After half a day of bumpy ride, we finally arrived at the foot of Mount Qishan in the afternoon. Fortunately, no strange people followed us along the way.
When they arrived at the agreed location, Lin Mobai immediately saw a military green SUV parked on the side of the road not far away. Song Jiarou honked the horn, and soon six people got out of the car, followed by Lin Mobai and his group.
"Hello, Miss Song."
As soon as the six people got off the car, the leader came up to greet them warmly.
This person was none other than Wang Jie's father's friend, Chen Luo, the director of Jiangshan First Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. Following him were two interns from Jiangshan Hospital, Pei Chuman and Bai Wen, and geographical survey expert Zhao Feng.
At the back were two burly men. According to Chen Luo, these two were specially hired to protect the safety of this trip.
After a brief introduction, everyone changed into long clothes, long pants, leggings, etc. for crossing the forest, and then everyone's backpack was filled with water, food, clothes, and various necessities.
Lin Mobai couldn't help but glance at the two burly men, and saw that one of them was taking advantage of Chen Luo and Song Jiarou's greeting to look at Song Jiarou's slender thighs with a lustful look.
Seeing this, Lin Mobai looked at him with disdain, then turned his gaze around and took in the surrounding environment.
Before coming here, Lin Mobai also searched for information about Qishan on the Internet.
Although the scenery of Qishan Forest is beautiful, there are many aggressive wild animals in the depths. Wolves, poisonous snakes, bears, etc. are relatively easy to deal with, and it is said that there are also South China tigers.
After everything was ready, Chen Luo and Song Jiarou took out a map and a compass. After discussing for a long time, they finally decided on a specific plan. Lin Mobai, Wang Jie and others followed them and walked towards the depths of Qishan.
As we went deeper into the dense forest, there were more and more thick and lush trees. We could only see a little sunlight when we looked up. In some places, we could not even see the sunlight.
Various moss vegetation on the ground is also very lush, accompanied by damp fallen leaves. The fallen leaves and branches that have accumulated over the years are gradually rotting, emitting a damp smell of rotten wood.
The stones on the mountain road were covered with moss and were very slippery to walk on. Pei Chuman, who was following behind, almost slipped.
Looking at Wang Jie standing aside, he seemed to really treat this trip as a sightseeing trip, stopping from time to time to take out his mobile phone to take pictures.
The deeper we went into the jungle, the more mosquitoes there were. All kinds of insects were crawling all over our bodies from time to time. Fortunately, we had made preparations in advance, otherwise we would have quickly become the mosquitoes' dinner if we were only wearing the shorts and shirts we came in with.
But the two big men didn't say a word along the way, they just followed behind silently. Lin Mobai even suspected that they were mute.
"Mo Bai, look here!" Wang Jie stopped and shouted.
Everyone looked in the direction of the sound and saw a patch of green grass at Wang Jie's feet with white and tender plants that looked like pistachios.
Just as Wang Jie was about to reach out to pick it, Chen Luo stopped him:
"Don't move. This is Fritillaria cirrhosa, a famous medicine for moistening the lungs and relieving coughs. Because many greedy people over-collect it, it has now been listed as a national third-level protected medicinal material."
"Xiao Wang, I have to criticize you for this. You picked them carelessly. Not to mention whether it will damage the herbs, it is also not safe for you. What if you encounter danger? What if you encounter something poisonous..."
Chen Luo pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and kept chattering like a big boss. Wang Jie hurried to Lin Mobai at the back and covered his ears with his hands.
After walking for nearly two hours, the sky gradually darkened and the surroundings became darker, so everyone stopped. Chen Luo asked everyone to rest on the spot and prepare to set up tents and light a bonfire.
After everyone set up the tent, they put all their backpacks inside the tent, moved around for a while, then walked out of the tent and lit a bonfire outside.
By this time it was completely dark, and everyone sat cross-legged around the campfire and took out compressed biscuits to eat with water.
Only Wang Jie mysteriously took out a whole fried chicken from his backpack, broke it open and gave a chicken leg to Lin Mobai.
