Chapter 14

The wild boar had used all its strength to charge towards Qin Qingman.

At that moment, Qin Qingman avoided it, and the boar could not stop itself. It kept sliding faster and faster down the slope until it flew off the edge.

A second later, Qin Qingman heard the heavy sound of it crashing to the ground.

Accompanying this was the wild boar’s furious scream.

This was bad.

It hadn’t died, and she couldn’t tell whether it was seriously injured or not!

Qin Qingman didn’t have the time to glance at the boar’s sorry state; she hurried to escape. Every second was a golden opportunity for survival at a time like this.

However, she wasn’t running blindly.

She had prepared herself.

Qin Qingman returned to the spot where she had been watching Zhu Hongxia and the others make fools of themselves.

There, she had discarded two flat wooden boards.

These were the ones she had unknowingly discovered and dug out of the snow earlier.

These weren’t ordinary wooden boards; they were skis.

The simple skis with broken bindings for securing the feet.

They were probably something an earlier hunter had abandoned when they were no longer useful.

Though Qin Qingman had been watching Zhu Hongxia and the others back then, she had also been studying how these skis could be used again.

In this critical moment, she immediately put her plan into action.

The scarf around her neck was quickly removed.

Qin Qingman pulled the dagger from her boot and forcefully cut the scarf in two. She then swiftly tied the skis tightly to her boots using the scarf.

While doing all of this, Qin Qingman remained calm. Even as she heard the wild boar’s savage sounds approaching, her hands didn’t shake, and her expression didn’t change.

This calmness, unshaken even when disaster was right in front of her, earned her the chance to escape.

Finally, when the wild boar appeared in her line of sight, both her feet were firmly secured to the skis. But even then, it wasn’t all over. There was still one more thing she needed.

The ski poles.

Without the ski poles, she was like a car without an engine.

The wild boar tumbled down a small cliff about three meters high. Even though there was a thick layer of snow below, its own weight caused it to suffer some injuries. Its running speed had slowed, but it was now even more furious and violent than before.

The moment it saw Qin Qingman, it let out a loud roar and charged towards her.

Fortunately, this time it was running uphill.

Coupled with its injuries, its movements were still affected, giving Qin Qingman the time she needed to chop down a nearby tree branch.

The dagger in her hand was very sharp; it was an essential tool for people living in the mountains.

Chopping down two branches took some time, and removing the extraneous parts from them also required time. But Qin Qingman didn’t panic; she methodically carried out each step.

Just as the wild boar neared, she managed to forcefully plant the rudimentary ski poles she had made into the ground and pushed herself forward, sliding away.

The skis, tied with the scarf, didn’t glide very far, but they were much faster than walking.

This unexpected escape stunned the wild boar, but it only made the boar angrier.

Grunting loudly, the wild boar chased fiercely after Qin Qingman.

One chased, the other fled. Their speed wasn’t particularly fast, but after five or six minutes, Qin Qingman caught up with Qin Xiang and the others.

She appeared to be sliding in a panic, with the enraged wild boar following closely behind.

The injured boar was already in a bad mood.

It didn’t care whether Qin Xiang and the others had provoked it; it charged straight through them.

With a few screams, Qin Xiang and her two sisters-in-law were knocked to the ground by the boar.

Fortunately, the boar’s target was Qin Qingman, and knocking into Qin Xiang and the others was just incidental. The impact wasn’t too strong.

However, it still made Qin Xiang and her two sisters-in-law pale from the pain. They lay in the snow, crying out in agony, which startled Zheng Guihua and the others, who had hurried over. They watched helplessly as the large wild boar continued chasing after Qin Qingman and disappeared from sight.

“Wild… wild boar! Director, what should we do?”

Aunt Ah Yun trembled as she looked at Zheng Guihua, fear evident in her eyes.

It was terrifying. A wild boar of that size—none of them dared to take a step forward, let alone try to rescue Qin Qingman.

Other villagers who had come running after hearing the commotion were also shaken, drenched in sweat from the shock. They hadn’t expected to encounter such a large wild boar in these woods. Without firearms, they didn’t dare provoke it.

“Director, should we call the secretary and the others back? They have hunting rifles.” Zhang Hongmei, the oldest of the women who had come up the mountain, nearly sixty years old, was experienced and knew that in this situation, they needed outside help.

Zheng Guihua’s face had already furrowed in worry. “The secretary and the others have been gone for over an hour. I don’t know where they are right now, so I can’t get in touch with them. Here’s what we’ll do: You all hurry and check the injuries of the people who were knocked down by the boar. I’ll use a whistle to gather everyone and head back to the village.”

“Okay, we’ll go check on them.”

