The air was cold and fresh, and Gao Yuan took a deep breath as he stepped out of the room, mustering his courage before lifting his eyes to the sky.
There was no sun and no Alien spaceship, the dense clouds hid everything.
Despite knowing that the spaceship remained stationary overhead, the obscured view by the clouds provided Gao Yuan with a slight sense of security.
The Aliens had arrived two months ago.
In these two months, Gao Yuan had looked at the spaceship in the sky every day, but the time he spent staring at the Alien ship was getting shorter and shorter.
The Alien's ship had never moved from its place, and everyone had to adapt to its presence.
Without gazing for too long, the soreness in his arm reminded Gao Yuan that it was time for his daily training.
The skill that Gao Yuan was diligently training was stone-throwing.
If he could throw a stone quickly and accurately, he could knock down small animals like wild chickens and rabbits, something the primitive humans did, and now it was Gao Yuan's plan as well.
He picked up a stone, swung his arm with force, and hurled the stone towards a target ten meters away. As the stone hit, the ping-pong ball-sized target fell, while the stone itself landed on a mound of dirt behind the target, making almost no sound.
Picking up another stone, Gao Yuan threw it hard. This time the stone did not hit the target, but it narrowly missed, a level of precision that still satisfied him.
After repeating the stone-throwing action fifty times, Gao Yuan ended his training early. Since last night when he felt pain lifting chopsticks, he had decided to reduce his training load.
Any skill required long periods of training, hitting the target forty-one times out of fifty in just two months had greatly satisfied him.
Gao Yuan needed a healthy and well-conditioned arm to deal with various potential crises, so although he urgently needed to master a key survival skill, he still had to reduce his training to protect his arm, knowing well the principle that too much can be as bad as not enough.
After finishing his training, it was time to look for prey.
This was deep in Taihang Mountain, home to many wild animals. Small animals like wild chickens and rabbits were common, and among the larger ones, wild boars were the most prevalent, perhaps even a nuisance.
Roe deer were less common, but Gao Yuan was certain they were around as he had seen them twice.
Gao Yuan's hunting targets were wild boar and roe deer. He had set many traps, but in almost two months had not caught any game.
Gao Yuan wasn't in a hurry, knowing that he wasn't a Hunter, so he had to learn how to hunt by trial and error, which would take time, and time was something he had plenty of.
It's worth mentioning that hunting now wasn't against the law, because ever since the Aliens came, the only species that needed protection on Earth was humankind.
With a spear in his left hand, a long hunting knife hanging from his waistbelt, an axe and saw in his backpack, and a stone in his right hand, Gao Yuan was well-armed.
Checking all his snares required covering a lot of ground and climbing over unpathed hills and forests. At first, this was very painful for Gao Yuan, but his ability to adapt was strong, and now he no longer suffered much from the long treks.
Winter had arrived, and the temperature in the mountains was low. The trees had shed most of their leaves, yet the MC all-terrain camouflage, with its predominantly brown and yellow color scheme, still provided outstanding concealment. This made Gao Yuan, dressed in camouflage, hard to spot as he moved forward.
He had not traveled far upon setting out when after turning a corner around an abandoned terraced field, Gao Yuan suddenly stopped in his tracks.
A flock of wild chickens, at least a dozen. The nearest rooster, not ten meters from Gao Yuan, bent its head pecking at the ground for food.
Gao Yuan didn't think too much; he raised his arm and swiftly hurled the stone he had been holding at the chicken.
The wild chicken suddenly lifted its head and was promptly struck in the head by Gao Yuan's stone.
The hit chicken fell to the ground, while the rest, startled, flapped away in a flurry. Gao Yuan immediately ran toward the chicken he had hit.
The struck chicken wasn't dead and still struggled. Gao Yuan ran over and stepped on the chicken, then bent down to grab its head. As the chicken struggled fiercely, he gave a flick of the wrist, twirling the chicken in the air, and with that, the chicken's neck broke, and it stopped struggling.
It wasn't the first time Gao Yuan had seen a wild chicken or used stones to hit one, but it was his first successful hit.
The level of his excitement was evident, but what pleased him the most was not the prospect of eating the chicken but that the skill he had long practiced finally came into use.
Finally, Gao Yuan had truly caught his first prey.
The first catch in hand, but the hunting had just begun. Today seemed to be a lucky day, and perhaps more gains were ahead.
That's what Gao Yuan thought, and after more than half an hour, he indeed found that his luck was quite good.
Approaching a mountain spring that had not yet frozen, Gao Yuan noticed a bush shaking, and there was a trap he had set specifically for roe deer.
He's got a catch!
Gao Yuan immediately dropped the stone in his right hand, took up his spear, and ran over.
Then, the unexpected happened.
