Chapter 49: Chapter 49: The Fibonacci Path

"Hoo..." Shen Feng let out a long sigh of relief.

Thankfully, the worst-case scenario hadn’t happened.

It was a good thing this wasn’t a high-radiation environment over 1,000 microsieverts.

Short-term exposure to an environment with 100 to 500 microsieverts, while causing continuous damage and a reduction in white blood cells, wouldn’t have any severe, immediate effects.

As for whether it might induce latent cancers like leukemia down the line, that was a problem for later.

They had to get out of here as quickly as possible.

Shen Feng went over to Firefly and checked her breathing. He found she had only passed out.

He gently slapped her cheeks, and Firefly’s eyes immediately fluttered open.

"We’re in the Death Forest right now!?" Firefly’s face was deathly pale, a flicker of terror in her eyes.

Anyone who had survived for long in the wasteland understood one thing: never go to the Cursed Land.

The curse of the Cursed Land was far more terrifying than the most vicious bandits. Even the legendary man-eating Barbarians couldn’t compare to the invisible curse.

Often, people who entered the Cursed Land would start bleeding from all over and their flesh would rot away until they died, without ever knowing what had happened.

And their deaths were exceptionally gruesome.

The Death Forest was one of the more infamous of these Cursed Lands.

Besides the invisible curse, it was said there were also terrifying prehistoric monsters and even dreadful Barbarians living in the corners of the Death Forest.

Other than the town chief, no one had ever made it back alive.

And whenever someone brought up their experiences in the Death Forest, the town chief would usually turn pale, completely unwilling to reminisce.

And now, they were here!

Shen Feng patted Firefly’s head reassuringly, took a bottle of iodine tablets from his backpack, and tipped one out for her.

"What’s this?" Firefly asked, puzzled as she looked at the small blue pill in her hand.

Shen Feng swallowed a pill himself and said, "It’s an iodine tablet. It can, to some extent, resist the... curse here."

’Radioactive iodine in the fallout can be directly absorbed by the human body. After long-term accumulation, it directly induces thyroid cancer.’

’By taking iodine tablets, you can saturate the body with iodine, preventing it from absorbing any more of the radioactive kind.’

Hearing Shen Feng’s words, Firefly quickly swallowed the tablet.

’She didn’t know much else, but she understood that this outsider, Shen Feng, was full of good things!’

Shen Feng then took out two simple gas masks and two pairs of disposable gloves from his pack. He put on one set and gave the other to Firefly.

’He had bought these things directly off some online marketplace. They couldn’t compare to the heavy-duty, tantalum-element, custom-made nuclear radiation suit he’d commissioned from a manufacturer he found online, but it was better than nothing. A psychological comfort, at least.’

"Let’s go. We need to leave this place as soon as possible," Shen Feng said, leading the way with the Geiger counter in hand. Upon hearing him, Firefly stuck close behind.

Although they hadn’t suffered any serious injuries from the fall off the cliff, they were still bruised and battered. But they couldn’t be bothered with that now; their only thought was to get out as fast as possible.

Shen Feng watched the readings on the Geiger counter, trying his best to avoid any high-intensity radiation sources as he snaked his way back toward the cliff.

"Why did the people from the Crow Tribe want to capture you?" Shen Feng asked abruptly. While they were escaping, he had faintly heard that man, Grey Feather, shouting, and it seemed he placed great importance on Firefly.

Firefly froze for a moment, then stammered, "I... I don’t know either... Maybe the leader of the Crow Tribe is a pervert who’s into middle-aged women?"

Shen Feng’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing more.

They were currently a few kilometers from the cliff, but after walking for about half an hour, Shen Feng gave up completely.

The path to the cliff was a high-intensity radiation zone. The closer they got, the higher the readings on the Geiger counter climbed. Some sources even reached over 1,000, approaching 2,000 microsieverts.

’God knows if they were exposed to high-intensity radiation when they drifted over from that direction.’

That path was a dead end, so they had no choice but to head in another direction.

Guided by the readings on the Geiger counter, the two carved a winding path through the twisted, spiraling forest.

Firefly had initially been terrified by the Death Forest’s reputation, but now she was gradually realizing it wasn’t all that special—just a forest with a curse.

With Shen Feng’s "Curse Detector," they could perfectly avoid the areas with strong curses and leave safely.

But the farther they walked, the graver the expression on Shen Feng’s face became.

The Geiger counter readings showed a clear low-radiation path through the forest, one that advanced in a spiral, closely matching a Fibonacci curve.

If they followed it to the end, they would reach the core of this forest!

’This path... it’s as if it were man-made.’

Moreover, Firefly’s mental state was off. She seemed strangely hyperactive, running and jumping about as if infected by the crazily shaped trees around them.

Shen Feng calmly went over and grabbed Firefly’s arm. It felt as hot as a burning coal to the touch.

’She has a fever!’

He found some antipyretic and anti-inflammatory medicine in his backpack and gave it to Firefly. Shen Feng didn’t tell her about her condition, choosing to observe her further instead.

Aside from her hyperactivity, Firefly’s mind was perfectly clear, unchanged in the slightest. Everything seemed normal, not at all like she had a fever, which only made Shen Feng more puzzled.

Night fell quickly. They had been wandering in circles in the forest for half the day and were completely exhausted. They found a clearing, built a bonfire, and prepared to rest.

The Geiger counter’s reading hovered around 300, a fact that Shen Feng was now automatically ignoring.

’Even if I get cancer, it’ll take months or years. I just have to survive the night.’

Shen Feng was running low on the canned food he’d brought. Right now, a can of braised hairtail fish and a can of braised beef were heating over the fire, along with some rice porridge in an enamel mug.

The aroma wafted through the air, making Firefly’s mouth water. Her stomach let out an embarrassing growl.

Looking at all this food, and the "Magic" lighter Shen Feng had used to start the fire, Firefly couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration:

"Shen Feng, you’re truly amazing! I think you’ll definitely live a long life. At least until you’re forty!"

Shen Feng laughed. "Well, thank you for that." He took the food off the fire, used the tin cans as bowls, and split it between them.

Firefly didn’t care that it was scalding hot and immediately started to eat. Between bites, she asked:

"Do you really want to find the Divine Hall of the Great God Jingwei and the others, and then destroy it? I heard they all live within curses, where mortals can never find them."

Shen Feng nodded and said:

"It’s something that has to be done."

Firefly nodded as if she only half-understood. "Oh..."

Then she looked at the wristband on Shen Feng’s arm and asked, "What’s that?"

Shen Feng smiled faintly.

"This was designed by some freak. I still don’t know if his intentions were good or evil, but he’s a lot harder to deal with than any of those three Great Gods."

"Is he really that powerful...?"

As the two ate and talked, the shadow of radiation that had been weighing on Shen Feng’s mind faded considerably.

’Aside from the strangely twisted trees, this forest was fine. Not nearly as terrifying as the legends claimed.’

Suddenly, Firefly stared at the smooth tin lid in her hand and let out a curious "Huh?"

"What’s wrong?" Shen Feng asked.

Firefly’s voice trembled. "Look... at our reflection in this... I think... there are three heads..."

Every muscle in Shen Feng’s body tensed instantly. He whipped the dagger from his waist, spun around, and plunged it into a gaping, bloody maw right behind them!