Chapter 82: A Close Encounter of the Third Kind
I wasn’t sure how the meat and berries happened to appear under my tree, but when Night gave me the all-clear, I didn’t particularly care either. At this point in time, I was willing to eat almost anything.
I quickly started a fire and got down to eating some of the best-tasting... I don’t know what... I ever had. I followed it up with the berries because I figured if the meat was good, the berries should be too.
I was a bit worried that I might have taken a kill from some predator that knew how to hold a grudge, but I shook off that thought. The law of the jungle was first come, first served. Literally, in this case.
"Are you still alive?" came a voice through my earpiece causing me to roll my eyes.
"No, Jun Li, I am not alive," I said sarcastically as I threw a few more berries in my mouth. "And I thought you were giving me three days. It’s only been a night.
"Ha, ha. I realized that I left out a couple of things from the mission," came the disgruntled voice. Clearly, Jun Li didn’t like to overlook anything.
"I would say so," I said with a sigh as I stood up and dusted my palms on my pants. I was on the fence about putting my armor on, but I figured that for right now, it was better to be safe than sorry. Once I was fully encased in lifesaving Nanos, I opened my arms for Night.
He proceeded to jump into my arms once again, but instead of clinging onto my front as he did before, he moved carefully around my body until he was clinging onto my back like an eight-legged backpack. I waited a moment to make sure that he was on me securely before starting to walk forward.
"There seems to be a secondary life form on you right now," said Jun Li cautiously. "And according to my sensors, it is a voragyvis?"
"Yeah," I said, barely stopping myself from shrugging. "It seemed to have adopted me."
"Adopted you?" he asked, stunned.
"Yeah. He slept with me last night, ate breakfast with me this morning. In fact, I think he brought me breakfast. All in all, it’s fine if he is on my back. You never know when an extra eye or six will come in useful. Now, about this missing information? Other than the obvious, of course."
"The client wants three of the Agkistrodon rhodostoma and five of the Bothrops lanceolatus. He is willing to pay more if they are alive by delivery but understands if you cannot do that."
"Why would I have a problem keeping eight snakes alive? Isn’t the delivery date in three days?"
There was a moment of silence before Jun Li came back on. "I think there has been another miscommunication," started Jun Li, but I was forced to cut him off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like the tip of a snake tail slipping down the path in front of me.
"I’ll have to get back to you, I think I’ve spotted one, but I can’t be sure," I said as I took off in a sprint down the path, Night clinging to me as hard as he could.
"Mei Xing—"
"Not now, Jun Li," I said as I sped up. I had almost caught up to it.
"Mei Xing—" he said again, this time yelling at the top of his lungs. "I need to tell you something!"
I slid to a stop, almost falling on my ass and squishing Night. I looked up and then continued to look up until I saw the triangular head of a snake turning around and looking at me.
"Like the thing I thought might be two feet long is actually 150 feet long?" I said as I froze. First things first, heat signature. I quickly pulled up my wrist unit and double-checked that I was not sending out any heat signatures. Safe in that regard.
I changed to the camouflage mode. I assumed that because Night was indigenous to the jungle, then even if the dragon-like thing saw him, it would simply ignore him. But me, yeah, I couldn’t guarantee that it would ignore me.
"I take it you found one, then?" asked Jun Li with a bit of a cringe in his voice.
"Sure, let’s go with that," I answered, not willing to move too much. "Want to tell me the grand plan for capturing one of these things alive?" I continued, staring the giant snake up and down. I knew Jun Li was big, but I didn’t think that he was big enough to hold eight of these things. The buyer better be paying good money for it; that was all I was saying.
All of a sudden, the tail of the serpent flicked across the path, as if it was trying to figure out where I went. It was a smart strategy, that was for sure. I quickly activated my anti-gravity settings, causing me to shoot up into the air and out of the strike zone.
The snake, seemingly satisfied that there was nothing behind it, turned around and continued forward.
I hovered in the air, not knowing what my next step should be. The only obvious thing to do was to follow the snake. I had spent a whole day searching for this thing, I couldn’t take the chance of not finding it a second time.
On the other hand, only an idiot would follow something that is the size of two tennis courts.
I sighed, already knowing my answer. I continued to slowly fly through the air after the giant snake as I waited for Jun Li to let me in on the plans.
"Well, I have a good suggestion and a bad suggestion. Which one do you want?" came Jun Li’s voice after a few moments.
"What do you think?!?" I asked incredulously. "Of course, I want the good suggestion."
"Well, the good suggestion is an easy way in the beginning, but could potentially blow up in our faces later," hedged Jun Li.
"Just shut up and tell me!" I growled, not at all willing to play 20 questions. I needed to know how to deal with this thing, and I needed to know now.