One end of the wire snare was firmly tied to a little tree, and within the snare, a wild boar was struggling mightily.
Seeing the wild boar surprised Gao Yuan, because the snare he had set was intended for roe deer, but now there was a wild boar caught in it. Although the wild boar wasn't particularly large, it still weighed over a hundred pounds.
Why was it unexpected? Because this snare was meant for roe deer, not wild boars.
Is there a difference?
Of course, there is a difference, and it's a significant one.
A snare made of iron wire would suffice for catching roe deer, but steel wire snares are essential for trapping wild boars.
Now, an iron wire snare designed for roe deer had caught a wild boar that was already a considerable threat. What would the consequence be? The wild boar could break the snare!
Regardless, a wild boar was right in front of him, and Gao Yuan, both shocked and delighted, had no time to think further. Instinctively, he lunged forward with his spear.
It was Gao Yuan's first attempt to spear a living creature, and he subconsciously held back, or simply put, he went easy.
Gao Yuan aimed for the area under the wild boar's front leg—the region housing the heart and lungs of all animals. If the spear hit its mark, the boar would die quickly, maybe even instantly.
However, the boar was constantly jumping around, so Gao Yuan's thrust went awry, hitting the wild boar's behind instead of the heart and lung area.
The wild boar had almost broken the iron wire already. After being stabbed with the spear and struggling desperately, the iron wire snare quietly snapped.
The spearhead was still stuck in the wild boar, and before Gao Yuan could retract it, the boar whipped its head and charged straight at him. At that moment, Gao Yuan was still gripping his spear tightly. With the opposing forces acting on the spear, it snapped into two with a crack.
The wild boar was out of control, and all Gao Yuan had left in his hand was half a spear shaft.
The injured boar lifted its head and rammed right toward Gao Yuan's thigh. Gao Yuan had no time to dodge and was knocked to the side.
A wild boar is still a wild boar—its explosive power isn't comparable to that of a domestic pig, let alone a human. Fortunately, this boar was small and had not developed tusks, or that strike would have been enough to gash a potentially fatal wound on Gao Yuan's leg.
Gao Yuan was incapacitated, but driven by animal instinct, the injured wild boar's first reaction was to flee for its life, not to kill Gao Yuan in revenge before escaping.
The boar sped away with half a spear shaft in its grasp. Looking at the short length of iron wire remaining on the tree, and then at the spearhead that had fallen to the ground, Gao Yuan lying on the earth doubted whether this was all a dream.
How had a snare for roe deer caught a wild boar, and how had his meat on the hoof gotten away?
Gao Yuan was only annoyed for a moment. He looked at the blood on the ground, thought about the force and location of his spear strike, and decided it was worth pursuing.
The wild boar was bound to die of blood loss. Even without knowing how long it would take, it was worth the chase—he might find the dead wild boar soon. With this hope, Gao Yuan didn't hesitate any longer; he picked up the spearhead from the ground and immediately set off, following the blood trail.
Over hills and through dense forests, Gao Yuan carefully tracked the first game he had pursued.
He had come quite a distance now, the blood trail was growing scarcer, and harder to spot. Numerous times, Gao Yuan had to spend a lot of time finding the blood or traces of the boar's passage again, but this also meant that the boar didn't have much blood left to lose.
In other words, the wild boar was close to death.
Gao Yuan tracked it with excitement, nearly oblivious to fatigue. But as he emerged from a swath of dense forest and suddenly came upon a small path, he tensed up at once.
It was a classic case of fearing the worst—looking down the path, Gao Yuan immediately braced himself with the half-spear in hand.
Not twenty meters from Gao Yuan, beside the path, lay a wild boar, but there was a person standing behind it.
He wasn't afraid of people, but Gao Yuan was afraid of people turned into zombies.
Gao Yuan raised the half-spear, and the person he pointed it at also raised a kitchen knife as soon as they noticed him.
Raise a knife?
Raising a knife was good—it meant they were definitely not a zombie.
Gao Yuan wasn't afraid of someone who wasn't a zombie; he immediately felt reassured and even delighted because he had finally encountered another living person, finally meeting the fellow human he had longed for.
Looking at the knife-wielding person, Gao Yuan couldn't help but smile. No matter who they were, just seeing another living person filled Gao Yuan with profound joy.
Why?
Because Gao Yuan couldn't help but wonder if he was the last living human on Earth. He knew the likelihood was slim, but he truly feared being the last one left.
Now, knowing he wasn't the last person on this planet was certainly a reason to be happy—anyone facing the same plight as Gao Yuan would be happy, as it's human nature.
Secondly, Gao Yuan was happy because the person in front of him was a woman, and moreover, a young girl.
A girl who looked frail and unlikely to pose any danger.
Today was indeed Gao Yuan's lucky day.