Life is a Game

Chen Shi, who was afraid of death, stood firm and sat by the fire with his bag in his arms, waiting for Xia Mubing to come back.

As time went by and the light became dimmer, Chen Shi silently took out the knife from his bag and held it in his hand, with the edge of the knife facing outwards, looking around vigilantly.

The fire at his feet was warm and bright, and this warmth made the huge forest extraordinarily quiet and dark. Occasionally, a bird or two would frighten Chen Shi to his spirits. Even so, the knife in his hand was still firmly held.

Jiang Feng noticed that this knife was the rusty knife he saw in Fenyuan. Now there is no rust on this knife, only the blood stains that have not been wiped off in time, which looks extra sharp and bloody against the backdrop of the fire.

Finally, Xia Mubing came back.

With a jug of water, nothing else.

"Is the water source far away? Why have you been there for so long?" Chen Shi asked impatiently.

"It's not very far. I just went to look around to see if there are any edible fruits." The result was obvious. Xia Mubing came back empty-handed and brought nothing back.

Chen Shi couldn't help but look a little disappointed, and gave Xia Mubing the warmest and best seat closest to the fire, while he walked to another uneven place and sat down.

"I also searched around here just now, and there is nothing to eat."

"It's okay, I won't die if I don't eat for a few days, as long as there is a source of water." Xia Mubing didn't care much about the food, and handed the water bottle to Chen Shi for him to drink, "As long as I can go out in these two days."

Chen Shi took the kettle and poured more than half of it in one breath before stopping, put down the bottle, carefully wiped the mud on the kettle with a very dirty cotton coat, cherished and even carefully touched the iron kettle, as if What baby are you touching.

"This kettle must be very valuable." Chen Shi opened the cloth bag and stuffed the kettle back into the cloth bag.

Xia Mubing added two sticks of firewood to the fire, and fiddled with the fire to let air in to make the fire burn bigger: "The two strings of beads in your bag are worth a lot."

"Brother Xia, you didn't lie to me, did you? Are these two strings of beads really as valuable as you said? Can I really use these two strings of beads to buy a few acres of land in our village?" Chen Shi hugged his arms tightly. "I followed your advice and took the two strings of beads instead of the piece of gold."

"Yes." Xia Mubing cherished words like gold.

Xia Mubing was more concerned about whether he could return to Beiping smoothly than the jewelry in his bag: "Are you sure you can go to Star City through this forest?"

Chen Shi nodded: "Absolutely. I came here from this road at the beginning. Let me tell you that Star City is very prosperous. There are many foreigners, good hotels, ships, docks, casinos, brothels, and the girls and angels in it. Like."

"My house is on the edge of Star City, but we have to be careful when we go. There are bandits over there. If you walk on the main road, you will be robbed, and you will be robbed on the small road. If you are lucky, you just have no money. If you are not lucky, you will even die. Gone."

Xia Mubing looked at Chen Shi, with a half-smile, the corners of his mouth pulled up slightly: "Are you still afraid of bandits?"

Chen Shi knew that what Xia Mubing was referring to was that he dared to do such things as killing the chief and running away, and stealing money. How could he be afraid of the bandits, and explained: "The bandits over there are very vicious, extremely vicious, everyone has There were several or even dozens of lives, and guns, and those veterans may not have killed so many people."

"Then how many have you killed?" Xia Mubing chatted about things that did not conform to the core values ​​of socialism in a homely tone.

"I don't know, maybe two, maybe three, maybe none at all." Chen Shi said, "Don't think I've been in the army longer than you, I've only been in the army three or four times, but that's quite a lot. It's gone."

"By the way, have you been on the battlefield before?" Chen Shi asked curiously.

Xia Mubing shook his head.

"Then why are you so proficient in that movement?" Chen Shi stretched out his hand and scratched the front of his neck, making a click gesture, "I really scared me this morning, I thought we were dead, but you killed me At once……"

"It's no different from killing pigs and chickens."

Chen Shi suddenly realized: "So you are a butcher, no wonder you are so strong."

Xia Mubing: ...

"But it's good if you haven't fought a war. You don't know, the battlefield is scary. There are people everywhere, hacking with a knife. Many people were scared to pee for the first time, and then ran around. , ran to the front and was hacked to death by random knives, I guess I died in a confused way." Chen Shidao, "It's still our own people beating our own people. What kind of world are you talking about? Beiping has fallen, If you don’t fight back, you’ll fight your own people here instead.”

Xia Mubing fiddled with the fire without raising his head: "If we go to Beiping to fight, you won't run away?"

"Escape, I must escape." Chen Shi looked determined, "If you don't escape, you must be disabled, otherwise it is impossible to go back. If you become disabled, you will also be disabled. What is the difference between death and death? Going back will be a drag family."

