22: Chapter 22 Poachers

By the time he discovered the hiking boot prints in the morning, he had already roughly figured out the direction.

The poachers' camp was likely over that way.

After spending ten days or so in the mountains, they couldn't be too far from a water source; he estimated they would choose to set up camp near a river or stream.

Walking back along the route he took in the morning for less than twenty minutes, he found those intermittent traces again.

There were a few extinguished cigarette butts, a small patch of freshly cut shrubbery, and nearby, the ashes of a campfire smothered with stones. The ashes were cold, but judging by the degree of carbonization, it shouldn't have burned any earlier than last night.

His judgment was correct; this group was active nearby.

He slowed his pace and advanced quietly.

What he cared about most were not the weapons.

Let alone tranquilizer guns, even real guns would not pose any substantial threat to him.

What he cared about most was the camera equipment.

In this day and age, a single mobile phone could shoot ultra-high-definition video, let alone the fact that poaching gangs were usually equipped with long-range cameras to search for prey.

He could not let them discover him.

Walking a bit further along the traces, he heard the sound of water.

That wasn't the sound of a stream; it was the soft lapping of waves made when the wind blew across a wider expanse of water—it was a river.

He lowered his body and approached along the edge of the bushes.

The sound of the river covered his footsteps, and the thick lichen and rotten leaves also provided enough cushioning.

Passing through a dense bamboo forest and pushing aside the last few bamboo branches, the view suddenly opened up before him.

In front of him was a river about twenty meters wide.

On the gravel beach on the other side of the river, several tents had been set up.

Three of them—not military tents, but civilian outdoor tents, camouflage-colored. Thin white smoke was rising from the chimney vents; someone must have been boiling water.

Next to the tents were piled seven or eight camouflage waterproof bags and several plastic equipment boxes. Two of the boxes were not closed, and he could vaguely see the black edges of equipment exposed inside, likely components for tranquilizer guns.

Chen Mo stopped when he got within fifty meters of them.

At this distance, it was enough for him to hear everyone's normal conversation clearly; getting any closer would be superfluous.

He crouched in the shadow of a large boulder, the bushes just enough to conceal his figure, and then listened quietly.

There were five voices.

Two were crouching by the river washing things—one young, one older—complaining that their sleeping bags had gotten wet last night.

There was laughter from the campfire; three people were roasting meat, and the fat from the cured meat dripped onto the charcoal, crackling and popping.

Listening to their conversation, the leader seemed to be named Zhang Biao, and his subordinates called him Brother Biao.

Another one holding a homemade gun was called Zhang Ying; he seemed like a brother to Zhang Biao, as their accents and tone had a natural familiarity.

The other two also seemed to be relatives, greeting each other with the casualness only found in a dialect.

The last one was the oldest and didn't talk much. When he occasionally spoke, his accent was different from the other four, with the articulation habits of the older generation in the mountains; he was likely the local guide leading them.

He listened for nearly another hour.

From their conversation, he gradually pieced together more information.

This group had a clear goal in entering the mountains: they were after golden snub-nosed monkeys and the Leopard.

Zhang Biao had entered the Shennong Mountain Range before, but only to hunt wild boars and muntjacs on the outskirts; this was his first time sneaking into the core area.

Their equipment included both tranquilizer guns and cages and nets for live capture; they likely intended to capture a few valuable ones alive.

They had been in the mountains for three days and had set up quite a few animal traps and snares in this area, but so far, they hadn't caught their target prey, only two wild rabbits and one muntjac.

Chen Mo listened quietly from behind the boulder.

There was no need for him to walk out and warn them, no need to step forward to stop them, and certainly no need to make any sound that would alert them.

These people were not coming for him.

They didn't know of his existence and it was impossible for them to walk near his camp unless they suddenly changed their area of activity.

But given the current situation, they were following the river channel eastward looking for the traces of the monkey troop, while his camp was in the west.

These two directions would only get further and further apart.

As long as they didn't head west, there was no need to worry about them.

He turned and left as silently as he had arrived, without disturbing a single leaf.

Poaching was something that the reserve administration and the authorities should handle; it wasn't his business, nor did he want it to be.

He was not a forest ranger, nor was he some hero acting on behalf of heaven.

He was just a person who came into the deep mountains and old forests to study Spiritual Qi and exercise on the side, nothing more.

All he needed to do was ensure his own safety and concealment.

In such a vast primeval forest, as long as he intentionally avoided them, no living creature would be able to easily find him.

It was already noon by the time he returned to the camp.

The time spent scouting and tracking in the morning was more than he had anticipated.

He organized his equipment, replenished some energy, and then began to explore this vast, boundless ancient forest in the opposite direction.

He didn't choose the route the poachers took eastward, but instead walked all the way up along the western ridge.

Shennong Mountain Range.

Before coming, he had checked the information—not just scientific data, but also those things of unknown truth that had been passed down from generation to generation.

The most famous one among them was the legend of the Wildman.

Since the 1950s, there had been continuous eyewitness reports of a large, bipedal primate seen in the dense forests of the Shennong Mountain Range, with footprints half again as large as human feet, a stride of over a meter, and a body covered in reddish-brown hair.

Some said it was a descendant of the Gigantopithecus, others said it was some kind of undiscovered humanoid creature.

When he used to scroll past this content on his phone, he just dismissed it as sensationalist rumors.

But now, he was standing right in the center of where the Wildman legend took place.

When ordinary people heard the Wildman legend, it was at most just a story to listen to casually in a tourist spot.

But if that creature truly existed in this mountain range, then for these last twelve days, they had also been nourished by Spiritual Qi.

Humans hadn't yet noticed the changes in their bodies; would these Wildmen evolve faster than he had anticipated?

He continued walking up the mountain.

The layer of fallen leaves under his feet was so thick that he could barely make a sound with his footsteps.

Sunlight leaked obliquely through the gaps in the dense canopy, scattered by the mist into wisps of soft light beams.

The whole mountain was breathing quietly, with only the occasional strange bird call coming from afar.

The traces of the Wildman were not so easy to find.

He knew this matter couldn't be rushed, and he didn't intend to scour the entire Shennong Mountain Range in one scouting trip.

He planned to stay in the mountains for four to five days this time, and he wanted to search the entire core area.

If there was anything unusual, he would find it sooner or later.

He continued walking forward.