I Am A Killer

by A Sick Frog

  “Cough cough, we’ve also finished our job here. We’ll go first then, you guys continue.” If it weren’t for the oil pastel paints on three of their face, it’d be flushed completely red. They didn’t want to throw any more of their faces, and so they hurriedly left this place that had them throwing away their faces.

  The three of them left under the following eyes of Qin Ke Xuan and Chi Qu Qi and they “sent” them for their departure. As though they were in a 100-metre race, they zipped from the mountain road quickly and disappeared from their scope of vision within a few moments.

  Qin Ke Xuan turned and walked with large strides in a direction. Chi Qu Qi immediately caught up, asking: “Where are you going now? If we walk without care, we might accidentally walk into an ambush.”

  Qin Ke Xuan slanted him a gaze, saying blandly: “Then do you want to die of thirst or die of hunger?” If they were to spend seven days here, water and food was something they had to find, or else they’d die of hunger and thirst before even they were killed.

  “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be eliminated either.” Chi Qu Qi said. “Let’s work together. I’ll lead the way, you can mind the back.”

  “You lead the way? Do you know where to find water?”

  “… I don’t.”

  The two of them flipped over a mountain range, arriving at the valley. Qin Ke Xuan squatted down, clawed some soil and moved it under her nose to sniff. Closing her eyes, she listened for a while before standing up again, signalling for Chi Qu Qi to catch up.

  Chi Qu Qi upon seeing Qin Ke Xuan’s actions was immediately stupefied. She could use her nose to find a water source? You could do it like this too? However, when he followed Qin Ke Xuan and flipped over another mountain range and saw a clear lake before his eyes, he couldn’t help but started admiring Qin Ke Xuan’s nose.

  He had not drunk a sip of water since he’d left the base, and they were flipping over the ranges of mountain non-stop, so his throat was already burning. Chi Qu Qi immediately leaned into the lake and started gulping. Qin Ke Xuan found an empty bottle from her backpack and threw it at Chi Qu Qi. “Fill it.” She didn’t immediately drink but noted the surrounding situation with alertness. This was a water source, she didn’t believe there would not be anyone not ambushing here. Now that the sky had darkened, with regards to them that were out in the open, those examiners hiding in the dark with infrared night vision device would be more thorny of a problem.

  Qin Ke Xuan upon seeing Chi Qu Qi still gulping, raised her leg and sent him a kick. “Hurry.” They had found their water source, but they still hadn’t found any food.

  “Ah!” The Chi Qu Qi that had been filling water under Qin Ke Xuan’s instructions suddenly shouted in pain and pulled his hand from the water. A thick water snake that had bitten dead tightly to the back of his hand hung from his hand.

  Qin Ke Xuan frowned and immediately stretched her hand out to pinch the tender spot of the snake, forcing it to release its bite on Chi Qu Qi and flung it with force onto the rocks. Upon slamming on the rock, the water snake stopped moving and died immediately.

  She pulled Chi Qu Qi’s sleeves up, letting him press his other hand on his arm to disallow the venom from flowing into his body through the bloodstream. She, on the other hand, very quickly fished out some cloth and tore it into a long shred, then wrapped where Chi Qu Qi was pressing. After which, she pulled out a dagger attached to her waist and drew a cross on his wound, before she pinched his forearm with both her hands, pushing the poisoned blood out along the flow of his veins.

  Chi Qu Qi had already calmed down now. He managed a smile with difficulty: “Don’t be nervous. The majority of water snakes are not poisonous, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

  Qin Ke Xuan raised her head, calm as usual. “I’m not nervous. And, this one is poisonous.” And then she lowered her head and continued squeezing out his poisoned blood.

  Upon hearing it was a poisonous snake that had kissed him, Chi Qu Qi got a scare. But upon seeing how Qin Ke Xuan was treating his wound adeptly, he was relieved again. Feeling like it’s no longer that much of a big deal anymore, he said loudly: “I’m so unlucky!”

  “You’re already very lucky.” Qin Ke Xuan said.

  “Aye, if I’m lucky then I wouldn’t have been bitten by a snake. Don’t even know if it’ll affect my performance in the following test. Please don’t let me be eliminated because of this!”

