Chapter 25: Island Survival 6
Now it was time to kill the mother vine.
Xu Dongdong passed the arrows, and Chu Yun took them, drawing her bow to its absolute limit. Yu Wenhao lit the pine-resin-soaked cloth wrapped around the arrows.
The three of them filled their respective roles, coordinating flawlessly. Arrows shot out one after another with a sharp swoosh, pinning themselves securely into the mother vine. The resin-soaked cloth burned exceptionally fast, and the flames began harvesting the life of the mother vine like a grim reaper.
It was exactly as Chu Yun had anticipated. The offshoot vines relied on the mother vine for nutrients. Now that they had severed the connection between mother and child, the mother vine was on the verge of destruction, and the offshoot vines lost their constriction power.
Chu Yun kept her eyes locked on the mother vine, precisely calculating the burning radius and waiting time in her mind. At a critical juncture between life and death, there couldn’t be a single slip-up. The moment she saw the timing was ripe, she immediately issued the command, and Yu Wenhao and Xu Dongdong went into action instantly.
Yu Wenhao led the charge, swinging his large machete to hack down the obstructive offshoot vines ahead, while Xu Dongdong also used his sharp knife to push them aside with all his might. Because the offshoot vines had lost their connection to the mother vine, they had turned into ordinary vines. They quickly cleared the obstacles, closely following Chu Yun to stand before the mother vine.
Controlling the soil within her space, she smothered the mother vine stump in batches. With the first layer, the burning flames shrank significantly. She added a second and third layer to patch up any leaks.
Because the group moved rapidly, the burning radius of the fire hadn’t been very large to begin with, and it was quickly extinguished. The group checked thoroughly, and only after ensuring not a single spark remained did they head back to Skinny Monkey’s side to collect their payment.
Chu Yun walked at the rear. Looking at the sturdy vines, her heart stirred, and she couldn’t resist storing a few lengths into her space; a conservative estimate put each one at several dozen meters long.
On Skinny Monkey and the fat guy’s end, the two were constricted to the point of near-suffocation, and having gone without food for over a day, they were dizzy with starvation. Suddenly, they felt the vines coiled around them abruptly slacken.
The two jolted awake, exchanging a joyful glance. Before the grins could fully form on their faces, they completely lost their support from the unraveling vines, and their suspended bodies crashed to the ground with two loud thuds.
When Chu Yun’s group arrived, the two were sitting messily on the ground, rubbing each other’s shoulders and seemingly grumbling about something.
Seeing them staying put without any intention of fleeing, Chu Yun raised an eyebrow; they were relatively honest.
Little did she know, Skinny Monkey and the fat guy simply lacked the strength to flee. Moreover, Chu Yun’s squad was still completely pristine at this stage; any clear-sighted person could tell they were a formidable force, unlike themselves who were living worse than beggars. Rather than fighting for a supply pack they couldn’t reach anyway, it was better to do them a favor.
Seeing Chu Yun and the others return, Skinny Monkey disregarded the aches all over his body and scrambled to his feet. “The big shots are back! You didn’t get hurt, did you? Thank you so much, truly! You can call me Skinny Monkey, and he’s Fatty. Without you, we wouldn’t have known how long we’d be hanging up there. You’re practically my savior! You have no idea, the feeling of being hung up there was just awful…”
Chu Yun cut him off. “Alright, skip the nonsense. Tell us about the supply pack.”
Skinny Monkey wasn’t as lacking in discernment as other people. He could tell from the group’s dynamic that this squad was led by Chu Yun, so the one he curried favor with most blatantly was also Chu Yun.
Xu Dongdong and Yu Wenhao looked on with faces full of gloom as Skinny Monkey bypassed them entirely to approach Chu Yun, massaging her shoulders while saying sycophantically, “Big shot, you have no idea how perilous it was back then. Fatty and I were being pursued all over the place by vultures, and we happened to cross a cliff. The two of us were pecked by those bald bastards until we almost fell over. That cliff is easily fifty meters high; falling off would definitely reduce a person to splinters. But by a stroke of luck, we discovered a supply pack had fallen right onto a tree branch extending halfway down the cliff. I put my 20/20 vision on the line—there’s no way I saw wrong.”
Looking at Skinny Monkey’s tattered clothes, which bore numerous tears resembling bird pecks, Chu Yun felt a wave of helplessness. Unable to even handle a few birds, she truly didn’t understand how these two had managed to survive until now.
Chu Yun ordered, “Alright. Skinny Monkey and Fatty will lead the way. Prepare to set out now.”
Skinny Monkey replied loudly, “Understood, Boss!”
