"Don't move!" Cen Kaiwen pressed down on Baili Weibu's hand, which was clutching the Swiss Army knife, and turned his head alertly. "Listen!"
Several meters away in the thicket behind them, there were rustling noises and heavy breathing. The frigid air carried a faint scent of blood.
While their eyes were still searching, a massive black shadow suddenly burst out of the bushes, landing heavily less than five meters away from them. It had two faintly crimson eyes that blinked like small lanterns.
Baili Weibu gasped - it was a young brown bear that was not yet fully grown, but was already ferocious enough.
By convention, these big guys should have hibernated by now. As far as Baili Weibu knew, the only reason a bear wouldn't hibernate was if it didn't have enough food reserves.
Under the moonlight, the brown bear suddenly stood up. Its enormous body twisted strangely in the darkness as it let out a roar.
Baili Weibu slowly moved in front of Cen Kaiwen and whispered through her clenched teeth, "Don't move randomly. If I tell you to run, run quickly and don't look back!"
Cen Kaiwen's eyes held a hint of surprise. After a moment, he tugged at Baili Weibu, who was acting as if facing a mortal enemy, and said softly, "It doesn't seem like it's here to attack us. Look at its left front paw."
On the paw raised high by the brown bear, there was a ring of coldly glistening iron pieces. Upon closer inspection, it was stained with blood.
Animal trap?!
Baili Weibu had seen this crude but effective contraption before. In Romania, hunting is legal.
Based on the biting force of this simple implement, if it were a deer or some other more fragile animal, once it ran into the trap, the iron teeth on the trap would have directly snapped their limb or neck upon impact.
"It's just injured," Cen Kaiwen said solemnly and took a step toward the brown bear.
Baili Weibu grabbed him and scolded him in a low voice: "Are you crazy?! An injured brown bear is ten times more ferocious than an uninjured one. You..."
The brown bear slumped down, sitting on the ground like a puddle of mud, panting heavily with labored breaths. Its injured front paw trembled in pain in front of it.
Cen Kaiwen turned a deaf ear to her warning. He pulled her hand away and walked towards the brown bear without any hesitation.
Surprisingly, the beast's eyes gradually lost their hostility as it looked at the approaching human. It stopped snarling and instead issued whimpering cries from its throat.
Cen Kaiwen walked up to the bear and even stooped to stroke its head as if trying to soothe it, murmuring something under his breath.
The brown bear gradually calmed down, its tongue slowly licking the wounds on its front paw.
Though the nerves of her whole body remained tense, Baili Weibu couldn't help but wonder at the bear's behavior, which seemed to defy common sense.
"It'll be fine soon," Cen Kaiwen said as he crouched down and firmly gripped the trap deeply embedded in the brown bear's flesh. He frowned slightly and exerted force with both hands in opposite directions.
There was a crisp snap, which was especially harsh in the silent forest.
The iron animal trap shattered into several pieces in his hands and fell powerlessly from the bear's paw to the ground.
Hot blood poured profusely from the bear's wound, staining the hands he held over the wound a deep red.
The brown bear let out a low growl, perhaps from pain or perhaps from the relief of being freed. Baili Weibu had no intention of distinguishing between the two. What she was concerned about now was the man in front of her and what kind of power, or perhaps courage, had driven him to perform such a fearless act.
It should be noted that with a simple, effortless swipe, the bear could easily have swatted off half of his head like hitting a soccer ball. Yet, he'd been fearless from start to finish, no fear whatsoever. As a newcomer and an ordinary person, this was illogical.
He tore a sleeve from his sweater and rolled it into a makeshift bandage, carefully tying it around the bear's wound to stop the bleeding.
After doing all this, he breathed a slight sigh of relief and patted the bear on the head: "Seeing as you are so strong, you will be fine in a few days. Be careful from now on, you may not be so lucky every time. Now go."
The brown bear shook its head, turning its bulky body as it got up. After a few attempts, it put its front paws on the ground, then limped away into the woods. After taking a few steps, it looked back at Cen Kaiwen, and its eyes were actually a bit wet.
