clothes, slipped behind the dense branches, took off her conspicuous red camouflage combat uniform, and put on the clothes she had taken from Xiao Lan'er.
The chief healer's uniform had its epaulets fastened on her arms. Jiang Si ripped off the epaulets, looked around, and stuffed them, along with her red combat uniform, into her storage space.
"Jiang Si!" Wei Chi suddenly called out to her in alarm, "Come here quickly, come here quickly, something's wrong."
Jiang Si frowned, and with lightning speed, withered leaves flying up from her feet: "What happened?"
Wei Chi turned around and saw her, startled: "How did you get here so fast?"
Jiang Si slapped him on the head: "Isn't it because I'm afraid you'll get carried off by wolves? What's wrong?"
Wei Chi staggered from the blow, pouting and pointing ahead with a wronged expression: "Look, blood."
Jiang Si looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a trail of blood. She walked over, squatted down, and rubbed a little blood.
Wei Chi, carrying a bag, squatted down beside her: "Is it human blood?"
Jiang Si looked up and followed the bloodstains. "It's not human blood, it's the blood of a mutated beast, and a relatively high-level one at that."
Wei Chi quickly picked up a bloodstained, withered leaf from the ground, examined it closely, and noticed that the blood had dried somewhat: "How did you determine that it was of a higher grade?"
Jiang Si stood up and walked along the trail of blood, saying, "There are signs of a fight here. Although no cannons or guns were used, only cold weapons were used, and the body was dragged away."
"But look, there are too many messy traces, and more than one person's footsteps. If the level wasn't too high, how could there be more than one person?"
"Could it be a school cleanup?" Wei Chi thought what she said made sense, but he also had some doubts. He looked around at the messy footsteps and said, "After all, we are just students and have no practical experience. Moreover, the firepower that the school has provided us is simply not enough to kill high-level mutated beasts."
“It wasn’t the school that cleaned them up. The five military academies are doing joint freshman military training. If they wanted to clean them up, they would have done it long ago. They couldn’t have waited until now,” Jiang Si said firmly. “Besides, if the school wanted to clean them up, even if it didn’t disrupt the ecological balance, they would have used tranquilizer guns to knock these mutated beasts unconscious, or driven them to one place and released them after the military training.”
“Look at this health bar. Only hunting can give you such a large amount of health, plus the roar of the beast we heard when we first entered the forest.”
"I think that roar was the last roar of a mutated beast, which was being hunted by someone."
After hearing this, Wei Chi pulled out a map from his backpack. "So, the five military academies are up to something."
Jiang Si chuckled lightly, "They're not just causing trouble, I seriously suspect that besides the instructors chasing us, there are also upperclassmen lying in ambush on the road."
“We’re coming here.” Wei Chi unfolded the map and came to Jiang Si: “Look at this final destination. It’s a journey that traverses the entire planet, taking 30 days to complete. It’s extremely difficult.”
Jiang Si's gaze fell on the map, which not only marked the routes of shortcuts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, but also indicated the dangers and traps that could be encountered when taking shortcuts.
“You’re right, the senior students are lying in ambush on the road.” Wei Chi pointed to a small figure on the map: “The five major military academies have 200,000 freshmen, and they’ve sent 300,000 senior students, as well as 10,000 instructors drawn from various military corps to ambush us.”
“But don’t you find it strange?” Wei Chi paused for a moment and said, “In the past, even in practical military training, the number of people sent was never specified, let alone where there were traps, as is the case now.”
"Now that it's all clearly marked, isn't it a bit strange?"
Extremes beget their opposites.
Jiang Si raised an eyebrow.
When Tie Hanhan gets serious, he's not silly at all; on the contrary, he's quite shrewd, especially when it comes to school matters.
"I don't know what military training was like in the past. I only know that no one knows who the hunter is or who the prey is until the very end."
"Which shortcut should we choose?" Wei Chi pointed to the five shortcut routes on the map: "I'll listen to you."
Jiang Si paused for a moment: "We should be in front of everyone now. We need to turn around and walk on the path we're on."
Wei Chi's gaze fell on her feet, and seeing her stomp her feet on her current location, he asked, "The path you're taking isn't marked on the map. If it's not marked, won't others think of it too?"
Jiang Si said earnestly, "Silly child, you are wrong. People from the First, Second and Third Military Academies all think they are the chosen ones."
"Winning the top spot in freshman military training is equivalent to making them famous throughout the empire, and they are willing to take risks and shortcuts."
"What we need to do is avoid them, reach the destination before them, and wait for them ahead of the destination."
Wei Chi's eyes widened involuntarily, and he stammered, "You mean, after they've looted the nameplates and epaulets, we'll lie in wait ahead of our destination and wipe them out in one fell swoop?"
Jiang Si chuckled darkly: "So we'll take a detour now, conserve our energy, avoid direct confrontation with anyone, and grab the prize at the end—it'll save us trouble."
Those who get closer to the finish line will have more nameplates and epaulets, and it will be much faster to grab them all at once than to harvest them one by one.
Wei Chi's eyes darted around, and he put the map away: "I'll listen to you. I've rested enough, let's go."
Jiang Si glanced at the large pool of blood on the ground, then patted Wei Chi on the shoulder: "Okay, let's go."
After speaking, she followed the messy footprints and bloodstains on the ground and walked forward first. She wondered curiously if the third-party group that hunted the mutated beasts was a bug in this military training? Would catching these people be a bonus?
Wei Chi felt a sense of relief wash over him, his fatigue vanished, and he strode forward with ease, backpack on his back.
Less than fifty miles from the route Jiang Si took, there was a huge natural lake.
The hunting legion, the mutated beast hunting squad, is taking a break. More than 30 people are huddled together, nudging each other.
Leia, the deputy commander of the first column, winked at Sizhang, the deputy commander of the second column, and asked, "What is the commander looking at over there?"
Si Zhang glanced at his commander, who was dressed in a military green combat uniform and sitting on the grass with his elbows on his knees, staring intently at his personal terminal. He lowered his voice and boldly said, "I guess it was Madam who sent him the bed photos!"
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