Xu Dongdong and Yu Wenhao: “…”
Why does it feel like our boss is about to be poached by another team?
Skinny Monkey mentioned that the place was quite far away, and pushing their pace, they would likely arrive around dusk.
At noon, they rested on the spot for an hour to replenish their stamina.
The group retrieved steamed potatoes and a small piece of leftover roast goat from last night from their backpacks to prepare lunch. Seeing Skinny Monkey and Fatty staring expectantly at the food in her hands—their gazes looking as though they wanted to lick even the residual oil droplets off her fingers—Chu Yun was disgusted by her own analogy. She tossed over two extra potatoes she had prepared and turned her back.
Chu Yun stated, “Eat quickly, then rest. Don’t starve to death before you’ve even brought us there.”
Tears welled up in Skinny Monkey’s eyes, and he nearly broke down. “Thank you, thank you, Boss.”
Eating nothing but wild vegetables and tree bark for days had been pure agony; he never wanted to experience the feeling of an empty stomach again.
He and Fatty each took a potato the size of a child’s fist, cradling them like treasures as they ate them bite by tiny bite. The power of starch was truly not to be underestimated; with one small potato down, their stomachs began to warm up, and strength slowly returned to their bodies.
An hour later, the five replenished their stamina and continued on their way. It wasn’t until 5:00 PM that they reached the cliff Skinny Monkey had spoken of. Above the cliff stood a few trees and a jumble of large rocks.
Chu Yun stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down. The cliff was exceptionally high and steep, roughly fifteen stories tall. A person falling from the eighth floor would be reduced to a pulp, let alone a fifteen-story cliff. Sure enough, exactly as Skinny Monkey had said, the supply pack sat wedged amidst a tree branch extending out from the cliff, unnoticeable without a close look.
“How about it, Boss? I didn’t lie to you, right?” Skinny Monkey came over to curry favor with Chu Yun again.
Chu Yun replied, “Mm. Let’s figure out how to get down.”
“To get down, ropes are indispensable. Where are we going to find a rope that long?” Yu Wenhao frowned as he looked toward Chu Yun.
Chu Yun’s heart stirred. She possessed ropes, but the ropes were stored inside her storage ring. Pulling them out would inevitably reveal to Skinny Monkey and his partner that she possessed a spatial item.
Therefore, the first priority was to handle Skinny Monkey and Fatty.
Skinny Monkey clearly felt the gaze Chu Yun directed at him shift, resembling a jackal locking onto its prey. She isn’t planning to commit murder for the spoils, is she?
His sharp intuition told him that even if he and Fatty combined forces, they wouldn’t last a minute against her. Thinking of this, a drop of cold sweat rolled down Skinny Monkey’s temple, and his heart began to pound frantically with unease. He was terrified Chu Yun would hear his heartbeat, discover his wariness, and silence him.
“Are you two planning to keep following us, or…?”
Chu Yun suddenly spoke. Skinny Monkey and Fatty had just run through a thousand scenarios of their own demise in their minds—a person in panic inevitably jumps at shadows—and right now, their hearts were jolted high into their throats.
What? Keep following her, or… or leave on their own?
The two finally processed her words. Chu Yun wasn’t preparing to kill them, but was giving them a choice.
She was inclined to bring them along; if they cut the rope while her final teammate was descending the cliff, the loss would outweigh the gain. Bringing them along also provided two extra sources of labor.
“Can we… can we keep following you?” Skinny Monkey asked cautiously. “I swear, we will never cause trouble for you, and we will never covet your supplies.”
Hearing this, Fatty also raised three fingers to his temple to make an oath. They had thought it through: relying on themselves, it would be difficult to even survive past tomorrow, and clearing the stage was an absolute pipe dream. Dying early or dying late was all the same, so it was better to follow a big shot to gamble for a chance. Now that the big shot was willing to take them along, why would they refuse?
Chu Yun nodded with satisfaction. “Mm, good awareness. As long as you follow me and don’t harbor those wicked thoughts, I will protect you for as long as I remain standing.”
Skinny Monkey and Fatty looked at Chu Yun fervently, resembling brainwashed cult followers.
Chu Yun didn’t fear them growing greedy either; her combat power completely crushed them, and even if they developed greed, she would force it back down. She retrieved the few lengths of vines she had stored away this morning from her storage ring. An ordinary person encountering the man-eating vines would only end up as prey, so who would ever think of utilizing its vines? Chu Yun directed the group to knot the vines together.
Skinny Monkey and Fatty obediently went about handling the vines. While their expressions remained flat, their hearts were already churning with massive waves. Could this be the legendary spatial item?! Oh my god, they actually encountered one in this lifetime! What was even more exciting was that the person who possessed the spatial item was their boss. This… what an immense honor.