Baili Weibu was sure she must be hallucinating. A wild brown bear that could understand human speech and even cried...
Cen Kaiwen waved at the bear, hinting it to leave quickly, his face devoid of any superfluous expression.
When the brown bear's figure and scent disappeared into the night, Baili Weibu rushed to him in a single big stride, looked him straight in the eyes and asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm not human," he suddenly smiled evilly. "This answer should be the most logical one."
"You..." She was left speechless by his response.
"Just like you're naturally unafraid of ghouls and bogies, I'm naturally unafraid of these animals." He put away his joking expression and said seriously, "Whether it's small animals or ferocious beasts, they're all quite friendly toward me. Perhaps they sense that I have no intention of hurting them, so they don't feel threatened by me. Animals all have their own spirituality," he added mysteriously.
"Really?" She was dubious.
"We're both freaks[1]," He laughed heartily and then added, "It seems we won't be able to go home tonight. Let's hope we can find a way out after dawn."
"Let's hope we don't freeze to death before dawn," Baili Weibu said as she wrapped her jacket tighter. "Let's go to the cave we passed by earlier. It's better than standing out here like fools anyway."
Soon, the two of them found a sheltered spot inside the massive cave. The silence inside was so profound that you could hear a pin drop.
"You're so brave." After a brief silence, Cen Kaiwen gave Baili Weibu a playful thumbs-up, "Most other girls would definitely have fainted on the spot on seeing such a huge bear."
"Not as brave as you. Not only are you unafraid, but you also dared to treat the bear's injuries. You seem like such a refined person, but your hand strength is quite astonishing. You actually crushed the trap with your bare hands!" Baili Weibu turned her head to scrutinize him curiously. "How did you do that?"
"I suppose it was a spur-of-the-moment thing," he said, leaning comfortably against the cave wall. "Getting something like that stuck in your flesh hurts quite a bit. Humans should try it themselves; they'll know what it feels like."
Baili Weibu distinctly saw a chill in his eyes.
He stared blankly at the faint light coming in from outside and said to himself: "They just want to live quietly in their own homes. But even that isn't possible. Humans keep doing things that destroy homes and wipe out entire species—deforestation, hunting, it never ends. How disgusting." He turned his head to look at Baili Weibu, a different kind of smile playing on his face as he asked, "Isn't that right?"
Baili Weibu was stunned for a moment, then thought about it, nodded, and whispered: "It seems...like this."
She thought of the local hunters who used various methods to hunt and kill the animals in the forest. She recalled how they laughed proudly as they posed in front of the camera with the prey they'd caught, prey that had not yet completely died and their still bleeding wounds, taking photos in various victorious poses to keep as souvenirs. She remembered the brown bear's mournful cries earlier.
Suddenly, a heavy weight seemed to settle in her heart. It wasn't painful, but it felt suffocating.
There was another long silence between the two.
Baili Weibu leaned against the cold, hard stone wall, and waves of fatigue washed over her uncontrollably. She could no longer hold on and finally closed her eyelids, which felt as heavy as lead.
In her dreams, someone was calling her name. It was a woman, anxious and sorrowful, calling again and again... Weibu... Weibu…
It made her feel overwhelmingly sad.
It must be her sister, the sister she hadn't seen in so many years...
Cen Kaiwen looked at her, already slumped on the ground in sleep. Due to the cold, she instinctively curled up into a ball, shivering slightly. Her red lips occasionally moved as she talked in her sleep, murmuring words that no one could understand.
He took off his coat and gently covered her with it.
The whole world sank into a state of complete silence. He stood up and left the cave. He returned after a while, holding a bright red berry in his hand and gently placed it next to Baili Weibu. A refreshing, sweet smell wafted from the fruit and got into her slightly twitching nose...
Footnotes:
[1] guài wu: monster/freak/eccentric person. Kevin might've meant monsters considering their other identities.
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