  “You weren’t bitten when you had your head plunged into the water.” If it was that, even she would be unable to keep the venom from entering his body.

  Upon hearing her saying that, his scalp immediately numbed, and couldn’t help but rejoice mentally. If it had been his face that had been bitten just now, then wouldn’t his head swell up like a pig head?

  “Aye, Qin Ke Xuan, will it be alright like this? Do I still need to take a blood serum?” If he needed a blood serum to clear the venom, then he would definitely need to back out from this test. If he was unable to continue staying in the Reserve Squad because of his careless slip-up this time, he would definitely die crying!

  Qin Ke Xuan after squeezing out the last of his poisoned blood, asked: “What is a blood serum?”

  “Isn’t it just something that’s used to clear the venom of a snake.”

  “No need, you wait here.” Qin Ke Xuan put down her bag and had Chi Qu Qi watch over it before she entered the forest. She remembered she’d seen some herbs that could clear the venom of this snake on her way here. It was really dark out now, she had to find the herb and return before the sky had completely darkened. And so, she inhaled and sped up her steps. In order to not let the people in the dark see that she knew how to use qing gong, she tried her best to lower her legs. If one didn’t mindfully take note, they would only feel like she was running very fast rather than seeing that her feet were not touching the ground at all.

  Borrowing the impending darkness of the night and the lowered visibility of the forest, Qin Ke Xuan scaled a tree. As though a forest spirit, she leapt between trees. After a while, she stopped on the tree near to the location at where she had remembered the herb was at. Her hand holding on to the tree, she ensured there was no one around before leaping from the tree. She found the herbs, picked a few and pocketed them.

  Just as she was about to return, she suddenly saw beautiful wild chicken moving around not far away. She silently groped the ground and picked up a stone. Clipping it between her fingers, she flung it and the wild chicken fell with a grunt. She walked over, picked up the wild chicken and returned the same way she came.

  When Chi Qu Qi heard there were movements coming from the forest, he aimed his rifle at it nervously. After seeing Qin Ke Xuan popping out, a wild chicken in her hand, he was so shocked his jaw almost dislodged. Pointing at her, he stammered: “You, you went hunting?”

  Qin Ke Xuan threw the wild chicken down randomly and produced the herbs she had picked. She placed it on the rock, smashed them and grabbed them. “Stretch out your hand.” She lathered the herbs on Chi Qu Qi’s wound, found some clothe to wrap up the wound and then started sorting out the wild chicken on the ground.

  Chi Qu Qi looked at his bandaged hand, asking in unease: “That’s it? You sure? I still think it’s better to get a blood serum.”

  “Up to you, go if you want.” The dagger in Qin Ke Xuan turned about, as agile as a snake. After a few slashes, she’d cleaned the wild chicken and wrapped it in moist mud and buried it into a little pit. She took the dry wood she’d picked from nearby and placed it on the pit. Using the lighter she’d gotten from the three Special Forces soldier, she lighted it.

  “It’s dark out now, won’t lighting a fire make us easily noticed?” Chi Qu Qi asked.

  “Why are you still not gone?” Qin Ke Xuan raised her eyelids and lowered them again.

  The sides of Chi Qu Qi’s lips twitched, and he said in his normal arrogant tone: “Qie! How can these little wounds make me back out? Impossible! Who am I? I’m a future Specia
l Forces sniper, how can I prematurely be aborted at such a place! Haha!”

  “Any louder you shout, the people will probably discover there’s people here.” Qin Ke Xuan slanted a gaze at the Chi Qu Qi who was pronouncing his lofty aspiration and magnificent goals, and said blandly.

  Chi Qu Qi immediately stopped. Not wanting to ponder over Qin Ke Xuan’s comment, he automatic switched the topic. “You’re really gonna eat a wild chicken? Oi, SARS was derived from eating wild animals. You better be careful not to become SARS’s next source of origin.”

  Qin Ke Xuan used a thin branch and cleared out that dead water snake and placed it to cook on the fire. “You can not eat it.”

  Chi Qu Qi looked at that colourful snake, thinking about how much this ass’ bite had him exiting the scene before he even had the chance to perform just wanted to fiercely chomp a few bites on it, even though it was a little retching. “I want that snake!”

