chapter 18

This Death God, was actually pretty cool.

Huo Ran had once imagined, with Kou Chen being such a nutcase, on the lower half of this Death God it could possibly be wearing trousers, could possibly be a popsicle, could possibly have been left blank, it could even have one line of words.

Look am I handsome or not!

But this Death God was complete, the lower half also belonged to Death God, under its feet were black flames, making it look very three-dimensional.

If not for Kou Chen’s constant emphasis, Huo Ran felt that when he was looking he hadn’t actually paid attention to the fact that the flames were on his buttcrack.

But now he couldn’t help but think, flames and buttcrack.

Incredibly agonising.

When they started boiling water Kou Xiao came up from the river, this set of small pot for cooking noodles was one she had insisted on buying, she wanted to come over to cook noodles for fun.

“Is the water river water?” Old Yang asks.

“It’s not,” Huo Ran points at the neighbouring mountain, “There’s spring water there, veterans all know about it, they’ve even dug a water-filtering pit out, we’re using that water, after it starts boiling just leave it for a little longer and it’ll be done, if you’re still worried you can also add some medicinal strips to sterilise, I’ve brought some.”

“No need…” Kou Xiao says, “Earlier I… even drank a mouthful of river water.”

Huo Ran gives her a look: “From now on don’t drink blindly anymore, it’s not like we hadn’t brought water.”

“Will I get a stomachache?” Kou Xiao asks.

“Not many people come to this area, there are mainly micro-organisms and what not,” Huo Ran says, “If you really get a stomachache…”

“How about you swallow a sterilising medicinal strip,” Kou Chen says incredibly merrily on the side.

“You’re making an appointment for your death aren’t you!?” Kou Xiao turns to glare at him.

“I’ve brought stomach medicine,” Huo Ran says, “Don’t be too worried.”

“The water’s boiling,” Old Yang points to the water that had started to bubble in the pot, “Do we need to boil it for a while longer?”

“Mn, let it boil for a few more minutes,” Huo Ran says.

There were actually many things that could be done while they waited, they could chat, they could eat some chocolate, and they could also stroll along the side, but for some unknown reason, the group of them suddenly sank into silence, all staring at the water in the pot.

Huo Ran felt that this scenario was very much like the times he’d had his first hot meal after he’d been in the mountains for a number of days.

But by this time they’d only been in the mountains for a few hours, and this was the first meal.

With them in this sort of condition, he didn’t know which meal they could last until.1

The noodles were instant noodles, Kou Chen liked to cook and eat instant noodles, and in addition they had brought ham sausage, which smelled delicious.

Usually at home when he got a craving he would also cook them this way, but at the moment the same type of noodles, had a different sort of deliciousness: Kou Chen brings the noodles into his bowl, then, without even getting soup, eats two large mouthfuls at once.

“Eat slower,” Huo Ran reminds, “Chew more, in a different environment the stomach becomes problematic more easily.”

“Mn,” Kou Chen responds, feeling around on his stomach.

Huo Ran looks at him.

“I didn’t really chew,” Kou Chen says, “I’m now pressing them into smaller pieces.”

Huo Ran chokes a little, turning his head away.

Kou Chen laughs for half a day, Huo Ran looking speechless like this was incredibly funny.

Speaking of which, when they’d clashed on the basketball court initially, he’d even thought that Huo Ran had a violent temper, but looking at it now, it seemed to depend on the person, towards people he wasn’t familiar with his temper was fiery, but after becoming familiar he had pretty good tolerance.

Kou Chen looks at his shoulder, then puts his bowl down, reaching his hand out to place onto it.

Huo Ran turns back: “What are you doing.”

“Not doing anything,” Kou Chen says.

“Take it off!” Huo Ran says.

“Why are you like this,” Kou Chen takes his hand off, “How familiar do we have to be to count as familiar!”

“Who knows what stupid trick you’re hiding up your sleeve!” Huo Ran says.

“Is that the impression I’ve given you?” Kou Chen couldn’t quite accept it.