"I was fooled into coming in by them. At the beginning, they said that they were in charge of food and paid money every month. They didn't tell me that I was going to be a soldier. I came here in a daze. But now I only care about food, and the money is gone. A few of them may die. My parents are still at home waiting for me to go back to marry a wife and have a son. I can’t lose my life here.”

Xia Mubing smiled and didn't speak.

"By the way, brother Xia, you want to go back to Peiping so much. Is it because your parents are also in Peiping that you go back to marry a wife. Let me tell you, I can see it. Now the places where wars are fought are dangerous, especially in the north. You go back to Peiping Hurry up and take your parents away, the south is safer." Chen Shi persuaded.

Xia Mubing ignored him, closed his eyes and prepared to sleep.

After a few minutes, Xia Mubing suddenly opened his eyes: "I'll sleep first, if you're too sleepy, wake me up and let me watch the night."

"Oh." Chen Shi obediently kept watch while holding the package.

Nothing to say all night.

Xia Mubing slept in the middle of the night, and Chen Shi slept in the second half of the night. In fact, the two of them didn't sleep very well, but they had to rest in order to go on the road the next day.

Jiang Feng has been staring at the campfire at night, very quiet, not to mention jackals, tigers and leopards, even small things like rabbits have not approached, the silence in the woods is terrifying.

But relatively, this silence can also give people peace of mind.

At dawn the next day, Xia Mubing extinguished the fire first, then went to the river to fill the water. After filling a pot of water, Chen Shi was woken up, and the two continued on their way.

Still lost.

From Jiang Feng's point of view, every part of the forest looks the same, except for the trees and the trees, and there is no difference in terms of species. Xia Mubing and Chen Shi were similar, neither of them were masters of survival in the wilderness, at most they could tell one direction, and in this case, it was even difficult to distinguish between south, east and north.

Xia Mubing was a little stronger. He could at least look for water sources by the color and humidity of the land, and judge whether he and Chen Shi were going deeper or not based on the denseness of the trees.

But this was the only way to go. Xia Mubing's Chen Shihe ability couldn't help them get out of the woods smoothly.

The two walked for another whole day.

Chen Shi's shoes were completely worn out, and he couldn't bear to throw them away, so he kicked the shoes in his arms and carried them away. Fortunately, even though it was winter, there was no snow on the ground. Otherwise, if he walked barefoot in this state, his feet would be frostbitten and rotten after walking for half a day.

In such a dense forest, there is no navigation, no direction, no way, and even no idea where you are, when you can go out, no food, no animals, only water, it is extremely scary.

If Xia Mubing and Chen Shi were weaker, fear and despair alone would be enough to kill them.

Although these two are not masters of survival in the wilderness, they are definitely masters of survival. Even Chen Shi, who is very afraid of death, did not give up and collapse under this situation. They searched for edible fruits as they walked, and when there were no fruits, Chen Shi looked for edible bark, cut off the old bark on the outside with the knife in his arms, and ate the tender and chewable ones inside.

The next day passed and night fell.

Compared with the night before, Xia Mubing and Chen Shi were obviously much more tired at this time. For nearly two days, they didn't eat much, only drank water, and walked non-stop, with no direction, no goal, and even a little hopeless. Under the dual pressure of physiology and psychology, both of them were not in a good state of mind.

Almost as soon as the fire was set up, Chen Shi collapsed on the ground and didn't even think about it. He just put his feet close to the fire to keep warm so as not to freeze.

"What kind of forest is this? Why is there nothing there?" Chen Shi complained in despair, picked up a stone on the ground and threw it hard on the tree, causing two birds on the tree to flap and fly away.

"There's nothing alive but birds, and we can't even hit birds without a slingshot."

"It's winter and there are few living things. Those on the outside have probably been caught and eaten by the people nearby. If you want to find the living things, you have to go deep. Once you get in, you really can't get out." Xia Mubing said .

Chen Shi lowered his arms dejectedly.

"I remember there is a story? Some kind of pig or some kind of rabbit. Can't a rabbit run over and kill us right now? There are so many trees here." Chen Shi casually pointed to the biggest and thickest tree beside us. Tree.

"You also know that it's a story, and it's all made up by others. How could there be a rabbit so stupid that it crashed itself into a tree and died."

"If you're tired, go to bed first. I'll keep watch and wake you up later at night." Xia Mubing said.

No reply.

Chen Shi had already fallen asleep, obviously really tired, sometimes psychological fatigue is more terrifying than physical fatigue.

Xia Mubing yawned and turned to look at the tree Chen Shi pointed to just now.

Jiang Feng read his desire for rabbits from his eyes.

Obviously, even the young version of Xia Mubing, who doesn't talk too much and kills people like a pig, will have certain expectations for the fables he sneered at when he was very hungry and tired.

He just didn't know if there was a silly rabbit that met his expectations and bumped into a tree.