  Qin Ke Xuan dug out the stewed wild chicken, peeled off the mud. The chicken skin came off with the mud, revealing its snow-white chicken meat still piping hot, and that had Chi Qu Qi swallowing his saliva. Half of the snake that had gone down his stomach couldn’t fill his stomach at all, and he immediately dumped his belief in “eating wild stuff gets you SARS”, cupped half his chicken in his hand and ate away happily. Pity there was no salt, or else it’ll taste even better.

  As he chomped away, he chatted with Qin Ke Xuan. “Hehe, Qin Ke Xuan, your cooking’s not bad, not bad not bad. There’s food to eat following you! Oi, I got bitten by a snake just now, according to the eight o’clock drama script, shouldn’t you help me suck out the poisoned blood?”

  Qin Ke Xuan threw the chicken bones she had finished chomping on back into the fire, and looked at the Chi Qu Qi smiling away cheerfully across the fire, replying: “You’re not him. Even if you will die here, I won’t suck it out for you. If you don’t want to die then take note of your surrounding situation more.”

  Chi Qu Qi sharply latched onto to the pronoun in her sentence. “Who is he?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  “Someone you like? Hoho, kids nowadays are all engaging in their puppy love, is he your tong xue? How’s he like?” Chi Qu Qi was extremely gossipy.

  “Go after you’re done eating, so much nonsense. Why don’t you go and gossip with the people who’d surrounded us, I’m not interested in listening to you talk.”

  Chapter 37 - Parting Ways

  It’d be strange for them not to attract over the examiners with the way they were eating and chatting beside the lake in the open. How could there possibly be such egotistical targets! Even the snipers had to hide in the grasses chomping on dried food, feeding the mosquitoes, yet these targets were there enjoying their piping fragrant wild chicken. Just wait, they snipers will definitely finish off these arrogant targets!

  Chi Qu Qi upon hearing Qin Ke Xuan’s reminder immediately looked around at the darkness, alert, but he was completely unable to notice any movement. He quietly moved to touch his assault rifle on his thighs hanging from his neck.

  Qin Ke Xuan grabbed her bag, saying loudly: “How are we so stupid? To lug around this heavy bag pack everywhere we go? Why don’t we secretly hide all the stuff inside somewhere, then wait till we’re returning before we place everything back?”

  “Hah?” Chi Qu Qi was struck dumb. Why would they fret over trying to slack off instead of fretting about running away at such a time like this when they were going to be captured on the spot by other people?

  “Take your bag over, take out all the things inside and put them behind the rock.” Qin Ke Xuan continued saying loudly, and then said softly: “I’ll extinguish the fire, follow me tightly.”

  No wonder, Qin Ke Xuan was purposely talking loudly to attract those people’s attention and let them think they were slacking off. They hence would not shoot them at the moment after seeing them really unloading the stuff from their bags, as they would be able to kick them out for as they were slacking off. As the Reserve Squad didn’t allow anyone to slack, there would be no reason for any slackers to continue remaining in the Reserve Squad.

  “Oh, okay, how did I not think of that!” Chi Qu Qi faked talking loudly as he grabbed his bag, heading over to Qin Ke Xuan’s side.

  Qin Ke Xuan upon seeing it as a good opportunity squatted by the lake. She took off her helmet to scoop some water and extinguished the fire. When the water met the fire, it immediately extinguished. Following which was smoke gushing out. With the only source of light extinguished, the darkness immediately encased the two of them. The two Special Forces soldiers that had been aiming at them immediately reacted and realised they were tricked, and so, they hurriedly aimed in front and fired. However, by the time they wore their infrared night vision device and surveyed the surroundings, other than the few soldiers located at their ambush place, the silhouettes of the two figures were long gone.

  They went over to check the side of the lake, asking each other how many shots they fired in total before checking against the rock for the marks; none of the shots hit them.

  “Looks like we’ve really met a thorny newcomer. Not bad, not bad. We’ll team up and focus on them later on!” The team leader of the surprise attack team told the team members.

  “Will it tilt the fairness?” One of the members questioned.

  “Tilt what fairness, we need to reasonably distribute our resources, get it? That newbie’s the one that finished off one of our teams, and now, they’ve managed to escape despite being surrounded by two of our teams! You can tell others about this, but I’ve definitely got no face to lose! Listen up, we will find them and finish them off in the following days!” It wouldn’t excite him even if he finished off eight or ten of the other little sheep Reserve Squad members. There’s finally a newbie that’s showing some potential, how could they possibly give up this chance to play with them properly?

