In the waist-deep swamp, a donkey wearing a bamboo hat and blindfolded his eyes was walking hard forward.
Behind the donkey, four extremely secure baskets were tied up on the life raft dragged by ropes. On the left and right sides of the life raft, four people from Wei Ran were holding on to the handrails of the life raft and walking feebly.
With.
This was already the eighth or ninth day after leaving the cave where Squad Leader Liang was buried. In more than a week, lightning, heavy rain, bones along the way, and even locusts and festering wounds hanging all over the body, almost...
Always accompanying Wei Ran and others on their way.
But the food in their backpacks had been eaten when they entered the swamp two days ago.
"Wow"
Qin Shou was using a bamboo bowl to scoop up a bowl of accumulated rainwater from the depression of the rainproof cloth covering the life raft, poured it into his mouth, and said feebly, "I...I can't...I can't walk...
"
"Shou Zheng..." Wei Ran took a breath, resisting the dizziness caused by hunger, "Eat, eat some gum and candy, or find a place to rest and take a rest."
"Plop!"
Before he could finish his words, the young monk Sehao on the other side of the raft felt his feet weaken, and then he fell into the swamp with a cry of pain.
"Little Master Sehao..."
Zhou Guochang hurriedly tried to help the other person up, but he didn't expect his feet to slip as well, and he fell head-on into the smelly mud.
Upon seeing this, Wei Ran and Qin Shouzheng, who were walking behind, each reacted for almost a second before weakly tightening the reins to stop the donkey, and then hurriedly pulled the two fallen men up from the mud.
"Are you okay?" Qin Shouzheng asked weakly.
"It's okay...Bah! It's okay"
Zhou Guochang spit out the mud he accidentally swallowed in his mouth, wiped it hard on his face, and at the same time helped support the little monk Sehao who looked like a mud monkey with his other hand, and asked with concern in Burmese.
One sound.
"It's okay," young monk Sehao responded using the Chinese words he had learned these days, followed by a Burmese sentence.
"Have a rest... take a rest." When Wei Ran said this, he felt dizzy and could no longer stand still.
"Go over there, over there..." Qin Shouzheng pointed with difficulty to a group of floating grass not far away, and laboriously led the donkey over step by step.
"Brother Wei, where are we?" Zhou Guochang asked as he untied the donkey's blindfold.
"have no idea"
While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already opened the rainproof cloth covering the raft, took out the German lunch box containing brown sugar from the backpack, and scooped out a spoonful of brown sugar and put it into the mouth of the young monk Sehao, and then dug out another
The second spoonful of the same amount was put into Zhou Guochang's mouth.
Finally, a spoonful of brown sugar was given to Qin Shouzheng's mouth. Wei Ran dug out a spoonful of damp brown sugar and put it into his mouth, then quickly fastened the lunch box and returned it to the backpack.
"When we get ashore, let's discuss with the young master and kill the donkey, right?" Zhou Guochang said, swallowing his saliva.
"We'll wait until we finish eating the brown sugar."
While talking, Qin Shouzheng tried to climb onto the continuous floating grass, lying on his back, letting the rain wash away the mud below the waist, revealing his swollen legs and the leech hanging on it.
"I don't know if I can get out of this muddy land alive." Zhou Guochang sighed, followed the example of Tan Shouzheng and climbed onto the floating grass, carefully lay down on it, and covered his face with his pocket.
Even Wei Ran didn't dare to give a positive answer to his question. In the end, the hungry four people could only lie down carefully on the floating grass, letting the heavy rain wash away the mud and festering wounds on their bodies while they continued.
Take a short rest.
The donkey also took advantage of this rare opportunity to eat the green grass floating in clumps on the swamp.
In less than half an hour, Wei Ran was the first to sit up and stand in the waist-deep mud again. "Okay, it's time to set off. We'd better leave here before dark and find a place to go ashore."
"What on earth were the people in front thinking, and why did they choose such a path?" Zhou Guochang, who was already snoring, complained, and he and the young monk Sehao got up in no particular order.
"The mountains on both sides are so steep, this swamp is the best way to go." When Wei Ran said this, he reached out and pulled Qin Shouzheng, but the other party didn't react at all!
"broken!"
Wei Ran's heart trembled, and he quickly lifted the bamboo hat on Tan Shouzheng's head, stretched out his hand to try to breathe, and then put it to his chest to listen to his heartbeat.
[By the way, the best app for reading and listening to books is currently Yeguo Reading, install the latest version on yeguoyuedu.]
Fortunately, both breathing and heartbeat were normal. However, when he put his hand on Qin Shouzheng's forehead, he felt the scalding temperature!
"Shou Zheng has a fever," Wei Ran said worriedly, "Hurry up and lend a hand and carry him to the boat."
Upon hearing this, Zhou Guochang immediately called the young monk to come over, and together they carried Qin Shouzheng, who had fainted at some point, into the life raft.
"Is he okay?" Zhou Guochang asked with some fear, as if he was afraid that Wei Ran would say something bad.
