“There are wild rabbits too!”

“Maybe it’s a leopard!”

“Everyone be careful, let’s surround it first. The noise isn’t too loud, so it shouldn’t be a fierce beast.”

The last speaker was Tiezhu, who already gripped his machete in his hand. As the blacksmith’s son, Tiezhu often worked the forge, and his strength was the greatest among the boys. With him there, the young men seemed to have found their backbone.

On the other side, Xu Yan, who had just dug up the mountain ginseng, was rushing back with a stone already clutched in his hand.

As the boys gradually surrounded the rustling bushes, a faint fishy smell drifted from the undergrowth. There was no panicked hopping of wild rabbits—what the boys heard instead was a low, throaty growl.

Sensing trouble, Tiezhu quickly waved his hand to signal everyone to stop, but one thin boy had already gotten very close to the bushes. At that moment, a black shadow suddenly burst from the undergrowth, charging straight at the thin boy.

Roaring, screaming, and the sharp whistle of a stone cutting through air all rang out almost simultaneously. What appeared before the boys’ eyes was not a wild rabbit, but a massive black wolf!

The black wolf, even larger than a leopard, lunged at the thin boy with its bloody maw wide open. Just as its gleaming fangs were about to bite into its prey, Xu Yan’s stone arrived at the same moment.

Smack!

One stone hit the wolf’s mouth dead-on.

The wolf’s jaws, forced apart by the stone’s impact, snapped shut just a foot away from the thin boy, barely missing him. The taste of brushing shoulders with death left the boy too frightened to move. Tiezhu quickly rushed forward and pulled him back.

The black wolf, struck in the mouth by the stone, crouched on its front legs and let out a sinister growl. Its pair of blue wolf eyes looked toward Xu Yan, who had just arrived.

The black wolf was enormous. Not only did its wolf eyes surge with human-like hatred, but in the center of its pupils, there was actually a faint red ring, like a bloody tree ring. Moreover, outside this blood ring, there seemed to be the shadow of a second red circle, though it was even fainter and more blurred, and incomplete.

“Be careful, fall back! Everyone gather around!”

Tiezhu held his machete in front of him, pressing the black wolf while calling the boys together. More than ten boys facing a lone wolf wasn’t actually too dangerous.

After all, several boys carried machetes, and Xu Yan’s stones were both fierce and accurate. As long as it wasn’t a wolf pack, even if a fierce tiger appeared, they might not be unable to escape.

Whoosh!

The standoff lasted only a moment before Xu Yan flicked his hand and sent out a second stone, but the black wolf nimbly dodged it. He then urgently shouted, “Go, quickly go!”

Hearing Xu Yan say to leave, Tiezhu was stunned.

More than ten children from poor families mostly had considerable strength, and with five or six machetes in hand, after seeing that the black wolf was alone, Tiezhu had even considered hunting this black wolf as well.

One rabbit couldn’t fill more than ten people—it would barely satisfy their cravings. But if they could hunt a wolf, each of their families could enjoy a hearty meal of wolf meat, Tiezhu thought.

“It’s a lone wolf, no need to fear.”

“Kill it, and my parents can eat well for two meals.”

“I want the wolf’s tail—it’s fluffy and would definitely be warm wrapped around my neck.”

Even little Xiaohua, the youngest, wasn’t too afraid of a lone wolf and was already making plans for it. The other boys were even more eager to try.

“Go!”

Xu Yan’s voice was now incredibly low, almost hoarse as he shouted.

A lone wolf indeed wasn’t much, but a lone wolf with two heads was something that Xu Yan believed neither he nor these boys could handle.

The other boys couldn’t see it, but in Xu Yan’s eyes, the black wolf in front of them definitely had two wolf heads!

A demon! Xu Yan thought.

The world is vast and full of wonders. Since ghosts and supernatural beings exist, there would naturally be monsters too—ordinary people just can’t see them.

Ghosts and spirits—Xu Yan had seen them more than once. Since his birth, what he saw included not only humans but also many creatures unknown to the world. The black wolf before him now, Xu Yan could completely confirm, was a wolf-shaped demon!

