Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
One of the walls along the South was completely hidden behind the house. Hence, the men would not be able to see anything from the metal door.
Jin Yiheng decided to stack the corpses there, so that they would not be easily discovered even if the two men decided to check on them. After all, there were lots of corpses there.
The three children squatted below the corpses and cocked their heads away from the overwhelming stench while trying to curb their nausea and fear. Due to the fact that they were rather small in stature, Jin Rongyan and Long Xiaoxi had to carry the upper part of the corpse together while Jin Yiheng carried the other end of it slowly.
The sky began to turn dark gradually. Although they were extremely slow, they still made some progress, bit by bit.
They grew numb after adjusting to the situation and getting over their fear.
Although they were moving the corpses in the middle of the night, they were no longer as petrified as they had been when they saw them for the first time.
However, it soon became difficult to stack the corpses once the pile had grown higher and higher.
Firstly, they were too short, and secondly, the pile of corpses would often collapse halfway through.
Fortunately, they had played with stacking blocks before and hence decided to stack the corpses as they would the toy blocks.
It took them the entire night to finish stacking.
They reeked of the stench from the decomposing corpses, and their hands were stained with blood that could not be removed.
It was their greatest nightmare.
It was a horrifying experience that they had never imagined before.
When it was almost daybreak, Jin Yiheng removed his sweatshirt and took out the remaining bread and biscuits that he had. He then wrapped them inside the sweatshirt and told Jin Rongyan to remove his shirt. He then climbed up the pile of corpses and successfully got onto the top of the wall.
He pulled Long Xiaoxi up before proceeding to pull Jin Rongyan up by his shirt.
He sat on top of the wall and stared at the ground from above. The wall was extremely high to them. However, they were not afraid at all.
Jin Yiheng handed the bread to the two of them and said, “You two, hold this.”
He tied his sweatshirt to Jin Rongyan’s and said, “Xiaoxi, hold onto this end of the shirt and climb down slowly. It might be very high off the ground but you won’t fall.”
“Alright.” Long Xiaoxi tugged onto the shirt and began descending slowly. When Long Xiaoxi was almost to the ground, she let go of the shirt and landed quickly.
“Rongyan, take it.”
He grabbed the sweatshirts and asked, “Brother, what about you? How are you going to go down?”
“I’ll jump off the wall later.”
“Brother, why don’t you lean against the wall and climb down slowly?”
Jin Yiheng insisted, “I’m your older brother, listen to me. Hurry, if they discover us, we won’t be able to escape.”
Jin Rongyan did not say anything else and instead followed his brother’s instructions.
He swiftly scaled down the wall while holding onto the sweatshirt.
Jin Yiheng cast the sweatshirt at the two children and got down from the top of the wall slowly before jumping off and landing onto the ground.
However, it was not a smooth plunge for him, and he landed onto a hole in the ground. He twisted his ankle and collapsed.
He could not help but burst into tears due to the excruciating pain.
“Brother, are you alright?”
“I sprained my ankle.”
“Xiaoxi, hurry and give me a hand.”
Long Xiaoxi frantically stepped forward to help Jin Yiheng to the side together with Jin Rongyan. The three children then walked inside.
“Don’t take this route, we’ll walk there instead,” said Jin Yiheng, who had broken out into a cold sweat.
The three children began walking toward the side, clenching their jaws and trying their best to press on.
If it weren’t for the training that they had received at the boot camp, the three children would not have been able to survive at all. However, they’d grown to develop grit and tenacity after all the rigorous training.
Despite having stayed up all night, they made their way across the island and covered a great distance.
Long Xiaoxi sat on the ground and remained as still as a statue while staring blankly at the ground with tears in her eyes.
Jin Yiheng quickly tried to comfort her, “Xiaoxi, don’t worry. We’ve escaped now, haven’t we? We must find some food and water so that we can survive until Daddy and Mommy come to rescue us. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not going to cry anymore. There’s no point in crying anyway.” Long Xiaoxi struggled to get up on her feet and she continued, “What if they chase after us and catch us again? Let’s keep walking.”
“Yes. Xiaoxi, you’re so brave.”
After hearing his words of encouragement, Long Xiaoxi felt more motivated to continue walking.
After walking in the same direction for a while, they made a turn and walked in another direction, all because they were afraid that the two men would catch up with them. They hurriedly proceeded along the route before stopping by a small lake.
In fact, there was barely any water left in the lake.
The three children began washing their faces and hands with the water before running toward the other side to drink some of it.
After drinking some water, they began eating. Jin Yiheng and Jin Rongyan both offered Long Xiaoxi more food. However, she did have some awareness and refrained from overeating even though she wasn’t full yet. Despite Jin Yiheng insisting that she have more of the food, she refused and shoved the food back to him.
“Brother, I’ll go look for some food.” As soon as Jin Rongyan stood up, Jin Yiheng stopped him.
“Let’s go together. We don’t know the way around here at all. What if you go missing?”
“Yiheng, Rongyan, hurry and take a look,” said Long Xiaoxi, pointing at a tree near the lake on which there were various red things.
“They seem to be edible. Let’s go have a look.”
Long Xiaoxi was overwhelmed with excitement, and happiness was written all over her chubby face. She then helped Jin Yiheng over to the tree.
They took a closer look at the tree and found that there really were some fruit on it.
“Why are there such fruits on this tree? Grandpa has plucked them for me when we went on the mountains to gather some herbs last time. I’ll climb up the tree to pluck them,” said Jin Rongyan, who then climbed up the tree in one, fluid motion like an agile monkey. He then threw a few fruits onto the ground.
Long Xiaoxi picked them up and handed it to Jin Yiheng. “Here.”
Jin Yiheng took a bite to discover that it was rather sour. Although the fruits were not exactly palatable, they could not afford to be picky with their food at this juncture. In fact, they ought to be grateful to have something to eat.
Jin Rongyan retrieved lots of fruit from the tree, and the three of them continuously munched on them to keep themselves full. They then wrapped the remaining fruit inside their clothing.
Afraid that they would not pass by another fruit tree again, Jin Yiheng decided to just stay there for a while until his ankle recovers.
After having their fill, they realized that it was about to rain soon.
They must seek shelter somewhere.
Jin Yiheng stared at his red and swollen ankle, trying his best to bear with the pain and refrain from wincing.
Reminded of the drawing that she had drawn before, Long Xiaoxi said, “By the way, Yiheng, isn’t it your birthday today? Mommy said that you and Godma share the same birthday. I wanted to give you a drawing that I had already finished drawing as a present for your birthday. I’ll give it to you when we get home.”