“What else?” Huo Ran says, “The impression you give me is precisely that of the foolish second brother of a landlord’s family*.”1

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“Jie he’s scolding you,” Kou Chen says.

“Mn?” Kou Xiao who was concentratedly eating her noodles raises her head, “RanRan?”

“How have I scolded your sister now?” Huo Ran was stunned.

“I’m the foolish second brother, so what’s my sister!?” Kou Chen asks.

“Foolish eldest sister,” Old Yang answers.

“Yang RuiDong what are you joining in for!?” Kou Xiao says.

“I just snatched the opportunity to answer,” Old Yang starts laughing, “Couldn’t help myself.”

“Both of you I’ve kept receipts, just wait,” Kou Xiao says, “Holding me up when I’m eating noodles.”

After eating, washing the pot and bowls and packing up, they busied themselves for half a day, and in the end it was still Huo Ran who kept the things back into the bags.

“Let’s eat dry food after all,” Kou Chen says, “Just cooking noodles like this, the time used to pack up is longer than the time used to fucking eat, way too much effort.”

“Not like you were the one that packed,” Huo Ran sighs.

“Wasn’t it because I couldn’t pack it back up!” Kou Chen says, “I’m lessening your burden for you.”

“At night we can start a fire to roast meat,” Huo Ran says, “But we’ll see if you guys still have energy left.”

“Right now I’m not tired at all,” Kou Chen says, “It’s not like it’s difficult.”

“An hour later, only then will this journey officially start, say that a little later,” Huo Ran grins, looking at him, “Lil noob.”

This statement from Huo Ran wasn’t his attempt at boasting, this stretch into the river valley was easy to walk on, there wasn’t any need to climb, nor was there a need to wade into water, the road gets narrower as they get further in however, roads made of unevenly-sized rocks and soil that has been flooded over by water appear alternatively, occasionally there would even be deep trenches that had been washed out by rainwater.

It was along this road that Jiang Lei had fallen into a ditch, dislocating his shoulder.

“Which way do we go?” Old Yang asks.

“Right side, I’ll lead the way, you guys walk behind,” Huo Ran says, “This next stretch won’t have nice roads anymore.”

“You guys walk behind,” Kou Chen immediately catches up, speaking with the tone of a veteran, “Huo Ran and I will clear the path.”

“Okay then,” Huo Ran gives him a look.

Not far ahead, they already had to start into the woods, the rocks and soil on the ground were covered by fallen leaves, the sunlight appearing on and off, they could hear the sound of water, but couldn’t see where the stream was: it was a very magical feeling, Huo Ran was very fond of this sort of serenity.

But after walking a stretch, Kou Xiao behind them suddenly let out a scream.

Huo Ran didn’t even turn to look, simply turning to run back immediately.

Indeed Kou Xiao had slipped and fell, sliding 2-3 metres along the muddy slope, only coming to a stop because Old Yang had chased and grabbed hold of her backpack.

“Oh my god…” Kou Xiao was seated on the ground, patting her chest, “I was so scared I’d knock both of you down!”

“What did you land on?” Kou Chen runs over and squats down.

Huo Ran glances towards the road along which she had slid down, there weren’t any rocks that were too big, so there shouldn’t be much of a problem.

“Landed on my trousers,” Kou Xiao feels around on her trousers after getting helped up by Old Yang, looking at her hand full of mud, the expression on her face incredibly agonised, “I know why RanRan didn’t let me bring pretty clothes now.”

“It’s mainly still that there’s nobody looking,” Kou Chen says.

“You get lost!” Kou Xiao gives him a glare, then works her legs a little, “I’m fine, let’s continue walking.”

“Your cane,” Huo Ran takes the trekking pole she had dropped onto the ground over, adjusting it to be a little shorter, “It’s too long, it can’t support you well*.”

[*tl note: he actually says something like ‘you can’t exert force onto it (because it’s too long, it doesn’t let you)’]

“Are there other roads around here?” Old Yang asks, “I just saw there was another small road on the roadside, it looked a little flatter?”