“The fever is severe”
As Wei Ran spoke, he left the rainproof cloth and tied it tightly, "We have been walking in the mud for two days. We must get ashore as soon as possible."
"Let's go, let's go!"
Zhou Guochang panicked, stumbled to the side of the donkey, stretched out his hand to help it put on the blindfold again.
Picking up the bamboo poles that served as walking sticks again, the three men, whose physical condition was no better than that of Tan Shou, gritted their teeth and quickened their pace. In the heavy rain that almost never stopped, they used the corpses of the expeditionary soldiers lying on the floating grass as road signs.
, stopping and walking, continued walking hard towards the front.
I don't know how many hours later, the heavy rain stopped without any warning, but the sky above us was dark.
The three people gathered together and struggled to light the only two oil lamps, and hung them on the bamboo baskets with almost nothing left on both sides of the donkey.
Contrary to their expectations, this erratic light actually attracted many small loaches and small miscellaneous fish living in the swamp.
Seeing this, Zhou Guochang immediately took out a handful of bamboo woven fences from the basket that belonged to Squad Leader Liang, and walked along trying to fish out something under the oil lamp.
Although most of the time this method only catches numb locusts, there are always a few willing loaches or catfish that haven't grown yet and are thrown into the life raft and fluttering around.
Unfortunately, Zhou Guochang ran out of energy after just a few fishing attempts, and in the end he had no choice but to throw the fence into the bamboo basket on the donkey's back.
With anticipation for the small fish they had picked up, the three still-awake people walked drowsily until midnight, when the little monk Sehao fell into the water with a "plop" again.
This time, when Wei Ran and Zhou Guochang struggled to pull him out, the young monk had already fallen into a coma.
The two looked at each other, and finally could only grit their teeth and work together to lift him into the life raft to keep him company with Qin Shouzheng, who was suffering from a high fever.
"Wei...Brother Wei"
Zhou Guochang paused, then gritted his teeth and said, "I remember... there seemed to be some Japanese marching pills in the medicine box."
"Do you know about Xingjun Pills?" Wei Ran frowned, "No, that kind of thing..."
“We can’t live without it.”
Zhou Guochang had already pulled out the bamboo basket containing the medicine box as he spoke, "I have seen it in the Japanese newspaper before, and also at Mr. Luke's house. I know that it is as harmful to people as smoke.
"
"you..."
"But you have to survive"
Zhou Guochang didn't wait for Wei Ran to finish speaking, then broke away from his hand and said very seriously, "Brother Wei, I have to live. No matter what, I have to get out of this ghost place alive. I want to find my sister and brother alive. They
, they are still waiting for me."
With a silent sigh, Wei Ran slowly let go of Zhou Guochang's wrist, allowing the other person to find the iron tube, took out a pill from it and threw it into his mouth.
"Give me one too," Wei Ran gritted his teeth and said, "Let's both walk out in one breath!"
"Go out in one breath!" Zhou Guochang repeated, stretching the iron bucket in front of Wei Ran.
Wei Ran reached out and took out a pill and threw it into his mouth. Wei Ran chewed it three times and swallowed it. Then he simply took out the German lunch box, dug out a spoonful of brown sugar from it and put it into Zhou Guochang's mouth.
"Take a bite, too," Zhou Guochang urged. At the same time, he picked up the wooden bowl, scooped out a bowl of rainwater from the depression of the tarpaulin and put it into his stomach.
After silently taking a mouthful of brown sugar, Wei Ran put away his lunch box and also filled a bowl of water, and once again grabbed the donkey's reins.
In less than ten minutes, Wei Ran could clearly feel his heart beating loudly. The fatigue on his body and the pain from his wounds had obviously disappeared, and his mood had even improved a lot.
Zhou Guochang, who was walking on the other side of the life raft, obviously felt the effects of the medicine, but what Wei Ran didn't expect was that he actually took out two extra pills and fed them to the donkey!
With the blessing of this medicine, the speed of progress suddenly accelerated. When the sky gradually became brighter, even the raging rainstorm temporarily stopped, revealing the golden sunrise.
"Wei...Brother Wei...that...that...plop!" Zhou Guochang, whose face was pale and trembling, pointed tremblingly in front of him. Before he could finish his words, his legs were already weak.
, kneeling in the mud that was only knee-deep.
"Guochang..."
Wei Ran shouted weakly. He wanted to reach out and pull the other person up, but his eyesight turned black and his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.
He forced himself to look in the direction of Zhou Guochang's finger. In Mohu's field of vision, he first saw a buffalo in the swamp, and then he saw what seemed to be a person lying on the buffalo.
After biting the back of his hand hard, Wei Ranqiang took out the pistol from the metal book, pointed it at the top of his head and pulled the trigger.
"boom!"
Amidst the crisp sound of gunfire, the cement man in the distance raised his head blankly and looked over, and the man lying on the back of the buffalo also sat up.
"save..."
After retracting his pistol, before Wei Ran could shout out, he fell down into the mud with a "pop" and lost consciousness just like Zhou Guochang.
