162: Chapter 162 Why are you looking at me?

Deep into the night, the cave quieted down.

The bonfire was kept down to a small flame.

Sleeping inside the partition were Su Qingxue, Lin Fan, and the three of them.

Outside the partition.

Zhang Tao lay about two steps away from Zhou Kai, lying on his side and coughing from time to time.

Zhou Kai was annoyed by his coughing.

"If you want to die, get the hell away."

Zhang Tao hurriedly moved aside and pretended to roll over in pain.

"Brother Kai, my ribs hurt, I really didn't mean to disturb you."

Zhou Kai cursed and closed his eyes.

That life-and-death struggle during the day had hollowed out his strength.

Once he relaxed, sleepiness pressed down on him, and even the pain became dull.

Zhang Tao waited for a very long time.

Long enough for the wood in the bonfire to collapse by a section.

The sound of breathing echoed in the cave, excluding Wang Lan's.

He slowly reached his hand behind his waist and touched the bamboo tube.

The wooden outer shell had been warmed by body temperature.

Zhou Kai rolled over, and Zhang Tao was so anxious he almost threw it out.

He bit the tip of his tongue, felt for a thin twig nearby, and slowly pressed it against the wooden cork.

His hands trembled.

He pushed twice and failed to pry it open.

Sweat broke out on his forehead from anxiety.

On the third try, the cork loosened.

Zhang Tao placed the opening of the bamboo tube near Zhou Kai's straw mat and flicked it with the twig.

The cork rolled onto the muddy ground.

The mouth of the bamboo tube was dark.

Nothing came out.

Zhang Tao lay flat on the ground, his eyes smarting from staring so hard.

After a moment, taking advantage of the weak firelight, he saw a thumb-thick dark shadow probing out from inside.

There was a black line on its back, and dense red legs clung to the bamboo wall.

Zhang Tao's stomach churned.

That thing dropped onto the mat, paused for a moment, and crawled toward Zhou Kai.

Zhou Kai was sleeping soundly.

His wound was still oozing blood, and there was moisture beneath the cloth strips.

The ghost-backed centipede crawled up along Zhou Kai's lower leg.

Zhang Tao held his breath, his whole body going numb.

He was afraid it would suddenly turn back.

Afraid that Zhou Kai would wake up, afraid that Lin Fan would lift the curtain and come out from the partition.

The centipede crawled near Zhou Kai's knee and burrowed into his pant leg.

Zhou Kai frowned and moved his leg slightly.

Zhang Tao almost cried out.

The next moment.

Zhou Kai's entire body jerked.

He first let out a muffled groan, then kicked over a nearby wooden bowl with one foot.

"Ah!... Ah..."

This single cry jolted everyone in the cave awake.

Zhou Kai hugged his lower leg and rolled on the ground, his back hitting the stone wall, his curses changing pitch in his mouth.

"What is this! My leg! My leg!"

Zhang Tao was the first to crawl up, pretending to be more panicked than anyone else.

"Zhou Kai! Zhou Kai, what's wrong with you?"

Zhou Kai shoved him away, rolling wildly all over the floor in pain.

The bonfire was kicked apart, and sparks flew randomly.

Liu Feifei was so frightened that she shrank to the edge of the stone wall, screaming with disheveled hair: "Is the wild boar coming again?"

Wang Lan sat up from the ground and looked at Zhou Kai's leg first.

Something flashed inside the pant leg and burrowed beneath the mat.

She didn't move.

Zhang Tao saw it too, the flesh on his face twitching twice. Before he had time to stomp that centipede to death, he immediately lunged forward to press down on Zhou Kai's shoulders.

"Brother Kai, what's wrong, say something!"

Zhou Kai punched him right in the face in pain.

"Get lost!"

Zhang Tao was hit so hard that his bloody nose started gushing again, and this time he didn't even dare to cry out.

Su Qingxue lifted the partition curtain and came out wearing an outer garment.

"What's going on?"

No one could answer.

Zhou Kai's teeth chattered from pain, and his forehead was covered in sweat.

The cave was in complete chaos.

Right at this moment, the partition curtain was lifted.

Lin Fan walked out.

He saw Zhou Kai rolling all over the ground in pain.

A man like him hadn't cried out like this even when he was sent flying by a wild boar during the day.

But now he was in so much pain that his teeth were clattering.

"Brother Fan..."