“That isn’t, that’s a road that has been trodden out by wild beasts,” Huo Ran says, “We can’t walk on those, and there’ll be animal traps* along the way, very dangerous.”

[*tl note: actual term uses the characters ‘beast’ and ‘clip’ which sounds pretty silly]

“Animal traps?” Kou Chen was stunned, “The big metal clip type that has teeth?”

“Mn,” Huo Ran furrows his brows.

“What can it catch?” Kou Chen asks.

Huo Ran continues ahead: “Wolves, foxes, Mongolian gazelles, rabbits, porcupines, it’ll catch whatever there is.”

“Fuck,” Kou Chen says, “That can’t do can it? Have you seen any before? Can they be saved?”

“In this mountain there aren’t that many large animals,” Huo Ran says, “The smaller animals die immediately if they get clipped, when you see them they are typically dead ones, even after rescuing them they would also die.”

Kou Chen doesn’t say anything for a long time, he usually rarely came into contact with such issues, he just liked animals, kittens puppies bunnies, but hearing what Huo Ran had said, he suddenly felt a little uncomfortable.

“You’ve rescued before haven’t you?” Kou Chen asks.

Huo Ran walks a stretch before he responds: “Mn.”

“What did you rescue?” Kou Chen asks.

“Fox,” Huo Ran says, “I used clothes to wrap it up, thought to look for help in the next village, but it didn’t last half an hour before it died.”

“Huo Ran,” Kou Chen comes to a stop.

“Mn?” Huo Ran turns back to look at him.

Kou Chen opens his arms.

“What do you want?” Huo Ran takes one step back warily.

“Come over,” Kou Chen’s brows were furrowed, his expression a little pained.

Huo Ran hesitates two seconds, then walks up to him: “Wh…”

Kou Chen grabs him in a hug, patting a few times onto the backpack on his back: “It’s okay, don’t be sad.”

“Ai——” Huo Ran yells and pushes him away, “I’m not sad! I’m just a little dissatisfied.”

“Not sad?” Kou Chen looks at him.

“This was something from so many years ago,” Huo Ran says, “Could I be sad for so many years, these couple years there’s been a lot less animal traps set up, so I’m even less sad now.”

“I just wanted to comfort you a little,” Kou Chen says.

“I know,” Huo Ran looks at him, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed, of course he knew Kou Chen had wanted to comfort him, but at this sort of time, in front of Old Yang and Kou Xiao, still picking this sort of method to comfort was simply just so Kou Chen.

“Ah,” Kou Chen looks at him a little discontented.

“Aiyo,” Huo Ran was simply speechless, going over to hug him, also patting a couple times on his backpack, “Thank you.”

“Walk quickly!” Kou Xiao gives a shout, “Are you two kids playing house!”3

An hour later, Kou Xiao had gone quiet, don’t mention shouting at people, when Old Yang asked her whether she wanted to drink water, her voice came with pants: “Drink my ass, I don’t want to go to the toilet in this sort of place.”

“It’ll be ‘this sort of place’ the whole journey,” Huo Ran says, “You’re not still thinking to look for a public toilet are you? Honestly speaking if you can hold it, there is one in the village, but after you take a look at that public toilet you’ll definitely still turn back and settle it in the wilderness.”

“I don’t have the energy to talk with you,” Kou Xiao waves her hand, “Just tell me, how long before we can rest.”

“In the mountains the sky becomes dark early, after that ridge ahead…” Huo Ran points in front.

“What ridge! What did you say!? There’s still a ridge!? Do we still have to climb a ridge!?” Kou Xiao shouts.

“No,” Huo Ran smiles at her shouting, “We just call that a ridge, the depression between two small slopes, just 20 minutes to climb over, once we’re at the other side we’ll set up camp.”

This stretch wasn’t easy to walk on, and in addition everyone was already tired, the whole way even Kou Chen had gone quiet.

Huo Ran led the way in front, after walking a distance he had to turn back to look.

“Are there still some sort of difficulty or obstacle ahead?” Kou Chen asks.

