Chapter 33 - 25: Harvest and Returning Home 2
The dense jungle provides the best cover for hunters.
The countless trees and bushes offer optimal conditions for launching sneak attacks with arrows.
At this moment, an arrow shoots out, silently piercing through the distance of over a hundred meters, heading straight for Du Qing.
The warrior’s heightened awareness alerts him to the approaching danger.
However, his brief moment of distraction causes the Qingzhu Gang leader to miss his best chance to dodge the attack.
The best he can do now is to twist his body to avoid the vital areas, but his arm is still pierced by the arrow.
The sharp iron arrowhead punctures his left upper arm bone, causing him intense pain and forcing him to drop the iron rod he was holding.
With his left arm injured, his iron rod martial art skills are rendered useless, greatly reducing his strength in an instan t.
Under such pain, Du Qing quickly snaps out of his fury.
He immediately realizes that it is now impossible for him to catch the elusive hunter, given his injured state.
Even now, he finds himself in grave danger.
“Escape, I must escape from this mountain.”
Having lost all of his underlings and being injured himself, Du Qing soberly realizes that he is not dealing with an ordinary hunter.
Rather, he faces a terrifying foe who possesses great patience, cunning, and strength.
Confronting this kind of existence, even he feels a chill in his bones.
In an instant.
Like the subordinate whose head he had just crushed, Du Qing’s body desperately races back down the path he came from.
In these mountains, he has no familiarity with the terrain and is at a disadvantage against the hunters who grew up in the mountains.
He vows that if he can escape, he will report to the gang leader and have him bring all gang members to capture all the hunters in the vicinity and enter the mountain with overwhelming force.
Once they find that despicable and treacherous culprit, he will take his revenge.
After all, when there are green hills left, there will always be firewood to burn.
At this point, Du Qing must preserve this flame of revenge.
In the distance.
Lu Yuan watches as the Qingzhu Gang leader suddenly turns and flees and is momentarily stunned. However, he quickly understands that his prey wants to escape.
He has painstakingly laid so much groundwork and spent so much time luring his prey—how could he let the quarry slip away now?
Without any hesitation, he raises his bow and arrows and gives chase.
He pursues the fleeing gang leader while launching a continuous barrage of arrows.
When the Qingzhu Gang was more numerous, Lu Yuan had refrained from using his deadly archery skills to launch sneak attacks, fearing that it would scare off his prey.
That said, given their numbers, he would have had a hard time leaving no one behind.
As a result, Lu Yuan had repressed his urge earlier, leading the prey in circles through the forest while using traps to harm them.
The primary purpose of this was to eliminate the small fry first.
Now that the goal has been reached, Du Qing is frantically running.
The more enjoyable the pursuit had been, the more miserable the escape now is.
However, the paths of flight and pursuit are not smooth ones.
Barely visible, the hunter relentlessly drives the quarry, his presence only marked by the occasional arrows silently shooting out from between the dense trees.
Lu Yuan takes great pleasure in the thrill of the hunt.
He guides his prey like he would during a usual hunt, using arrows to herd them towards the traps he has set up beforehand.
Finally.
As Du Qing is desperately trying to escape, he stumbles, falling off balance and plunging towards a snow-covered surface.
After chasing him for so long, the prey has finally stepped into the prepared trap.
Seizing the opportunity, Lu Yuan immediately takes out three arrows from his quiver, releasing them one after another towards the off-balanced Du Qing.
Unable to defend himself, one arrow pierces his neck, another pierces his chest, and the last strikes an indescribable spot between his legs—a tribute from Lu Yuan in return for the relentless pursuit earlier.
A huge pain mixed with an indescribable soreness, two strong sensations engulfed Du Qing’s last remaining consciousness in an instant.
With a heavy thud, his body fell into the pit, the sharp wooden stakes below piercing his body once again.
“It’s finally over.”