"Hey, little brother, what are you eating that smells so good? Can you share some with me?" One of the two sturdy men finally spoke, staring at the fried chicken in Wang Jie's hand with a smile.
Seeing this, Wang Jie quickly wrapped up the fried chicken and put it back into his schoolbag: "No, no, these are all made by my mom. I only have this one."
"Tsk, so stingy." The sturdy man curled his lips and said with disdain.
"Student Wang, I have to criticize you for this. We are going there for an inspection, not for travel. Don't spread your bad lifestyle to everyone..." Seeing this, Chen Luo started nagging again.
"No, where is Bai Wen? Why haven't I seen him?" Before Chen Luo could finish his words, Song Jiarou asked with a puzzled look on her face.
At this time, everyone realized that no one had seen Bai Wen since he set up the tent.
Everyone shouted Bai Wen's name, but as expected, there were only intermittent echoes in the dark, empty forest.
"Look there!" Wang Jie shouted, and everyone followed his gaze and saw a figure standing behind the tree.
When everyone rushed over to see the figure clearly, it was indeed Bai Wen.
He just stood there stupidly, not daring to even breathe.
"Bai Wen!"
Chen Luo called out his name again, and Bai Wen slowly turned his head, as if he had seen a savior and cast a look of help, but he still did not speak in response. Everyone rushed over.
"Don't move!" At this time, a shout stopped everyone. Lin Mobai stopped and stared at the extremely thick tree in front of Zhao Feng with a serious face:
“There’s something wrong with that tree.”
Everyone stopped immediately, not daring to act rashly.
"Is... is it Dianbai?"
When she saw the tree clearly, Song Jiarou widened her eyes and gasped.
I saw that it had branches similar to willow branches, floating in the breeze, and long snake-like vines swaying gently in the wind, as eerie as Medusa in the dead of night.
Bai Wen pointed at the ground under his feet, and everyone looked over, only to see that several vines had tightly wrapped around his feet, and no matter how hard he struggled, it was useless.
The terrifying thing was that there were piles of bones surrounding the tree roots, piled up to a foot high, looking extremely eerie in the dark night.
"The cypress, also known as the 'man-eating tree', can be up to a thousand years old. It is a rare carnivorous plant. Once it finds its target, it will wrap its vines around its prey tightly until it can't breathe and suffocates to death. Then the vines will secrete a digestive fluid to quickly digest the prey."
"The older the tree, the greater its power, and the lower the chance of surviving being entangled. The age of the cypress tree in front of us is at least a hundred years old!"
"I've only seen it in books. This kind of tree only appears in tropical rain forests in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. How could it be in Qishan?" Song Jiarou said in disbelief, her face turning pale.
"Why are you still standing there? Go and save him!" Seeing that his student was in danger, Chen Luo hurried forward and tried to tear off the vines on his feet.
"Come back, Dianbai is a spiritual being. He hasn't killed the prey for such a long time. He must be fishing to lure other prey into the trap!" Song Jiarou shouted and reminded them. Everyone hurried forward to stop Chen Luo.
But it was too late. Before Song Jiarou could finish her words, Pei Chuman let out a scream. Everyone looked back and saw that everyone's legs were covered with vines, which were crawling up step by step.
One of the sturdy men reacted quickly. He pulled out a shiny dagger from his waist and cut off the vine on his leg in just two or three strokes.
Seeing this, everyone began to feel around, but only then did they realize that all their luggage and equipment had been placed in the tent.
The strong man ran up and tried to cut the vines off the others.
But it was too late, the vines were wrapped around everyone's lower body and had begun to spread towards the waist.
It seemed as if those vines would never be cut down. When they were cut down, new ones would grow up, and it would be an endless cycle. As time went by, the number of vines increased instead of decreased.
In an instant, new vines were released again and flew quickly towards the strong man.
"Brother, save me!" another strong man shouted.
As soon as he finished speaking, the sturdy man hesitated for a moment and turned around and ran away without paying attention to his brother's call for help, gradually disappearing into the night.
"Old Yang, come back here!" Chen Luo said angrily, but everyone fled when disaster struck, and the strong man showed no intention of turning back...