Book 1: Chapter 165: Raining Snakes
I held my breath and listened. Sure enough, I heard the rustling sound of branches moving. In Liu Sang's words, what his ears heard was almost the same thing as what our eyes would see. He pointed to the place where the sounds were coming from and mouthed, "Grab your weapons."
I silently touched my knife while Kan Jian carefully put the rubber bands on his slingshot. The way he used his slingshot was very systematic. In case of poor lighting at night, his slingshot would have three rubber bands on it so that dozens of marbles could be shot out in an umbrella shape. He argued that at night, the eyes of wild animals would shine when they were illuminated by a flashlight. No matter how big the beast was, their weakest point was revealed in the darkness.
When I thought of this, I realized that we were all holding flashlights in our hands. We turned them off one by one until only the frosty moonlight was left illuminating our surroundings. Liu Sang silently felt behind me. I listened to the noises in the forest, but it didnt sound like people walking. It was more like something was falling from a tree, going through the canopy, and falling into a bush.
The sound gradually came towards us, and I soon felt something brush past my bangs and fall right in front of me. Then, more things began falling all around me.
There were more and more sounds, just like rain. After that thing fell to the ground, I had a bad feeling and wanted to move, but Liu Sang pressed me down. I made a quick decision and turned my flashlight on.
When I looked around the woods, I was completely stunned. I happened to see something falling from the tree canopy and realized that it was a snake. Then I looked around some more and saw that a lot of snakes were falling from the tree canopies.
But after the snakes fell, their movements were very relaxed. I looked up and saw a huge slender shadow floating above the canopy. When it touched the canopy, more snakes fell down.
"Then what is it?" Kan Jian was angry at Liu Sang for always contradicting me.
Liu Sang didn't speak, but suddenly started walking back. I quickly caught him, What are you doing?
"Its condensed poisonous gas, he said. The water vapor rises during the day, so this thing should be at a high altitude during that time. Thats why the birds died out. The atmosphere then drops at night, but some snakes are on the ground and some are in trees, so they dont die. The spies built the bunker underground because this thing probably drops to a very low height when the temperature is at its lowest before dawn. If thats the case, well all die here. We have to find a place to dig a hole and bury ourselves right now. Lets go back and get the equipment."
****
TN Notes:
(1) Not a good English equivalent but its kind of like an ancient Chinese car cigarette lighter. Its a tight paper roll made of very rough earthen paper thats ignited and then blown out. Although theres not a flame, you can see the red highlights burning faintly, just like in the ashes. There are phosphorus and some oxygen-prone substances in the fire stick. When the temperature is high and you blow on it with your mouth or quickly shake it, it will come in contact with the oxygen and react violently and burn. Info here.
****
I love you guys, so you're in for a treat. I got through ~20 pages today but don't get used to it lol. I also decided to see what all the fuss was about with "Word of Honor" yesterday and let's just say that I'm already caught up with the english subs (_) Waiting is hard, but at least they sub 4 episodes a week lol