After climbing for a while, even Li Yan, who initially thought it was boring, started to enjoy it. The girls, including Jiang Lele, were still very excited and didn’t need any help from them yet. Since there was no path, they were completely exploring their way up through the bushes themselves.

The mountain they were climbing had a road built up to the foot, which was the closest point to the resort for entry, but it wasn’t the tallest mountain on the island and didn’t seem very high at first. Once they truly entered the forest, they felt surrounded by mountains and immersed in trees.

While walking, Li Yan’s phone rang. The signal here was weak but still functional. The call was from Wen Qianyi, asking what he was doing.

"Hiking?" She was a bit surprised to find out he was hiking.

"What else? We’re all colleagues; I can’t exactly hang out with you anyway, can I?" Li Yan chuckled and then lowered his voice to say, "Who are you sharing a room with? Maybe I can come by tonight for a chat!"

"Get lost!" Wen Qianyi laughed and scolded him. Then she added, "I won’t disturb you. Take care of yourself. It’s easy to sprain an ankle on an unpaved mountain. Plus, maps are useless in the forest, and there aren’t any signposts, so don’t get lost."

"Haha, why does it feel like you’re nagging a kid? Don’t worry, I’ll be back for dinner tonight!"

"Get out of here!"

Since it was Wen Qianyi’s call, Sun Hui didn’t mind, but it wasn’t great for the others to hear it. So he paused for a moment to take the call and then hurried to catch up with them afterward.

However, after taking a few steps forward, Li Yan was shocked to find that the others were gone!

He had only stopped to take the call for about a minute. Given that they were hiking, with two men and four women, at most they’d have covered a few dozen meters—and definitely couldn’t have disappeared from sight so quickly.

But he wasn’t worried. Although this area was dense with woods and had some large rocks, there was only one possibility for all six of them to disappear at once—they must be hiding together. He was too preoccupied with the phone call to notice them. If they wanted to play a prank, it was certainly possible.

He continued walking forward slowly, observing all around him. There were many places where people could hide, but not many where they could remain undetected by him. They couldn’t have climbed trees, and hiding behind the shrubs would be difficult to escape his notice. The most suspicious place was a natural boulder up ahead, sticking two or three meters above the ground like a small house.

"Having fun, playing hide and seek?" Li Yan said as he walked straight toward the big rock.

No one answered him, as if they were waiting to jump out and scare him. Li Yan was quite good with sounds, but it depended on the environment. This was not a confined room but the open outdoors, and it was naturally impossible to tell if there was breathing noise.

Li Yan figured it was Sun Hui and Wang Lei pulling the prank, aiming to amuse the girls. Since they were out having fun as friends, occasionally playing along with their jokes was no big deal. He circled the rock, ready to act surprised when they jumped out to scare him.

Unexpectedly, when he reached behind the boulder, he was genuinely shocked. There was still no one there! No one was hiding behind it to scare him; it seemed as if all six of them had vanished into thin air!

Li Yan quickly turned his head and looked upwards. If they weren’t behind the rock, then only one possibility remained—they used it to block his sight and swiftly ran ahead, finding another spot to hide as a prank.

With the time it took him after the phone call to walk over, they should have had enough time to run a good distance. But even ignoring the fact that he should have heard the footsteps of six people running, looking up ahead, there wasn’t any better hiding spot than here. The boulder was only about two or three meters high, able to block people’s view from flat ground. But beyond it was uphill, and due to the slope, it wouldn’t block the line of sight much farther.

There are others nearby! 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Li Yan kept his eyes on the direction above, but he was very alert, because he had a feeling of being watched! (To be continued, if you want to know how the story unfolds, please log on to www.qidian.com for more Chapters, support the author, and read genuine copies!)