Zhou Kai raised his head and saw Lin Fan, squeezing out a couple of sounds from his throat before the rest of his words were suppressed by the pain.

Lin Fan didn't ask any useless questions.

He walked over, squatted down, and as soon as his hand touched Zhou Kai's pant leg, Zhou Kai's entire leg jerked.

"Don't touch!"

Zhou Kai's voice was completely cracked.

"It hurts?"

"It's not just pain..."

Zhou Kai clenched his teeth, the veins on his neck bulging one by one.

"It feels like being burned by fire, burning from the inside, burning in the cracks of my bones."

After he finished speaking, he said another sentence.

"It must be... bitten by something?"

No one in the cave answered.

Liu Feifei hugged her knees and shrank into the innermost corner, her hair as messy as a chicken coop. She stared blankly at Zhou Kai's leg, her lips trembling for a long time before she squeezed out:

"Could it be... could it be a snake?"

Zhang Tao squatted nearby, his nose still bleeding. Hearing this, he almost had his breath cut off.

A snake?

If it really were a snake, he could still put on an act.

But now where that thing had burrowed off to, even he had no idea.

He had to stay far away; in case it crawled out from under the mat and bit him again, that would be a huge joke.

Wang Lan sat on the other side of the bonfire, her shoulder pressed against the stone wall, not crowding forward.

She looked at Zhou Kai's lower leg, then glanced at Zhang Tao.

Zhang Tao's little bit of acting skills might fool drunk leaders at a company annual meeting, but in front of Lin Fan, it wasn't even as good as a fake invoice on an expense report.

"Song Ya."

Lin Fan spoke.

Song Ya had originally been standing at the entrance of the partition and only reacted when she heard the voice.

"Yeah."

"Light a torch."

Lin Fan reached out and pressed down on Zhou Kai's thigh to prevent him from continuing to kick around.

"Quickly."

Song Ya picked up a drier wooden stick from the side, wrapped it twice with rattan bark, dipped it in some grease dripping from the smoked meat, and brought it close to the bonfire to ignite it.

The flame shot up, and the cave brightened by a section.

She walked to Lin Fan's side holding the torch.

The firelight fell on Zhou Kai's lower leg.

At that glance, Song Ya stopped breathing for a split second.

The pant leg of Zhou Kai's right leg was lifted, and a large swelling protruded above his ankle.

It wasn't the ordinary redness and swelling of an insect bite.

The flesh was swollen and shiny, a greenish-purple color creeping up from around the two punctures, with blackened edges.

The top of the swelling was stretched very tight, poking out there like a tumor, making people's scalps itch just looking at it.

Liu Feifei saw it too.

She had originally wanted to get closer to confirm, but as soon as she saw that swollen piece of flesh, her whole body shifted half a foot backward.

"What is this?"

Zhou Kai was shaking all over from the pain, his fingers gripping the cloth mat beneath him, crumpling the fabric into a ball.

"Brother Fan, my leg is going to be crippled."

"Don't speak yet, stay calm."

Lin Fan reached out and touched the edge of the swelling.

Zhou Kai almost kicked out.

Lin Fan pressed down on his knee, his voice low.

"Move around anymore, and this leg of yours really will be crippled."

Zhou Kai forcefully swallowed his curses back down.

He bit down on a piece of cloth strip, sweat dripping from his chin.

Su Qingxue stood behind Lin Fan, her brows furrowed.

She had never seen this kind of injury before.

In her past life, illnesses had private doctors, and injuries had top-tier hospitals.

Let alone being bitten by venomous insects, even mosquito bites had ointment prepared in advance by someone.

But now, there was only half a bottle of dirty water, a pile of tattered rags, and a few knives in the cave.

And a man who had just crawled back from a sea of blood.

"Is there any medicine?" she asked.

After asking, she fell silent herself.

This question sounded too much like nonsense.

Lin Fan ignored her; he lowered his head and looked at the two tooth punctures.

The distance between the tooth punctures was not large.

The edges of the wound were somewhat darkened, very little blood flowed out, and instead, transparent mucus oozed out from beneath the skin.

It wasn't a snake.

Snake tooth marks wouldn't be this dense.

Nor did it look like ordinary venomous bugs.

Lin Fan swept his gaze around the surroundings.

Zhang Tao happened to raise his head, meeting Lin Fan's gaze, and his whole body shivered.

"Brother Fan, what are you looking at me for?"