Absolute Buying System: Money Is Power - Chapter 1：In a Jungle

-In A Jungle-

In a dense forest where not even rays of the sun could reach perfectly. Where exotic plants and animals live their lives, a young man around 16 years old could be seen lying atop a rock with his facing upwards. This young man had a short black hair highlighted in golden bleach. He was wearing a blue coloured tracksuit and had a metal bat strapped to his back. In one look anyone can recognize him as a bad apple of the bunch.

Suddenly a white furry creature came out of nowhere and started to sniff on his face.

“Ahh! Ouch!” feeling a cool sensation on his face, Xue Bao opened his eyes and then screamed silently as a pain assaulted his whole body. It was as if numerous fire ants biting every single bone of his body, the pain was so horrible that it nearly made him faint again.

As he sluggishly sat up, the small furry critter ran away in fright. Holding his right rib to ease some pain, he looked around to find where he was. The events prior to this were all blurry in his memories, he couldn’t remember them. Closing his eyes, he shook his head, trying to clear his head. He then cradled his head with the other hand in an attempt to ease some of his headaches. The pain was really horrible, it was the same as when he was got beaten up with pipes and poles by a rival gang, two years ago when he was returning to the school.

Xue Bao was a student of Nangong High school. Although he was a student of prestigious class A, he would always ditch class and play truant. Quite a few times he had also bullied his classmates, nothing severe but some small stuff like forcing them to do his homework or making them buy his lunch the like.

As such he was labelled as a bad apple and embarrassment of the class. Normally according to school rules, he should have thrown away from that prestigious school, but unfortunately, he was a top student in his class and would always come in between top five of the school. In the end, the school decided to close one eye regarding his matters as long as he did nothing excessive.

Earlier today he was forced to attend his class by his angry class teacher who wanted to take a monthly test, and as usual, he was playing truant and sleeping on the school roof. After dragging him to the class, she gave him an earful and then proceeded to conduct the monthly test.

Everything happened at that time, suddenly they heard a loud banging noise as if something crashed on the walls of the class. Then a flute’s music began to play. And after that everything was blurry in his memories as he couldn’t remember anything else.

“Where am I?” he muttered as he looked around. Finding that he was inside an unknown dense forest, his heart began to race as he stealthily reached for the metal bat strapped to his back. This metal bat was his reliance and insurance against all adversary till now, at times he would call it his partner. He had fought many fights with stronger opponents back in his streets and came out as a winner.

As the forest was very dense and the light was very dim, he couldn’t estimate the time, but he was sure that night had not yet arrived, as such, it eased his heart somewhat. Biting back a muffled groan of pain, he stood up atop the rock. The forest was silent, eerily so. Even though it was a dense forest, there was not a single sound of critters or insects coming off. The whole atmosphere made Xue Bao gulp in fear.

Although he was nicknamed fearless tiger back in his gang and surrounding gangs, this jungle might contain real tigers as such he couldn’t help but be a little afraid. Even so, this silent forest was very unnerving. His first guess to his situation was that he, along with his classmates, were kidnapped from their school by some lunatic group and were stranded in this jungle for some reason. Although the idea sounds plausible, he didn’t find anyone else except for him.

“They might have scattered by those lunatics!” is what he reasoned and decided to focus on his situation at hand first. It was a basic human instinct to first care about oneself before others after all.

“But Where the hell is this place? I don’t remember any such jungle near our town or province!” although a delinquent, he was also an outstanding student. Gifted with an eidetic memory, he never forgot something that he had already seen. He had thoroughly remembered his geography as well as the local map, he had never seen any such forest ever in them. In fact, no such forest located in whole China as far as he was concerned.

“Did they throw us in The Black forest of Germany?” the forest looked very similar to the Black forest in Germany.

“Where is north?” it was a common fact that when you were lost in an unknown place, always follow north. Its one of the essential rules of the survival. But without a compass how can he find north? He could use the sun as a reference but at this place where sunlight couldn’t reach, where would he find sun?

While he was contemplating on what he should be doing next; he was unaware of a pair of vicious red eyes glaring at his body behind a bush a few meters away from him. The owner of this pair of eyes was a yellow spotted cheetah-like an animal with bone protrusions on its back. It was as big as a normal cheetah. This creature was laying on ambush long before Xue Bao had even gained his conscious. Patiently waiting for its prey to lose its guard, the cheetah had waited for a long a time.

Unaware of the impending danger lurking behind him, Xue Bao was fully engrossed on his situation at hand, namely, where was north. In the end, running out of options, he simply selected a random direction and started walking.

XXX

After a few minutes of walking, Xue Bao felt strange, as if he was being watched. Considering it was a forest that contained many unknown as of yet animals, Xue Bao became alert instantly. The feeling came from his back, so he stealthily changed his walking direction and started walking in a circle so to find what’s following him. When he has completed a circle and faced his back, he finally saw his follower.

“Fuck!” was all he could say.