“No more, we’re almost at the ridge, there’s a ditch up ahead, when crossing it you have to be careful,” Huo Ran says, “Under the usual conditions there would be a log fixed up on top.”

“A single-plank bridge?” Kou Chen becomes enthusiastic hearing this, “Who fixed it up?”

“The villagers did, and it’s not a plank, whatever tree had fallen on that side is what would be dragged over to be fixed in place,” Huo Ran says.

“Fuck, this one’s interesting,” Kou Chen takes his phone out, “This one should be uploaded and sent to the friend group, when have that bunch of fools ever seen such a cool scene.”

5 minutes later, an even cooler scene had appeared.

That tree that was fixed on top of the ditch had left its post without permission.

The part that was fixed on their end, had slipped to the bottom of the ditch.

“Fuck! This is too satisfying!” Kou Chen was serially snapping away on his phone, “What is this situation? How do we go over? Do we go down? Then climb across along the tree?”

In theory it was exactly like this.

Huo Ran glances at Kou Xiao, Kou Xiao was already not bad, not complaining nor being a burden, it was just that although this ditch wasn’t wide, it was pretty deep, getting her to go into the ditch then climb across to the other side hugging the tree trunk, seemed like it wouldn’t quite be possible.

Huo Ran places his backpack onto the ground, going around their surroundings, usually in this sort of place, there would be one or two back-up logs, in case this sort of situation appeared.

Very quickly he found what looked like a tree that had been struck down by lightning in the woods, but it didn’t have a tree stump next to it, so this was probably a back-up log.

“Kou Chen! Yang-ge!” he gave a shout, “Come help.”

This sort of thing Kou Xiao had no interest in, all her life force depended on the camp that had yet to be set up after they climb over the ridge to be sustained.

Whereas Kou Chen and Old Yang were full of enthusiasm, all the exhaustion from before swept clean because of this unexpected incident, the three of them very quickly had the log dragged by the ditch.

“How do we do this?” Kou Chen looks at the ditch.

Huo Ran takes a folded set of army shovels out from his bag, digging in the pit the original log had been positioned in, then carries another large rock over to settle in it, this way the log wouldn’t easily be knocked into slipping down after they put it up.

Kou Chen stood at the side, feeling rather impressed, he wanted to help, but he had absolutely no idea how to help, and looking at Huo Ran, he didn’t seem to actually need anyone else’s help.

One look and you could tell he was someone that hung out in the wilderness all year round.

“Come,” only after he’d finished with the pit did he wave his hand, “Hold the log up, place this end into the pit, then let it fall, so it lands on the other side… there’s a depression next to where the original log is, do you see it?”

“No,” both Kou Chen and Old Yang answer honestly at the same time.

“…When I say ‘let go’ then let go,” Huo Ran says.

After they hold the log up, Huo Ran takes aim at the other side, then gets both of them to release their holds.

Only when the log was falling towards the opposite side, did Kou Chen see where the depression Huo Ran had mentioned was, the log falling accurately on that end, after bouncing up it rolled back into the pit.

The crossing of the single-log bride next was very simple, after all it wasn’t too wide, if bigger steps were taken just with 3-5 steps one could bounce over to the other side, after Kou Xiao’s bag gets tossed onto the opposite side, she ran over rather valiantly with quick steps.

The first thing she did after running across was to open her backpack to check: “You better fucking not have broken my face cream bottle, I only brought this bottle, I’m depending on it for these couple days…”

“Pay attention when you’re talking!” Old Yang says, “Don’t learn from your brother.”

“You better not have broken my face cream bottle,” Kou Xiao switches to a gentler tone, “I only brought this bottle you know, I’m depending on it for these couple days you know…”

After going through the ordeal of fixing the log across the ditch, the climbing of the ridge after simply wasn’t worth mentioning, after passing through that last stretch of the small woods, when they saw the clearing, Huo Ran aside, the group of them all started shouting, running their way over, as though they were survivors of a disaster.

“There’s even a stove set up by someone else!” Kou Xiao says, “Does everyone set up camp here?”