Near the deep pit, Lu Yuan looked at Du Qing’s impaled body below, sighed in relief, and his racing heart gradually slowed down.
Although he had made thorough preparations for today’s life and death hunt, ensuring no risk to his life, it was still an unprecedented experience for him.
Anxiety, excitement, blood boiling…
A murderous impulse surged from the bottom of his heart, as if it had been ignited from within his very blood.
He indulged himself in hunting and killing.
“No, no, what am I thinking?”
Recalling his earlier emotions, Lu Yuan shivered and quickly shook his head, discarding those terrifying thoughts: “I am a longevity seeker, an immortal. In the future, I will have an endless life and a wonderful life to enjoy; how can I immerse myself in such dangerous fighting and killing?
What’s the point of fighting with others? One misstep, and my life would be gone.
If I die, I’ll lose everything. How can that be worth it?”
He suppressed those horrible thoughts, secretly thinking that perhaps he had hunted and killed too many prey recently, and his emotions had been affected.
Hmm.
In that case, he would give up hunting for the rest of the winter.
During the New Year’s Festival, he would properly enjoy the festive atmosphere and adjust his mindset.
Lu Yuan made arrangements for the next stage of his life, jumped down into the pit, and began his usual post-fight operation of looting the body.
After searching the corpse briefly, he quickly found a large money pouch and removed a jade ring from Du Qing’s hand. Only then did he leave, satisfied.
The leader of the Qingzhu Gang was quite rich.
From the money pouch, Lu Yuan took out more than twenty silver taels, already a huge sum of money.
“There are still six ordinary gang corpses in the mountains. They must have a lot of money on them, too. Indeed, making money from hunting is the fastest.” Touching the heavy money bag in his hand, Lu Yuan’s thoughts drifted once again. But then he sobered up quickly: “No, hunting is good, but for safety reasons, I cannot use this identity as the Arrow God of Dayu Mountain too often.
This time, it was for money and I had no choice but to do it.
In the future, I should be cautious whenever possible.
As a longevity seeker, safety is the most important thing; everything else is an illusion.”
Lu Yuan warned himself once again in his heart.
Half an hour later, with an additional twenty silver taels he had looted from the corpses, the Arrow God of Dayu Mountain left Southsea territory, entered the vast mountain range, and began his journey home.
During this hunting trip, he earned fifty-three silver taels. Including the one hundred and thirty silver taels earned from selling fur, his total profit for this Southsea trip amounted to one hundred and eighty-three silver taels.
Together with his existing savings, he had finally accumulated more than two hundred silver taels.
With such a fortune, he would not have to worry about the expenses for his martial arts training in the next two years.
“No, during normal times, I can hunt my own meat and don’t have to buy it, saving some expenses. Plus the money I earn from regular hunting, two hundred silver taels should be enough to last for at least five years.”
Ten days later, with a relaxed pace and walking on thick snow, Lu Yuan left the mountains with a smile on his face.
Yangmei Town’s cooking smoke curled in the distance, the fields were covered in white snow, and children were playing under the plum trees at the street corners. Two elderly men with white hair watched the scene with kind eyes, their faces full of happy smiles.
“This world is so peaceful, tranquil, and joyful; it’s wonderful.”
Feeling sentimental, Lu Yuan stepped into the small town, greeting familiar people along the way. Suddenly, a burst of firecrackers sounded nearby.
He asked around and found out it was the celebration for a wealthy man named Sun, who owned a soy sauce shop on the West Street, who just had a big, fat son.
After a short walk, he finally arrived at the entrance of his home.
The lock on the gate was covered in a layer of snow, and it seemed that ice had formed inside the lock.
With some effort, he managed to open the lock.
Pushing the door open, he looked at the courtyard covered in snow and his eyes filled with warmth.
“I’m home.”
In the empty house, Lu Yuan muttered softly. The fatigue that had accumulated over time seemed to vanish with those words.
His heart was filled with tranquility..