Through the virgin forest

1.

Walking into the dense jungle, the ancient trees are towering and blocking the sky. No matter where we look, we cannot know how deep the forest is.

The aerial roots growing from the tall branches are entangled with a strange insect. It turns its dragonfly eyes and stares at us, and a leaf as big as a cattail fan is covered with it. The big biting ant instantly made my body covered with goosebumps.

Underneath the damp leaves on the ground were soft and slippery mud and rotten wood. Tangled vines and messy creeping plants made our walk even more difficult.

At this time, the jungle was extremely hot and muggy, and we were already sweating profusely. John saw us four grown men, all unkempt and exhausted. He pointed to a large piece of rotten wood on the ground and said: "Let's sit down and rest!"

About half an hour later, John pressed his hands on the outside of his left calf, and then he fainted and waited for us to gather around. , and found that his leg seemed to be bitten by a large insect, and the bite area was swollen and purple-black.

While we were looking for the murderer, a snake about 3 meters long, yellow-green in color, with dark brown spots on its back quickly fled deep into the jungle, and its tail could make a loud sound. I screamed in horror: "Rattlesnake!"

John's whole body was hot and he held our hands tightly, moved the wooden box that had been on his back to us, and stared at us with his eyes. , "To send it out, the four of you will cooperate, and two of you will take turns carrying it at a time." He instructed.

"I hope everyone will promise me that you will never leave it before it reaches its destination. You will go south and deliver it to Mr. Tang, the owner of the white house outside the jungle. You will You will get a priceless treasure." After saying that, he closed his eyes in pain.

We all solemnly promised and buried John with tears under an old tree split by lightning.

2.

The four of us are a strange combination. We come from different places and are strangers to each other, but on the same day we were recruited online by Mr. John, an explorer from the UK. Together with him Join this adventure through pristine forest.

I am considered the youngest. After graduating from college, I struggled to find a job, and I had nothing to do at home for two years.

Ma Qiang, who is three years older than me, is an educator. He was a chemistry teacher in a junior high school in the town. Because a student was whispering to his classmates during class, Ma Qiang angrily scolded them. They were immediately asked to leave the classroom, and there was physical conflict with each other during the tug-of-war. The parents made a fuss and went to the Education Bureau and the school to argue. The school actually asked Ma Qiang to resign in order to settle the matter.

Among them, the one with a sinister face is Chef Xiao Li. There is also a bearded man named Mai Zhi, the owner of a local shoe factory. Since his funds were cut off, creditors came to his door every day, so he had to leave the factory and wander around.

In fact, none of us can understand John’s passion for adventure. If it weren’t for the extremely high remuneration he gave us, we would never have accompanied him on this mysterious adventure.

However, John always said with a smile: "Sometimes what people discover in life will be more valuable than the price of gold."

Now that John has left us, he thought that this This operation would end in failure, but now it seems that is not the case. Before his death, he left us a wooden box that had been nailed and sealed.

I stroked this mysterious wooden box and fell into deep silence.

"This is our destination." Ma Qiang took out a map and pointed with his finger.

"Looking from the map, it's not that far away, but we don't know how long it will take to get there." Mai Zhi muttered expressionlessly.

"Don't forget our promise to Mr. John, just leave." Chef Xiao Li shouted at the top of his voice.

At this moment, how much I miss Mr. John! In this terrible primeval forest, whenever we encounter difficulties, he always encourages us in time, infects us with his own spirit, and gives us the motivation to move forward.

3.

A misty drizzle fell intermittently from the sky, and the shoes on my feet had sunk deeply into the muddy ground.

In order to save each other's physical strength, Ma Qiang made the following arrangement: two people carried the wooden box together and walked behind, while the two in front used crutches to clear obstacles or open the way.

I found a thick dead branch to carry the wooden box, and Xiao Li took the other end of the dead branch, and we moved forward slowly.

The sky is getting darker, the jungle is getting denser, and danger and fear are constantly approaching us.

Along the way, we walked step by step. Ma Qiang and Mai Zhi, who were walking in front at the beginning, talked to each other and sometimes made some cold jokes. But when the wooden box was placed on their shoulders, they found that talking only seemed to increase the weight of the box and increase physical fatigue.

Suddenly, a beam of white light in the sky pierced us, "Oh my God! Where is this?"

