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They determined in just a quarter of an hour that the two people who had fled with injuries had definitely not crossed the stream.
No matter if the youth had thought one step too many or too few, he indeed managed to scramble for another quarter of an hour of life.
Sima paused only for two breaths and then headed diagonally backward from this bank; sure enough, after walking only a mile, he saw the unmistakable tracks of the youth.
Sima stopped, used his sword to part the bushes and leaves to look at the ground... There was only one pair of footprints.
Men's shoes, crooked, deep, uneven in stride, stepping in the muddy forest, one foot deep and the other shallow, sporadic bloodstains smeared on tree trunks or branches.
—He was carrying the woman on his back, and he even lacked the strength to leap through the treetops.
They were indeed like two wounded beasts at the end of their rope.