With the wild boar’s absence, Zhang Hongmei and the others weren’t as frightened. They hurried toward the people who had been knocked down.

As for Qin Qingman, the villagers truly felt helpless. They could only hope that she could use the skis to escape the boar’s pursuit. If not, someone might really get hurt—or worse.

Frowning, Zheng Guihua blew the emergency assembly whistle.

—o—o—o—

In the mountains and forests, the emergency assembly whistle was an absolute command. No matter what the villagers were doing, they had to gather immediately.

The clear, sharp whistle traveled far, not only startling the villagers who were digging tree holes, but also catching Wei Ling’s attention.

Although the sharp whistle was not a military signal, the tension and urgency in the sound made Wei Ling sense something unusual. He gave a shake of the reins in his hand and urged his horse toward the direction of the whistle.

The sky, clear and windless before, now carried a cold breeze as Qin Qingman pushed forcefully on the ski poles.

It was freezing.

Her neck and ears, no longer covered by the scarf, were exposed to the cold air. Riding at such speed through the forest was incredibly cold. It was even possible she could get frostbite.

But compared to her life, Qin Qingman couldn’t care about that.

She pushed hard on the ski poles, hoping to distance herself from the wild boar. As long as she kept escaping, the boar would eventually give up if it couldn’t catch her.

With that belief, Qin Qingman continued to push on the ski poles.

—o—o—o—

Wei Ling, rushing to the sound of the whistle, had not yet reached its source when he spotted Qin Qingman’s figure from far away.

Behind her, the wild boar was still relentlessly chasing.

After this long pursuit, the boar’s aggression had reached its peak.

The boar was too angry—it could not tolerate the provocation from Qin Qingman.

Its small eyes were not only locked on her back, but they also darted around, showing that this large creature was not as clumsy as its size suggested.

Qin Qingman, who had been fleeing, was also struggling.

Both her tools, the skis and poles, had been hastily put together, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep going.

Crack!

Just when things seemed to get worse, she heard a sharp crack as she fell heavily to the ground.

Her rough ski pole had broken.

“Snort—” The wild boar, closing in, saw Qin Qingman fall and became even more excited. Its running speed increased, and the force of its charge grew stronger.

As the boar rapidly approached, Qin Qingman, who had just managed to lift her upper body, didn’t even have time to wipe the snow off her face before another blast of snow and wind hit her.

In the blurring of her vision, Qin Qingman let out a helpless smile.

She hadn’t expected her story, her fate in this world, to be so short-lived.

It was a pity that Chuchu was still waiting for her at home. The child was so small, and without her to care for him, she didn’t know if he would be able to grow up safely.

She could only hope that the village party secretary would look after the poor child more.

Bang!

The dull sound of impact rang out.

The wild boar didn’t charge into Qin Qingman as she had expected.

Instead, with a thundering scream, its massive body fell to the ground with a loud crash.

As the sunlight shone down, the snowflakes on Qin Qingman’s lashes melted away, and she saw a tall man approaching her.

The blurry face gradually became clear until it was unmistakably sharp.

It was Wei Ling.

The same Wei Ling she had briefly met at the State-Owned Restaurant in town.

At that moment, Wei Ling had an imposing aura, his expression calm. He extended a large hand towards Qin Qingman. “Comrade, are you injured?”

“No… no.” Qin Qingman replied, her gaze shifting from Wei Ling’s face to his hand. The bloodied palm made her instinctively shudder.

Wei Ling’s expression stiffened, and as he tried to extend his other hand to Qin Qingman, she reached out and took his bloodied hand.

One hand was clean, the other covered in blood, creating a stark contrast between the two.

Just as Qin Qingman was being helped to her feet by Wei Ling, trouble also found Chuchu back at Kaoshan Village.

While Chuchu was happily playing with two geese at home, there came a loud knock on the courtyard door. The reason for the knock was that Qin Qingman had told Chuchu to lock the door before heading up the mountain.

Hearing the knock, Chuchu excitedly opened the door, thinking his sister had returned.

Instead, standing outside the courtyard door were Qin Caiyun and her two brothers.

“Chuchu, open the door.” Qin Jianming called impatiently.

“Brother Jianming, what are you doing? My sister isn’t home. If you have something to say, wait for her to come back.” Chuchu didn’t want to open the door for his cousin. Judging by the displeasure on his face, he could tell they were here to cause trouble.

“Open the door when I tell you to, don’t ask so many questions. Hurry up, open it.” Qin Jianming’s temper was already bad in the cold weather, and when Chuchu kept questioning him, he became even more impatient. His face darkened as he glared at the child.

Bang!

The response from Chuchu was the loud sound of the door being slammed shut.

Qin Caiyun: “…”

The child’s gotten bold!