An old tree with a strange posture looked a bit ferocious.

It turned out that we walked awkwardly in this vast forest for a long time and returned to the place where John was buried before.

"Lost!" The echo echoed through the valley, and suddenly the cold invaded every cell in our body, and my whole body kept shaking.

"Damn it, what kind of treasure is in this box?" Mai Zhi kicked the wooden box hard several times.

"Calm down, I believe John will not lie to us." Ma Qiang shouted.

So we fell silent, and what followed was something worse than silence.

I crossed my arms and hugged my cold body tightly, thinking of the hot wontons wrapped by my mother, tears bursting into my eyes.

Xiao Li buried his head in his arms, his body heaved violently, and said to himself: "My wife and children, I shouldn't leave without saying goodbye."

"That's enough, look at you two Mother, you were the first to carry the wooden box, did you mean to take us back to the original place to use up your energy, and in the end you all stole this priceless box together?"

I glared at Mai Zhi and said no. After speaking, Xiao Li clenched his iron fist and swung at him, and Mai Zhi immediately struggled with him.

Ma Qiang tried his best to pull them away and cursed categorically: "Now we must adjust our mentality first. If this continues, we will kill ourselves!"

The three of us bowed our heads. I stared at the dilapidated wooden box: I felt like I hated it like a prisoner hating his shackles, and I admired it like a person in hell longs for an angel.

4.

The rain is still falling, and the rain and fog are still thickly permeating every corner of the forest.

The soaked clothes clung to our backs, and what seemed more unbearable than the cold was hunger. Our food had already been consumed, and each of us ate two wild fruits this morning.

"Can we get out of this forest? It depends on whether we can survive tonight safely?" Ma Qiang said solemnly.

The cold wind blew, and the four of us men hugged each other around the box, opening our mouths and trying our best to swallow the rain falling from the sky. My eyes became blurry.

I don’t know when, a breeze came, with a hint of fragrance in the wind. We opened our eyes and saw that the distant sky was blue. Then we looked around and saw an open tree on the left behind the old tree. There are countless flowers, red, pink, yellow, purple..., the fragrance is fragrant and refreshing.

Our tired bodies were immediately filled with strength. Mai Zhi fiddled with the malfunctioning compass at a loss. I quickly squatted down and carefully observed the moss on the surrounding tree trunks and rocks. Moss usually grows in backlight, so The place with the most moss should be in the north.

"Trust me once, keep walking southward!" I said, pointing to the place with less moss.

"Who calls you a college student? We only believe you once." Xiao Li responded in a low voice.

5.

No matter how difficult the front is, we always believe in the far south, where Mr. Tang has been waiting for us.

The day finally came, and the tight green wall of the big forest suddenly opened. We came to the edge of the jungle, and a white house came into view before our eyes.

An old man in a white coat greeted us warmly. After a full meal, Mai Zhi licked his dry lips and mentioned to the old man the payment issue that John had promised before his death.

"I have nothing. Apart from thanking you very much for fulfilling your promise to my good friends, I really can't repay you." The old man spread his hands and said apologetically.

Xiao Li pointed to the wooden box and said, "It's inside."

Ma Qiang also eagerly repeated: "It's inside the box."

"Please put it in Open it!" we demanded in unison.

We started to open the box, layer by layer, it was all wood.

Mai Zhi said loudly: "What kind of joke is John playing on us?"

"I heard a clicking sound, come and see!" Xiao Li shouted.

We gathered together, but what Mai Zhi took out from the box turned out to be a worthless ordinary stone.

"I have long thought that John was crazy, and he said that there was a priceless treasure in the box." Mai Zhi said angrily.

"I remember his original words were this: If you can deliver it safely to Mr. Tang from the South, you will get a priceless treasure."

"So what? What?" Mai Zhi shouted in frustration.

I looked at my companions again and again, and the terrifying experience of the primeval forest appeared in my mind. The piles of bones in the jungle seem to be right in front of you.

"If you go into the jungle alone, no one can come out alive." People's warnings before entering the jungle kept echoing in their ears.

"Brothers, what Mr. John gave us is our lives! Without this wooden box and the constraints of the promise, would we be able to walk out of the jungle alive?" I shouted excitedly.

This voice echoes in each of our hearts for a long time.

(End)