  He brought his team members and scoured in the direction of Qin Ke Xuan and Chi Qu Qi’s footsteps whereas the other team continued cutting through the forest looking for other newbies that’s on their own.

  In the dark forest, two silhouettes were zipping forward at a very fast speed. The silhouette following behind stopped, and Chi Qu Qi bent forward, panting. “Pant, pant, pant, Qin Ke Xuan, pant, let’s rest a bit, pant, I, I can’t run anymore.”

  The silhouette belonging to Qin Ke Xuan in front stopped as well. She looked at the panting Chi Qu Qi in extreme discontent. They’ve only ran for a little bit and now he’s already out of breathe? Forget it, in this world where the people were all so frail as though they were daughters that had never left their houses, he was already doing pretty well.

  “Let’s rest for a bit.” Qin Ke Xuan said blandly, and then speedily dashed towards a tree in front. When she approached the tree, she stepped up the tree trunk continuously, leaping up. Both hands grabbing a branch, she flipped up and sat on the tree. Honestly, if it hadn’t been Chi Qu Qi being here, it wouldn’t be as troublesome as this to scale a tree for her. All she would have needed to do was to leap up.

  But what she had already done was shocking enough for Chi Qu Qi. He sat on the ground and pinched his thighs, it freaking hurts! He’s not dreaming! He carefully looked at the surroundings, asking the Qin Ke Xuan sitting atop the tree softly: “Oi! Qin Ke Xuan, are you Tarzan?” Even though Special Forces soldiers had some epic skills, it was not to the extent of being able to step a tree trunk perpendicular to the ground right? And, she’s not even a Special Forces soldier yet!

  “Shh.” Qin Ke Xuan squinted one eye, tilted her head and leaned her other eye into the scope of the rifle to observe the situation afar. It had been Chi Qu Qi who had taught her about this scope. Apparently, it could allow one to clearly view things that were far away. Pity that it was at night so it was dark everywhere, hence the scope didn’t really help much.

  “We’re staying overnight here.” Qin Ke Xuan lowered her head to announce to the Chi Qu Qi below.

  “Ha? Here
? You sure?! Let’s not even talk about being discovered by them, what if a wild boar or wild wolf run out, what are we going to do?”

  “They don’t know how to climb trees.”

  “… You mean we overnight on the trees?”

  “Enh.”

  Chi Qu Qi swept a look at the forest; there was, indeed, no other choice. And so, he pantingly climbed up the tree Qin Ke Xuan was on and sat down on another branch. “I’ll guard, you sleep. I can rest here. Even if I sleep, I won’t fall.” He pointed at the big branch with a few more branches branching out from it; it was large enough for someone to cuddle up in there without falling off.

  “No need.” Qin Ke Xuan sat like that on her branch and closed her eyes to rest.

  Chi Qu Qi shrugged, hugged his rifle and surveyed the surroundings for movements. In the beginning, he was still able to remain awake. However, as time passed, his eyelids gradually became too heavy to be kept open. Thinking about no matter how amazing those Special Forces soldiers were, they were still humans, so they still needed sleep right, then let’s just all sleep together. With that thought in mind, he smacked his lips and leaned on the tree trunk, falling asleep.

  In the dark of the night, Qin Ke Xuan opened her eyes. She glanced sideways at the Chi Qu Qi nodding away, and looked once again at the rustling noise from not far away. She fished out an empty ammo from her waist bag, clipped it between her fingers and flung it out. It hit something and the rustling immediately died out. She then stretched her hand to grip Chi Qu Qi’s shirt just in time to keep him from falling backwards. “So troublesome.” Qin Ke Xuan muttered.

  The second day, when the sky was still murky bright, Chi Qu Qi was hit on the head by something. Immediately, he was shocked awake. After moving his body, he suddenly remembered he was still on the tree. He thought he’d fall off the tree, but only realised he was tied to the tree by a string. He turned his head in shock to look for Qin Ke Xuan, but he didn’t see her. Anxious, he shouted: “Qin Ke Xuan! Where are you?!”