Chapter 1048 - 67: Camp Status

The ambush is set, the snare is ready.

Now it’s just waiting for the wild boar to walk in!

Chen Wen pulled at the corner of his mouth, looking at the first trap he’d set, and he was quite satisfied.

But he didn’t indulge in it for long; after all, he still had three more boar snares that hadn’t been set up yet.

Chen Wen quickly threw himself back into work.

On Hua Yun’s side.

She’d also found a suitable spot, but she was slower than Chen Wen at setting traps, since she still wasn’t very practiced.

When it came to setting traps, Chen Wen was still better than she was.

In roughly the time it took Hua Yun to set two traps, Chen Wen had set three, and had already located a fourth place suitable for a trap.

They kept at it almost until dusk, and only then finished all the traps and met back at camp.

Chen Wen said, "I’ve got all my traps set. If any boar passes through the area where I put them, the chance it’ll step on one is really high!"

Hearing this, Hua Yun nodded slightly, indicating it was the same for her.

The two of them sat in the camp, drank some water, and rested for a while.

After that Hua Yun suggested going to keep an eye on the boar herd.

But Chen Wen didn’t go with her; instead he sent Golden Eagle to go along with Hua Yun.

He understood that Hua Yun wanted to check on the boars, to make sure they wouldn’t get spooked and run off if one of their companions blundered into a trap.

But Chen Wen wasn’t worried about that.

At night, it’s not easy for humans to move around, and the same goes for the wild boars.

And while they have brains, they don’t have much of one, and there aren’t many wrinkles in there either.

For them to grasp that a companion got caught in a trap and therefore they themselves need to flee—that’s a bit complicated for wild boars.

So if Hua Yun wanted to go, she could go, but Chen Wen definitely wasn’t going.

He was going to stay here and rest for a bit.

...

While Chen Wen and Hua Yun were busy preparing for the hunt.

Their main camp, the place where Adam and Gaston were staying behind.

The two of them also came back loaded with gains.

Adam had gone into the surrounding forest to gather some food, like pine nuts and other nuts, and some fungi that might appear after the recent rains.

He hadn’t seen many mushrooms, since the weather had turned cooler, but he did find quite a lot of pine nuts.

Gaston, meanwhile, had spent the whole afternoon fishing.

He caught plenty for himself, and the two Wolf Mink that went with him ate till their mouths were slick with oil.

"You really have some damn good luck!"

Adam couldn’t help saying.

He noticed that Gaston had brought back quite a few fish.

Gaston let out a proud laugh, flexing his arm to show off his strength. "This isn’t just luck, it’s skill!"

"Not just anyone gets called the King of Fish!"

Adam chuckled and shook his head.

But just then, the two Wolf Mink, who were lying around with full bellies, heard the sound of footsteps coming from the forest around them.

King Kong immediately let out a warning call.

At that moment, lights began flickering in the forest.

Alerted by the Wolf Mink, Adam immediately noticed the light sources.

He raised his voice and called out in English, "Who is it? This is our camp. If you’re strangers, don’t come too close—better we keep a bit of distance!"

As he spoke, Adam shot Gaston a look.

Gaston understood and lightly kicked the machete that Chen Wen and the others had left behind over toward Adam.

But just as the two were getting a bit tense, a familiar voice called out, "Ha, we’re not strangers—we’re your old acquaintances!"

As he spoke, a team of people stepped out of the forest.

Adam looked closely; it was Arseny’s group.

Seeing them, Adam let out a breath and immediately broke into a smile. "Arseny, welcome! What brings you here?"

Hearing this, Boris, who was beside Arseny, lifted his head, his face full of dejection.

He said, somewhat dispirited, "There’s a problem with our commission!"

Hearing this, Adam and Gaston exchanged a glance, and quickly came to a decision: they would not mention anything about Chen Wen to Arseny and his people.

After welcoming the group into the camp, Gaston immediately started bustling about making fish soup.

Arseny and his people declined a couple of times, but in the end they couldn’t refuse and stayed.

However, looking around at a camp with only Adam and Gaston, Arseny was a bit surprised.

He couldn’t help asking, "Where are the others? Where’s Chen Wen?"

Adam thought for a moment, then answered honestly, "Chen Wen and the others had other things to do, so they left the camp."

Hearing that, Arseny looked over at Boris, and there was a hint of surprise in both their eyes.

Arseny couldn’t help asking, "When will they be back? Will they make it back tonight?"

Adam shook his head. "I’m afraid not. They went hunting..."

After explaining Chen Wen’s plans to Arseny, a flicker of disappointment crossed Arseny’s face.

He didn’t try to hide it.

Adam hesitated for a moment, then said, "You... were you looking for Chen Wen about something?"

Arseny sighed. "What else could it be? It’s about that tiger commission..."

Arseny took off the backpack he was carrying and pulled out a tablet. The electronic map on it was marked with a lot of locations, but each one now had a big X drawn over it.

Boris explained at his side, "These past few days, we’ve been searching for that tiger, but we haven’t found it at any of the places we’d predicted. On top of that, we ran out of food, so we came back here to rest and resupply, then plan to check the next area."

"But while we were searching, we found that a lot of animals would flee far away because of our sounds and smell. Their behavior would make many other animals alert. We’d expected that, but the reality turned out even worse than we thought."

Adam nodded slightly.

He understood the difficulties Boris and the others were facing.

Right now, the task of finding the tiger was extremely hard for them.

The tiger’s Perception Ability is excellent to begin with, and they had so many people that the disturbance they caused was anything but small.

If the tiger heard them coming, it would definitely run far away!

A young man nearby said, "We also tried using drones to look for the tiger’s tracks, but drones are loud, and as soon as animals hear them they run. The smaller drones are more suited to probing inside the forest, but they easily crash into vegetation—the plants around here are really dense. So we feel that if we keep searching like this, we might end up with nothing at all."

Adam nodded again, but this time he asked, "So you came here to..."

Hearing this, Arseny said, a bit embarrassed, "When I went back, I learned a few things about Chen Wen and got to know some of his abilities, so I wondered if we could invite him to join our team—and ideally bring his menagerie along—to help us find the tiger."

Hearing that, Adam said helplessly, "Then you really are late. This morning, Chen Wen already left the camp with his animals. Right now it’s just Gaston and me here."

"As for when they’ll be back, if it’s quick, maybe a week; if it’s longer, it could be more than ten days."

Hearing this, Arseny shook his head helplessly. "Sigh, maybe this tiger really isn’t destined to be found by us. Forget it. Coming to see Chen Wen was always just a side plan—if we can’t find him, we’ll just keep carefully searching for signs of the tiger."

Boris, however, was a bit unwilling to give up and asked, "Then which direction did they go? Can you tell us?"

Adam nodded and pointed in the direction Chen Wen had left. "That way. But if they change direction along the way, there’s nothing I can do about that."

Boris nodded. "This is all the information we need."