Ancient Eden

~End of chapter 82

Da Wu picked up a big piece of meat from the ground, and ate it in a clean sweep. Then he looked at the piece of meat in Mu Qing’s hand somewhat greedily, it was very obvious from his expression that he had not had enough.

He needed to maintain his strength to wait for the tribe to come to his rescue, and so did Mu Qing. She also needed energy to maintain her life, and look for an appropriate opportunity to survive.

So she pretended not to see him, sat far away from him, and did her best to eat the piece of meat in her hand and swallow it into her stomach. Just in case, when Da Wu fell asleep from extreme exhaustion, she took that opportunity to hide a broken bone in the corner where she was used to sit. The bone was thick and crude, with a sharp fracture.

For the first time in three days, she ate something that made her stomach full. That made her completely ignore her sense of sight and taste.

Chapter 83

(26.4)

Another night passed. When it was once again morning, Da Wu was taken out. Only one guard was left.

Mu Qing guessed that Li Mang and the others had probably prepared some things and had now rushed here to ransom Da Wu.

This would most probably not be a easy hostage exchange, so the men might have come in large numbers as a show of strength.

She immediately felt like her heart was on fire.

She and Li Mang were so close to each other, but he didn’t know that she was here.

She originally was still hesitant to see him. If she saw Li Mang, wouldn’t he be in a dilemma because of her?? But now she couldn’t care less. She had to see Li Mang, even if she had to let him make a choice for her.

She didn’t want to be forced to breed offspring for other men here, didn’t want to have her brain marrow sucked out and the bones of her arms smashed open for them to lick the nutrients inside.

She had to fight for herself, even if it was selfish to do so.

She had noticed for a while now that the man guarding her at the cave entrance, after only the two of them were left here, couldn’t stop looking at her. At first, his gaze was still a little evasive, now he was already absolutely unrestrained, as he slowly walked towards her.

She sat back in the corner where she was usually sitting, pulled the collar of her shirt down a bit, before stroking her hair and smiling faintly at him.

When Mu Qing stood up again, the man collapsed to the ground, with a broken bone deeply inserted in his throat, his mouth was bubbling with blood, his eyes were wide open, staring fixedly at Mu Qing’s back, as the light of life very quickly flew away from him.

Mu Qing quickly tidied up the clothes on her body, with slightly shaking hands.

She originally thought she would be very afraid, after all, the one she killed was a person. And she used to be afraid to even kill a living fish in the kitchen.

But now she found that killing was actually not as difficult as she thought. After thinking about how she might end up. 𝑏𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑒𝘭.𝘯𝑒𝑡

She rubbed hard her still shaking hands on both sides of her thighs a few times. As if they were feeling the heat coming from her body, her hands finally stopped shaking.

With bare feet, she dived out of the cave as if flying, doing her best to ignore the pain on the soles of her feet as she stepped on sharp stones.

Li Mang was not by her side, she could only bear this pain alone.

(27.1)

Mu Qing easily guessed the direction Da Wu was taken towards.

She walked forward following the tracks left on the path that had turned into mud because of the rain. The terrain here was very different from the one she had lived in for more than a month with Li Mang, and it looked like a gentle slope right at the foot of the mountain.

Afraid of running into the people of this tribe, she walked almost like a cat through the grass, hoping that the waist-high grass and dense trees on the side would shield her from being discovered. Very soon, she found that all the people seemed to have all disappeared off to somewhere all of a sudden, regardless of men, women, children or elderly. She passed by several empty huts, and there was still smoke going up from the just extinguished fire at the entrance of the cave.

She thought that most probably all the people here had rushed to where the hostage exchange was going to take place.

Mu Qing was anxious, almost flying with her legs as she ran along the trampled path.

When she arrived at a turn, she heard the loud sound of people talking in front of her, and immediately stopped her steps, and hid behind a huge tree, carefully peeking out.

Around the corner, there was a sparse forest, that was densely packed with people at this time. The people from this tribe had their backs to her, all together they were about fifty or sixty people, all men were in front, and there were less than twenty women standing behind, a few with children in their hands. The buzzing sound was coming from them, pointing in front of them and whispering among them.

Opposite, nearly twenty men were standing.

Mu Qing knew all of them, they were all the strong warriors from the settlement. Yi Jia, and Naduo’s man were on the left, there was the one who previously got wounded by the saber-toothed tiger and who everyone now called saber-tooth tiger. There was Tu Lu, he was Da Wu’s son, and, Mu Qing saw Li Mang among the crowd with one glance.

He was standing in the middle. His gaze was gloomy, the whole person seemed to be caging inside all of his hostility.

Translator : Laura

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