Chapter 395: Unforgettable

At this moment, the grilled fish in her hand was ready. She handed one to Gu Weiwei and casually reminded her, “Be careful, it’s hot.”

The two of them quickly ate one fish each. To be honest, the fish they grilled themselves tasted great.

Beside them, Ye Fan finished the grilled fish in his hand, clapped his hands, and then smiled as he said, “Comrade Li, I heard from the soldier who gave us the fish that you were the one who caught them. How did you manage to get so many? As I know, the fish in this mountain are hard to catch. You must have some skill in fishing, right? Teach me sometime. That way, when I go up the mountain to collect herbs, I’ll be able to find something to eat too.”

While eating her grilled fish, Li Yiyi paused slightly after hearing his question.

However, she quickly resumed eating the fish as if nothing had happened and answered his question, “Actually, I didn’t do much. I just threw a few pills I made into the river. I didn’t expect it to work so well.”

Ye Fan smiled and asked, “What kind of pills were they? Can I take a look?”

Without raising her head from the fish, Li Yiyi replied, “Sorry, I’ve used up all the pills. But if you’re interested, when we go down the mountain, I’ll give you a few.”

“Alright, when we’re off the mountain, don’t forget about it, Comrade Li,” Ye Fan said happily.

Li Yiyi looked at his sincere smile and responded lightly, “I won’t forget.”

“By the way, Comrade Li, on our way up the mountain, I suddenly remembered something old. I heard that there’s a kind of magical herb called ‘Baixian Grass’ on the Wushan Mountain here. If you find it, it can cure all kinds of difficult diseases, even the most difficult to treat cancers,” he immediately brought up another topic.

After saying that, he smiled awkwardly, adding, “But this is just something passed down by the older generation, and I heard that someone found it many years ago.”

“Comrade Ye, you’re truly a local here. You really know everything about this place,” Li Yiyi said, giving him a half-smiling, half-teasing look.

Ye Fan chuckled at her comment. “I just liked listening to the elders tell stories, so I ended up learning a lot.”

Soon, the group finished eating the grilled fish and rested for half an hour. Once the sun was no longer as harsh, they continued deeper into the forest.

Up ahead, Hong Shuo, who was scouting the way, looked at the deep mountains around them and scratched his head, then asked his good friend, “Old Jiang, why does this mountain seem like no one’s ever been here? The ground here is so flat. Apart from animal footprints, I don’t see anything else.”

“You noticed that?” Jiang Hong turned around with a look of appreciation at his friend.

“What do you mean? You knew about this already? Does that mean we’ve been fooled?” Hong Shuo immediately walked up to him, looking serious.

Jiang Hong shook his head. “We haven’t been fooled. Back by the stream, I did see some footprints, but I noticed those footprints only went around in circles. In the end, they headed down the mountain, meaning someone had come up, but they left pretty quickly.”

“That’s not being fooled? Then why are we still going forward? Since those people already went down the mountain, we should follow them down too,” Hong Shuo said, confused.

“To draw them out. Since these people have put so much effort into luring us up the mountain, I want to see what they want from us or what they’re looking for,” Jiang Hong replied coldly.

Looking at his friend’s serious face, Hong Shuo pressed his lips together. “But we’ve brought the researchers with us. What if we run into danger?”

“Even if we tell them to go down now, they probably won’t leave easily. They won’t go down until they hit a wall,” Jiang Hong said, glancing at the researchers resting nearby.

Hong Shuo followed his gaze and saw the researchers, who, despite complaining about being tired, seemed excited when they found some plants or insects along the way. They were unlikely to want to go back down the mountain now.

“Alright, don’t think too much about it. Let’s wait and see what happens,” Jiang Hong patted his shoulder.

Not far away, there was some commotion as someone discovered a type of spider they had never seen before and was examining it intently.

“This spider is so small! I think it’s the smallest spider in the world. I didn’t expect to find such a tiny spider in our country,” one entomologist said, intrigued by the spider crawling on the ground.

While everyone was distracted by the small spider, Li Yiyi’s attention was focused on the animal footprints on the ground. Her brows furrowed.

“Comrade Li, why the long face? Is something wrong?” Shen Zhou, having noticed her furrowed brow, approached her with concern.

Li Yiyi pointed to a large set of animal footprints nearby. “Comrade Shen, do you see these footprints on the ground?”

At her reminder, Shen Zhou noticed that there were indeed many footprints here, and they were much larger than the ones they had seen earlier on the way up.

“Such big footprints! What animal do you think they belong to? Does anyone here recognize them?” Shen Zhou asked, frowning.

“These are wolf tracks, and those are tiger tracks. Judging by the size, both animals must weigh over a hundred pounds,” Li Yiyi said, examining the prints.

Hearing this, Shen Zhou instinctively gasped. “Wolf and tiger tracks? And they’re so large! These must be fully grown. This place is dangerous.”

“Indeed. We’re already deep in the mountains, and no one comes up here regularly. The animals here are probably very fierce,” Li Yiyi said, analyzing the situation seriously.

“This is serious. I’ll go inform the others so they don’t get too excited and forget about the dangers here,” Shen Zhou quickly turned to notify the group of researchers examining the spider.

At the same time, Li Yiyi walked with a serious expression to Jiang Hong, who was arranging the protection for the group.