There were three vines in total, each measuring slightly over twenty meters long. Combined, it should be sufficient, but after deducting the lengths used for knotting and binding to anchors, the vines would be a tight fit.
Chu Yun didn’t plan on taking out her escape rope. Once they descended, they wouldn’t be coming back up, so these vines would be discarded anyway, but she needed to save her escape rope for future use.
Chu Yun took the knotted vines from them, selected the nearest large tree, and carefully wrapped it around the trunk. She tossed the other end over the cliff, and exactly as imagined, the vines fell short of the cliff bottom by a certain distance. The exact height couldn’t be seen clearly, but it was within a manageable range.
“I’ll go down first to scout the path. Skinny Monkey is second, Xu Dongdong third, Fatty fourth, and Yu Wenhao fifth. Await my orders.”
After organizing the sequence, Chu Yun explained the climbing techniques to them. Yu Wenhao had served in the military, so his psychological conditioning was fine and he possessed training experience. The others were different; leaving aside their lack of practical experience, just standing at the edge of the cliff and looking down was enough to make their legs shake.
“Observe more and learn more. I’m going down first.” After uttering her final sentence, Chu Yun gripped the vines with both hands, flipped over, and descended the cliff. The others watched in trembling suspense, firmly memorizing every single movement Chu Yun made.
The cliff face featured protruding rocks. Chu Yun tested them with her feet first, only stepping down carefully after confirming they could bear her weight. The soles of her shoes were smeared with wet mud, leaving a mark whenever she crossed a rock crevice—this was a marker Chu Yun intentionally left for the people descending behind her.
Utilizing the rock crevices and the small branches growing out from them, she quickly reached the height where the supply pack was located, but a certain distance still remained between her position and the target.
The supply pack sat three meters to Chu Yun’s right. Chu Yun clung tightly to the vines, carefully stepping along the rock crevices to shift right. But after moving a meter out, Chu Yun could no longer find a suitable foothold. She strained her arm to its maximum extension, yet she still couldn’t reach it.
The group watching from atop the cliff was also filled with suspense. They saw Chu Yun halt to one side of the supply pack, showing no movement for quite a while. Guessing that Chu Yun had encountered a difficulty, they waited patiently.
Then, Chu Yun made a move. They watched her retrace her steps, and before they could figure out exactly what she intended to do, the vines swung like a pendulum, driving Chu Yun toward the supply pack. Chu Yun extended her hand, attempting to seize a branch growing out of a rock crevice.
She missed on the first attempt, her momentum carrying her back to the starting point. On the second attempt, Chu Yun used even greater leverage, and the vines swung out like a pendulum once more. Every time the vines swung, their hearts leaped into their throats. Beneath her lay a cliff several dozen meters high with zero safety measures; falling meant death or permanent disability.
Fortuitously, on the third attempt, Chu Yun caught the branch. One hand gripped the vine while her other hand seized the branch, the veins on both arms bulging. Relying on the leverage of the branch, she reached the supply pack. The hand bearing Chu Yun’s ring touched the supply pack, and it instantly vanished from sight.
Secured! The people waiting anxiously atop the cliff finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Next was the standard downward climb. At a height three meters from the cliff bottom, the vines reached their end.
Chu Yun located a suitable foothold, pivoted one foot, pushed off with both feet, and vaulted downward, twisting her body from facing the cliff to facing away from it. She was as light as a swallow, bending her upper body downward upon landing to cushion a portion of the gravity.
She landed safely and looked around; it was just an ordinary cliff bottom with no danger.
Thus, she shouted up toward the cliff top: “Next!”
Receiving the instruction, Skinny Monkey was a bit chicken-hearted at first. He lacked Chu Yun’s superb skills, but encouraged by his teammates, he stepped off the cliff anyway.
Stepping along the footprints Chu Yun had left behind saved him a substantial amount of trial-and-error time. Bumping and scraping along the way, he felt like he had been scratched by a protruding rock, but it didn’t impact him much. Finally, with Chu Yun meeting him at the bottom, Skinny Monkey also jumped down. It was just that the exact instant he touched the ground, the impact rattled his legs so much he couldn’t stand up immediately.
Next came Xu Dongdong and Fatty. With their previous two teammates blazing the trail, most of their psychological pressure vanished by the time their turns arrived. Xu Dongdong’s posture was agile, incurring not a single scratch. Although Fatty’s weight was a bit heavy, he excelled in attentiveness, landing safely as well. The remaining Yu Wenhao goes without saying, quickly converging with the other four at the bottom of the cliff.