Tiezhu also heard the gravity in Xu Yan’s tone at this moment. He was stunned for an instant, then immediately protected his companions as they slowly retreated.

Perhaps normally these boys would scoff at Xu Yan’s commands, but in the deep mountains, even Tiezhu wouldn’t think his experience was richer than Xu Yan’s.

Xu Yan often entered the deep mountains to search for ginseng, so his experience in the mountains far exceeded that of the other children. Since Xu Yan considered it dangerous, then the black wolf opposite them definitely had something strange about it.

As the boys slowly retreated, Xu Yan held a bird egg-sized stone in his hand, almost squeezing sweat from it, staring unblinkingly at the black wolf.

Awoo!

With a sinister roar, the black wolf clearly had no intention of letting these blood meals go. Its crouched wolf legs suddenly kicked off as it pounced toward Tiezhu at the front of the group.

As soon as the black wolf moved, Tiezhu also swung his machete, but before he could swing it behind him, the black wolf had already reached him. The speed of its attack was incredibly fast, reaching an unbelievable degree.

Just as the black wolf’s fangs were about to bite Tiezhu, Xu Yan on the side stepped forward and bent his body, assuming a running posture. His body remained still in place, but his right hand, already swung behind his back, came around with a whooshing sound.

“Flying Locust!”

Whoosh!

Smack!

Flying like a locust, striking like lightning.

Amid the boys’ exclamations, this flying stone that Xu Yan threw with a low roar had twice the force of the previous one. Not only was it faster, but the stone also carried a layer of flowing light that only Xu Yan could see among all the boys. It aimed not for the wolf’s mouth, but for its eye.

Over more than ten years, the old Taoist priest of Chengyun Temple had taught Xu Yan not only scripture recitation and some medical principles, but also an extremely fierce stone-throwing technique. This stone-throwing technique had three forms, requiring extremely precise force to execute, and the first form was called Flying Locust.

The black wolf’s speed suddenly increased, but Xu Yan’s stone was no slower. Just as it was about to hit the wolf’s eye, the other invisible wolf head suddenly lit up with two red lights, as if opening another pair of wolf eyes. The moment the red light appeared, the black wolf desperately tilted its head in mid-air. The stone missed its eye and hit the wolf’s mouth for the second time.

Xu Yan used his full strength for this Flying Locust technique. After throwing the stone, his right arm immediately became sore and numb—this was the backlash from using too much borrowed force. Although resting for a few days would heal it, at this critical moment, the numb arm became Xu Yan’s greatest obstacle.

The black wolf, hit again, developed a gaping wound at the edge of its mouth, and its entire muzzle swelled red. In its sinister wolf eyes, besides deeper hatred, a trace of wariness appeared. At this moment, the boys led by Tiezhu all picked up stones and threw them at the black wolf in a flurry. Two boys even threw handfuls of dirt.

After being hit repeatedly by Xu Yan’s stones, when the black wolf saw the shower of stones coming, it dodged left and right and actually didn’t pounce forward. Taking advantage of the swirling dust, the group of boys quickly retreated into the distance, with Xu Yan enduring the numbness in his arm and bringing up the rear.

Tiezhu, who was leading, had been badly frightened by the black wolf’s earlier pounce. He wasn’t unfamiliar with lone wolves, but this was his first encounter with such an agile black wolf.

If they ran wildly through the deep mountains with the boys, they definitely couldn’t escape the black wolf’s hunt. Perhaps abandoning one or two weak boys could delay the black wolf, but these boys are all excellent playmates—no one wants to abandon anyone to feed the wolf, Tiezhu thought. So Tiezhu steeled his heart and led the boys toward the cave that had appeared after the collapse on the nearby hillside.

In Tiezhu’s mind, even if the black wolf is agile, as long as we defend inside the cave with several machetes, the black wolf definitely can’t charge in.

When the boys gradually approached the cave on the hillside, Xu Yan, bringing up the rear, finally discovered the direction his companions were fleeing.

The cave was already close at hand. When he realized Tiezhu was leading his companions to escape into the cave, Xu Yan’s heart immediately sank.

What Tiezhu saw as a place of escape, Xu Yan viewed as nothing more than a tomb for burial!