Chapter 14

Holding the spear in his hand, Lu Qi did not hesitate for a moment. Judging the direction of the wind, he spun on his feet, turned around, and thrust the spear like a dragon at the giant bear, which was only two meters away.

With a "thud," the giant bear avoided the head, but not its massive body. Under the tremendous force, the spear deeply pierced into the left shoulder blade of the giant bear. However, the spear, which Lu Qi held tightly, broke due to the immense force.

Even with his agile movements, Lu Qi could not react in time, and the wooden spear pierced a large piece of flesh on his left arm and injured his left rib!

However, Lu Qi did not panic. Frowning, he fiercely threw the broken wooden spear and continued to flee. He did not think that one spear thrust would be enough to bring down a two-thousand-pound beast!

Indeed, the injury only made the giant bear more ferocious. With the half-spear still stuck in its shoulder, it chased after Lu Qi like a madman, determined to tear him to pieces.

The giant bear, though clumsy in appearance, was actually very fast in a straight sprint, at least faster than Lu Qi. Lu Qi understood this, so he dodged around trees and squeezed through gaps. After all, the bear had been stabbed and speared; even if it didn't bleed to death, it would likely pass out halfway due to the sedative-laced rotten meat it had eaten. Intense exercise and bleeding would accelerate the effects of the sedative.

Under such immense pressure, Lu Qi could not calmly circle around the bear. He was somewhat panicked and fled wildly, unknowingly escaping from the trap they had set.

"Damn it, when I get back, I'm going to beat the guy who made the sedative. What kind of inferior product is this? It hasn't had any effect after so long!" Lu Qi, running with the decapitation knife, was now in tattered clothes, his body covered in wounds. He had been fighting his way through the forest, and he didn't know how long he had been running. He was starting to feel exhausted, but the giant bear showed no signs of tiring.

"It seems I need to find a way to pull out that spear, or the bleeding will be too slow!" This thought crossed Lu Qi's mind multiple times, but he had no good plan. He knew that if he stopped, the decapitation knife alone would not be enough to defend against the bear's claws.

At that moment, Lu Qi's eyes lit up as he saw a cluster of willow fig trees in the distance, which were rare in the dense forest.

Willow fig trees are a peculiar plant in the dense forest, similar to banyan trees on Earth. They have complex branches and roots, forming a forest from a single tree, with branches hanging down like willows, creating arch-like tree holes. A dense cluster of willow fig trees can form a maze-like environment.

Lu Qi hurriedly ran towards the willow fig trees. If he could hide in them, his chances would increase significantly. He had already spotted a place that could give him an opportunity.

As Lu Qi ran into the willow fig trees, he discarded the decapitation knife and suddenly leaped, hanging from a willow fig branch about three meters high, like an ape.

This unexpected move narrowed the distance between Lu Qi and the giant bear, giving the bear a chance to attack. However, the bear's lightning-fast pounce missed.

Lu Qi's entire body was hanging from the horizontal branch, and at the moment the bear's momentum passed, he boldly landed on the bear's back! If someone had seen this from a distance, they might have mistaken Lu Qi for a mountain ape fighting the bear.

Lu Qi's goal was to pull out the half-spear, and he succeeded. Before the bear could turn, in the narrow tree hole, he skillfully pressed the bear's thick neck, avoiding its side bite, and pulled out the bloody spear.

Blood spurted out, and the bear roared in pain, suddenly sinking and hitting the ground hard, trying to shake Lu Qi off!

However, something that Lu Qi would later recall with great emotion happened. The soil under the bear suddenly collapsed.

The bear, unable to gain leverage, sank into the ground, and Lu Qi, who was on its back, also fell down with it.

But Lu Qi was no ordinary person. In this critical moment of weightlessness, he managed to react, flapping his arms like a crane and grabbing a vertical willow fig root. However, due to his injured left arm, he could only rely on his right hand, and he only managed to hold on after falling several meters.

After stabilizing himself, Lu Qi heard a dull thud and then a few short, heavy growls. The world seemed to fall silent for a moment, with only a few rays of light filtering through the willow fig branches.

However, the silence was an illusion. Soil was still falling, and when it hit the ground below, it made a splashing sound. Lu Qi tightly gripped the willow fig root and began to examine his surroundings. He was clearly underground in the willow fig forest, as evidenced by the dense, straight roots around him.

What puzzled Lu Qi was why the underground area beneath such a large cluster of willow fig trees was so hollow. In the dim light, he could see that the ground was made of stone. The giant bear lay about twenty feet away, dead, with blood flowing from its body.

After a moment, Lu Qi stood beside the bear's corpse, his feet in the water. He looked at the dead bear with a sense of sorrow.

From a height of twenty feet, Lu Qi certainly did not jump down. Even with his excellent Five Animal Imitation Fist, he would have broken his legs. Instead, he slid down the willow fig roots. However, the roots became thinner about ten feet down, so he tied a rope to them and slid down.

One might wonder how a tree's roots could grow so long. Lu Qi could answer that it was the willow fig roots, which clearly grew straight down to absorb water. This phenomenon is not uncommon in nature, but such a strange place was unheard of to Lu Qi.

"This is an underground river, and there's a stone platform, artificially constructed. Although it's not particularly vast, it would probably give even the best archaeologists on Earth a headache in this era," Lu Qi looked around, and his gaze fell on something even more surprising. Not far away, in the center of the stone platform, sat a person!

On closer inspection, it was actually a skeleton. When Lu Qi saw it, his first thought was that the underground river's flow must be very stable, or the body would have been washed away. His second thought was, how could someone be here?

However, Lu Qi did not dwell on this unsolvable mystery. Instead, he focused on useful things. The skeleton's blue clothes were not rotten and looked quite clean, suggesting high-quality material. However, even as a slave, Lu Qi had no interest in the clothes of a dead person, even if they were the legendary jade-embroidered clothes from Earth.

Lu Qi then found two items, which were likely the dead person's possessions. One was a bronze or black iron incense burner, about two and a half feet in diameter, with some indistinct totem and text carved on its walls. The other was a small cylindrical piece of jade, about the size of a thumb, smooth and polished, with cross-sections that resembled human pupils, deep and dark.

"This jade looks good. If I need money in the future, I can consider selling it!" Lu Qi first put away the jade, then picked up the incense burner: "It's quite heavy, about three hundred pounds. Even with the broken handles, it would probably be a national treasure on Earth, but in this world, it might be common in temples and shrines. I can take it back for my mother to use as a charcoal brazier, and we'll have a better winter!"

After putting down the incense burner, Lu Qi did not notice that the blood from his left arm wound had dripped onto the burner and instantly seeped in without a trace.

While examining the incense burner, Lu Qi also noticed something peculiar on the stone platform. It was a circular pattern, similar to a totem, with some diamond-shaped carvings that resembled the eyes of demons and some irregularly connected line grooves.

"Perhaps this was a place of worship for an ancient tribe in this world?" Lu Qi thought, realizing that placing the incense burner in the center of the platform made it look like a scene from a TV show he had seen in his past life.

After searching the area and finding nothing unusual or dangerous, Lu Qi finally relaxed and began to treat his left arm wound.

The wound, pierced by a wooden spear, was over an inch deep, a serious injury. However, Lu Qi did not seem to mind. After cleaning it, he professionally bandaged it with some torn cloth. Of course, it was not entirely useless; the Zegnu people, who could create sedatives, could also make some mixed ointments from hemostatic herbs and other simple herbs.