Chapter 33: Extreme Heat, Hounds

Lu Zhifeng’s movement to chop down a mushroom halted abruptly.

Jiang Si reached out to examine Jiang Linhai’s hands, but he shouted to stop her:
“Don’t touch me! The surface of these giant mushrooms isn’t toxic, but the stem is! Don’t be reckless!”

Jiang Si quickly put on two layers of plastic gloves. “It’s okay now. Dad, let me see.”

Jiang Linhai extended his hands—both were horribly swollen, covered in thick blisters. It looked a bit like bee stings.

Jiang Si pulled out some iodine, alcohol, and ointment from her bag to reduce the swelling. But the moment she touched his hand, Jiang Linhai yelped in pain—even worse than a rat bite.

His hands were horrifying, with yellow pus visibly moving under the skin.

Shen Baoying was terribly worried. “The swelling is too serious. If the blisters break, will the whole hand rot?”

Jiang Linhai widened his eyes. “Baoying, don’t scare me like that.”

There were too many toxic creatures in the apocalypse, and this was Jiang Si’s first time encountering giant mushrooms like these.

Would the iodine and ointment work? They could only wait and see.

After applying the medicine, Jiang Linhai’s hands began to feel like they were burning and itching. If Jiang Si hadn’t immobilized his arms, he would have scratched his own blisters open.

Since the medicine didn’t seem to work, Zhang Qingfang’s eyes reddened as she asked anxiously,
“Do we have to cut off both hands to save his life?”

Jiang Linhai shook his head wildly. “Maybe I just need to tough it out a little.”

If he lost both hands, he’d become a burden to the entire family. He’d rather die.

Jiang Si grew more anxious, even starting to regret bringing everyone into the forest.

If she had scouted ahead alone, Jiang Linhai wouldn’t have ended up like this.

She forced herself to calm down. “In nature, everything has its counterbalance. Maybe there’s something nearby that can neutralize the mushroom’s toxins.”

That was a lesson Jiang Si had learned in her previous life during the apocalypse.

Lu Zhifeng nodded. “Right, let’s look carefully.”

He recalled being bitten or injured in the forest before and often finding herbs nearby to ease the pain.

With mutations rampant post-apocalypse, maybe the antidote had mutated too.

But looking around—nothing but mushrooms.

Meanwhile, Jiang Linhai’s hands were getting worse. The blisters were spreading up his arms.

Zhang Qingzhi, deeply worried, suddenly turned to Qin Shen. “Xiao Shen, you’re a doctor. Can you save his hands?”

Everyone turned toward Qin Shen, clinging to their last hope.

Qin Shen studied Jiang Linhai’s hands for a long moment.

Jiang Linhai assumed it was hopeless and consoled him,
“These end-times diseases are strange. You’re a surgeon, not a dermatologist. It’s normal if you don’t know.”

Seeing Jiang Linhai forcing a smile, guilt overwhelmed Jiang Si again.

Then, Qin Shen suddenly looked up and said calmly,
“I have a skin medicine at home. It might work.”

The whole family instantly lit up.

Jiang Si spoke eagerly, “Then let’s go back quickly!”

She carefully cut down the mushroom, wrapped the stalk tightly in fabric and then in a plastic glove before handing it to others to carry.

Lu Zhifeng marked the area—if they ever needed to venture out under solar radiation again, they could harvest these mushrooms as umbrellas.

As they continued walking, a watchtower gradually appeared among the dead forest.

Lu Zhifeng said, “That’s the one Zhou Dajin guarded. I wonder if he’s still alive.”

Zhou Dajin, in his fifties, never married and lived alone. The other forest rangers disliked staying deep in the mountains, but he had watched over this place for twenty years.

If it weren’t for the need to communicate and resupply with the forest team, he might not have interacted with people at all.

Jiang Si raised her binoculars to look toward the tower—and locked eyes with a man wearing sunglasses and holding military binoculars.

Behind him, someone was holding a mushroom umbrella over his head.

Danger prickled Jiang Si’s instincts.

“There are strangers in the watchtower! Move, now!” she warned the group urgently.

Anyone still alive in the forest was undoubtedly dangerous.

Everyone picked up the pace immediately.

But to Zhang Xianchao, watching from the tower, Jiang Si’s group—carrying eye-catching giant mushrooms—was moving in plain sight.

Those mushrooms could block solar radiation. If brought to the city, they could be traded for vast supplies—worth dozens of times more than their poaching loot.

Such a scarce resource could form the foundation of a powerful faction.

In a world where others couldn’t go out during the day, having that power meant controlling the world.

Zhang Xianchao absolutely couldn’t let the secret of the giant mushrooms spread.

His eyes narrowed as he turned to Luo Daqiang and ordered, “Go. Wipe them out.”

Luo Daqiang, in the middle of slurping instant noodles, stood up clumsily. “Boss, didn’t we already kill Zhou Dajin?”

Zhang Xianchao glared and hurled his sunglasses at him.
“Eat, eat, eat! All you do is eat! Your brain’s smaller than a pig’s! Get down there and kill every last one of them!”

Luo Daqiang caught the sunglasses, stunned. His underlings gave him a meaningful glance, and he suddenly caught on.

Grabbing his gun, he rushed out—smashing his face into the door on the way down.

Dazed, he tumbled down the stairs with a loud crash.

If a fortune teller hadn’t told Zhang Xianchao that Luo Daqiang would bring him good luck, he would’ve killed him long ago.

Luo Daqiang gathered eight men and led a group of vicious hounds toward Jiang Si’s direction.

Luo Daqiang was fat and heavy, huffing and puffing at the back like an old dog.

“Woof! Woof! Woof!”

The hounds had caught the group’s scent—they were close.

Luo Daqiang’s eyes lit up, but he stepped right into a trap set around the mushrooms.

“Ahhh—!”

He screamed in agony as a snare hoisted him up into a tree.

His mushroom umbrella fell, exposing his skin—which sizzled under the radiation like meat on a grill. He screamed in pure torment, clutching his face.

Two of his men had to rush back and cut him down quickly.

Zhang Xianchao saw Luo Daqiang collapsed on the ground, face covered in blisters, howling in pain—and clenched his teeth.
“‘Brings me luck,’ my ass!”

Meanwhile, the eight hounds snarled like beasts, baring their fangs and surrounding Jiang Si’s group.

Dahei and Xiaohei barked furiously, warning them not to come closer.

But the trained attack hounds, raised to rip prey apart, didn’t even see Dahei and Xiaohei as a threat.

They crouched low, muscles coiled, ready to launch.

Jiang Si raised her gun—before she could shoot, the hounds suddenly froze, eyes filled with fear.

With a yelp, they tucked their tails and fled in panic.

Jiang Si blinked, then looked at Qin Shen.

It was like the hounds took one glance at him—and were terrified.

She didn’t have time to ponder it, though—because just then, six armed men stepped into view.