“Mn,” Huo Ran puts his backpack down, looking up at the sky, “Usually this is the first stop, 2km north is a small village, convenient for getting supplies, and safer too.”

“I’m hungry,” Kou Chen says, “Let’s get cooking!”

“Set up the tents first,” Huo Ran opens his bag.

“Cook first, it’s not like we’re sleeping now,” Kou Chen looks at him.

“Tent,” Huo Ran points at the sky, “It’s about to rain.”

“No way?” Kou Chen raises his head a little suspiciously, “It’s clear for miles though, just that the sun isn’t out anymore, didn’t you say it gets dark early in the mountains.”

“Tent,” Huo Ran repeats again.

“Okay,” even though Kou Chen had no idea what it was that gave away that it was about to rain, he still decided to trust in Huo Ran’s judgement.

2 two-person tents, Huo Ran helps Old Yang set theirs up, and when he returns to help Kou Chen, raindrops had started falling from the sky.

“Fuck,” Kou Chen looks at him, “You’re pretty awesome huh Huo Ran.”

“Don’t talk crap,” Huo Ran’s hands don’t stop, “Hurry up if you don’t want to get drenched.”

“If I don’t want to get drenched I can…” Kou Chen smiles as he walks up to Kou Xiao’s tent, bending at the waist to climb in, “I can still hide out in this tent…”

“Get out!” Kou Xiao roars, “Scram into your own tent!”

Kou Chen gets pushed out, and before he even straightens up fully, Kou Xiao had zipped the tent up.

“Do you two have to go to this extent!” Kou Chen returns to give Huo Ran a hand very unhappily, “Don’t make too much noise! The tents aren’t soundproof!”

“I’m changing! You ate too much didn’t you!” Kou Xiao shouts.

After setting the tent up, the rain had started falling harder, so both Huo Ran and Kou Chen squeezed into the tent together.

“It’s waterproof right?” Kou Chen looks at the roof of the tent.

“Mn,” Huo Ran takes his own bag over, taking the sleeping bags and what not out, “This rain won’t last too long, half an hour to an hour and it’ll stop.”

“Oh,” Kou Chen sits at the tent entrance, looking outside, dazing for half a day before he stretches, “How boring, sitting in a tent watching the rain, outside is the wilderness, the phone doesn’t have signal either, in a bit the sky will get dark, and there isn’t a light…”

“Mn,” Huo Ran takes his jacket off, changing to another one, “Change your wet clothes, if you keep them on you’ll get a cold easily.”

Kou Chen takes his jacket off, opening his own bag to dig around.

After a bit of digging he suddenly makes an ‘yi’ sound.

“Don’t say you didn’t bring any okay!” Huo Ran sits up.

“Why did I bring the key to my drawer out, ai I’m telling you…” Kou Chen pauses midway, kneeling in front of his backpack then starting to busy himself, “Let me perform an exclusive for you, because of this when I was young, my dad hit me all the way from the house into the yard.”

Huo Ran immediately shifts to the side of the tent: “No need, don’t want to watch, thank you.”

Kou Chen doesn’t speak, his head lowered doing god knows what, Huo Ran even saw him shifting the waistband of his pants.

“Kou Chen, I’m warning you…” Huo Ran points at his back.

He hadn’t finished speaking, when Kou Chen suddenly turns around, moving a step towards him on his knees, he then takes both his hands away all of a sudden, thrusting his hips forward.

Huo Ran instantly saw the raised patch on his crotch.

“Should I clap for you?” Huo Ran asks, “What sort of stimulation could it have been, to make you react in this way in this sort of environment?”

“Watch okay!” Kou Chen starts to pull the zipper of his trousers down slowly.

“I don’t want to look, I have one myself, really,” Huo Ran sort of didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Kou Chen unzips his trousers at one go, and a furry yellow chick bounces out from the front of his trousers, landing besides Huo Ran’s feet.

On it a keyring was still attached.

…It was a chick keychain.

Huo Ran felt that in this instant he truly was on the same course as Kou Chen’s train of thought, he sorrowfully hears himself bursting into maniacal laughter.