The young man raised the stone in his hand, looked at it in the sun, and asked us suspiciously, "Is this just a piece of rotten stone the token of Fengmen Village?"
As soon as I saw what Jiang Man threw to the young man, I understood her intention and replied, "After we opened the safe, this was the only thing inside. Since you were able to ambush us here, you should also know very well that the second competition in Fengmen Village is not for us to find treasure, but to test the participating teams' knowledge of feng shui and their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. This token is actually the most insignificant part."
Jiang Man added, "During this competition, everyone's belongings were taken, and we don't have your ability to deliver things using spiders. We can't exactly carry a rock around with us, can we?"
The young man found no loopholes in our words, put the stone in his pocket, and tapped the bone fragment to make the spider retreat: "Then thank you all. We will keep our promise and act with you. We will leave after ten hours, once you have confirmed that this friend is alright."
"No need. Now that we've given you this token, we should head to the next location as soon as possible to find another token. Neither of us trusts the other, and going together would only cause unnecessary trouble."
Seeing that the young man had already believed the stone Jiang Man had given him, I said to him, "Now that we have given you what you wanted, let's go our separate ways. I just hope you can keep your promise and make sure that my friend's antidote is real."
"Don't worry, the antidote is definitely real, but I have to go with you."
The bone fragment in the young man's hand vibrated, and the spiders that had retreated crawled all over him as if remotely controlled. He continued, "None of us know what the real token looks like, and I can't be sure if this thing is real or fake. So I have to set off with you and wait until we see the next token to confirm that what I have is the real thing."
I didn't expect the young man to be so cautious, so I asked, "None of us know what the token is. What if the other tokens are different from this one?"
The young man responded clearly, "That's easy. Since you say the token I have is real and I've already obtained it, I'll return this one to you after I find the next one, and then I can leave without worry."
The other party's answer caught me off guard, and in order not to give myself away, I could only nod and agree: "No problem, let's do it your way, but after we get the second token, we must separate and leave. I believe you don't want to be on guard against us all the time, do you?"
The young man reached an agreement with us, nodding and saying, "We offended some enemies when we went up the mountain. We'd better leave this place as soon as possible to avoid any further trouble."
The girl jumped down from the rock: "Also, a reminder to everyone: while you're with us, never think about secretly eliminating us or taking back the token. You need to understand one thing: some people, even in death, can still seek revenge."
I roughly guessed that the revenge the girl mentioned was probably related to the poisonous creatures they were raising, so I didn't answer them and headed down the mountain path first.
When the couple saw us set off, they also gathered together and followed behind our group.
After we left the waterfall area, I deliberately kept some distance from the couple before asking Jiang Man, "Where did you get that fake token you gave them earlier?"
"I picked it up by the river. I saw that the pebble was crystal clear and quite pretty when I passed by, so I just picked it up. I was thinking that if someone found it, I could use it as a token to deceive them. I didn't expect to use it so soon."
After answering my question, Jiang Man continued, "The couple behind us are very clever, and they can even control poisons. It's too dangerous to have them around. Although each group can win this competition by obtaining one token, everyone knows the value of the tokens. Getting one more means a lot of benefits. Moreover, the tokens we gave them are fake. If we take them to find a second token, we will suffer a huge loss."
I also feel a bit of a headache about this problem: "The best way now is to get rid of them or eliminate them, but we are not familiar with their methods and background, and rashly turning against them will also cause trouble! In all my life, I have never heard of spiders being controlled by humans."
The sudden appearance of the man and woman dampened our joy at receiving our first token of love. To get away from this troublesome place, we walked quite a distance after nightfall before stopping.
A mountain rain was brewing, and the air became heavy again. However, we were lucky that night; just as raindrops began to fall from the sky, we found a natural cave to take shelter in.
The rain in the past few days had caused some of the dried fish we had prepared to become moldy. When Lin Que returned from outside with some branches, I lit a campfire and handed a few pieces of dried fish to the young man: "This is food we prepared in advance. No one in the team would poison it, so eat it without worry."
"The food is all moldy, how can we eat it?"
The young man glanced disdainfully at the dried fish in my hand, then got up and walked outside: "Leave dinner to me, you guys wait here."
In just ten minutes, he returned to the cave carrying two pangolins and several snakes: "Never eaten these before, have you? In the city, eating just one would be enough to get you jailed. Tonight, it's on me!"
As he spoke, the young man skillfully skinned the pangolin, removed its internal organs, and then skewered it onto a tree branch.
Since we entered the mountains, our only food has been dried roasted fish. Because we have no seasoning, we can only taste the fishy smell.
While the young man was roasting the pangolin, he poked several holes in an unidentified wild fruit with a twig and sprayed the juice onto the roasted meat, instantly filling the air with a fragrant aroma. Even I couldn't help but swallow my saliva.
After the food was cooked, the young man tore off a piece of meat from the pangolin and handed it to me: "Try it."
I looked at the meat in the young man's hand, hesitated for a moment, and did not take it.
The young man revealed a relaxed expression: "What, are you afraid I'll poison you? Now that I have the token, there's absolutely no need for me to continue poisoning you. We were able to find the waterfall earlier because we were tracking other teams. Next, we need you to find the second token, so there's no need for me to harm you."
I knew the young man had a point, so I explained, "You misunderstood. I'm not afraid you'll poison it, but this stuff is a bit hard to swallow."
"Humans are animals too. As animals, we can't escape the law of the jungle. Without enough physical strength, how can we keep going?"
The young man shoved a stick with meat stuck in it into my hand: "Try it, the taste will definitely surprise you."
I glanced at the moldy grilled fish, hesitated for a moment, and then took a bite. To my surprise, the pangolin was exceptionally delicious. With the addition of wild fruits, it had a sweet and sour taste that was many times better than our grilled fish.
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