Chapter 39 (1/2)

Chapter 39 Betrayal

Whoos.h.!.+

The bolt was ejected from the crossbow violently, creating a small gust in the air. In a flash, the head of the bolt was buried deep in the tree trunk.

Chang was astonished by the result; he hastily ran up to the tree to check the bolt – it was 40 centimeters long, but more than thirty centimeters penetrated the tree, leaving only the tail of the bolt sticking out. He grabbed on the end of the bolt to try to pull it out, but it stayed put in the tree without even budging an inch. Chang tried another dozen times before the bolt was finally removed from the trunk bit by bit.

“This is more powerful than I thought!” Staring at the deep hole as well as the juice dripping from it, his voice was full of hope. “This is even more powerful than the pistol I got. The captain was right; a crossbow is definitely a better choice for attacking at short distances.”

“However, the trajectory isn’t as precise as I wanted to be…” Upon checking the hole, he found that the position of the hole was lower than where he aimed – this meant that the trajectory was curved. Since the crossbow was already much heavier than guns, it was harder to aim. Also, the weight of the bolt also altered the trajectory. If it was to be used in close combat, it could cause more harm than a gun, without a doubt. However, if the bolt needed to fly more than 50 meters, the effect would be significantly reduced.

Fortunately, in the shrouded fog, even Chang himself could barely see beyond 8 meters. Therefore, anything beyond 50 meters was out of his consideration.

The most important thing he needed to do now was to test out the properties of the bolts and to operate the crossbow fluently. Before sunset, he made countless holes on the same tree. Of course, if the tree was mutated and acted aggressively, Chang would have been easily torn apart before he even dared to make a second hole.

It was a pity that the evolutionary pace of this tree was much slower than the one he previously encountered – it didn’t turn into a horrifying monster and remained a stout tree.

The whole afternoon practice helped Chang learn how to wind the crossbow as fast as he could, as well as distinguish the functions of long and short bolts. He could now make a relatively accurate shot within 10 meters; everything seemed too smooth to believe.

The sky gradually became darker and Chang could see less and less in the dense red fog. When Chang could no longer see beyond three meters, he packed up the crossbow and took all the bolts back from the tree. Walking in the world of red and black, the fog slowly flew by his body, and he felt like a rat in a soup pot.

As Chang approached his dorm room on the first floor, his sensitive nose noticed a hint of a familiar reek from the room. Then, his heart sunk – this stench meant that there was a corpse in his room, and a corpse meant that someone had died. What was worse was that a person died in his room.

Chang already had an idea of who had died.

As he pushed open the door, he saw a corpse covered with a bed sheet lying on the bed of the family of three. The sheet covered most of her body and only her head was exposed in the air. Beside the body was another old man lying on a bed, bit his breathing wasn’t any better than the lifeless body; he was truly at the gates of death.

The person guarding the bed was their daughter. She never spoke anything when living in this dorm room, and at this moment, she straddled on the edge of the bed like a puppet, emotionless and tearless. No one could tell whether she was sad or not from her face. She just occasionally wiped off the sweat from her father’s forehead.

Even though she hid the sadness in her face, her behavior sold her emotions.

“…” Chang sighed heavily before walking into the room, and the corpse exuded an intense reeking stench as he expected. He walked pa.s.sed the family and sat on his own bed. A surge of compa.s.sion and sadness raised from the bottom of his heart.

Last night, Chang was still hesitating whether or not he should give his bed to one of her parents, but today the girl’s mother had pa.s.sed away. He wasn’t sad about her death, but his own actions – if he showed his kindness last night, even though it wouldn’t prevent their deaths, it could still provide warmth at the end of their lives.

However, if he let one of her parents sleep on his bed, he would have had a restless night. Would he have been able to escape from the attacks of the giant dog? Would he still be able to sit on his bed right now?

While Chang was struggling, a hand patted on his shoulder.

It was Qing shui.