A’Shui, as usual, was the last to land. Everyone else had already gathered around the corpse and the two strange individuals, exchanging looks of bewilderment and astonishment as they speculated among themselves. A’Shui glanced over to locate Ba Yunye — she was in the midst of berating Kong Gan, who had just attempted to flee. He quietly positioned himself as far from Ba Yunye as possible, then, fighting back the nauseating stench, looked at the corpse, gave a slight start, gently shook his head, and pulled his hat brim lower.

The two strange individuals regained consciousness once more, straining to open their mouths in an attempt to bite someone. Helpless with their limbs bound and mouths firmly gagged, they could only thrash their heads about uselessly.

“Are those two actually zombies?” Ba Yunye asked, her lingering fear evident.

Tan Lin didn’t dare touch their necks, so instead pressed his fingers to their wrists. “Their pulses are erratic, but they are definitely alive.”

“Could they have been bitten by a monitor lizard or a venomous snake?” Xiang’an muttered, applying medicinal ointment to the wound on the back of his hand. The others carefully examined the limbs of the two strange individuals, and aside from scrapes, bruises, and leech bites, found no signs of bites from any other animal.

“These two are clearly not locals, and they have no backpacks or luggage.” Da Qin stroked his chin and looked down at them. “Who in their right mind goes into the mountains without so much as a bottle of water? Where did their packs go? How did they end up in this state?”

“Could they have seen something terrifying and gone mad with fright?” Kong Gan speculated.

Ba Yunye said, “I’ve seen lunatics on the street before — some love running around naked, some talk loudly to themselves, some dress in bizarre ways. In any case, no two madmen are ever exactly the same kind of mad.”

“Where on earth did these two come from? Do they have anything to do with Long Ge, or with that corpse? Can you figure it out?” Qi Zi asked Diao Zhuo.

As they spoke, Diao Zhuo plucked various bits of debris from the hair and clothing of the two strange individuals — adhesive bandages stained with blood, plant leaves, torn flower petals, and the like — laying them one by one on a sheet of plastic and pointing them out for Kong Gan to examine.

“Leaves from a Chinese coffin tree… and… tree ferns… uh, this one… this is…” Kong Gan pinched a yellow petal and a leaf fragment with a peach-red petiole. “Sulfur rhododendron!”

Ba Yunye pushed her way over. “Sulfur rhododendron?”

“Does Master Ba recognize it too?” Xiang’an asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen one in person, only heard that there’s a protected zone for sulfur rhododendrons somewhere around Dali — it’s an endangered species.”

“We never saw this kind of flower anywhere along the way here.” Diao Zhuo asked Kong Gan, “Are there some nearby?”

Kong Gan waved a hand. “We’ve been heading toward the gorge the whole way, and this plant doesn’t grow in the gorge. I once heard that some botanists from the provincial level came to survey Biluo Snow Mountain and found quite a few sulfur rhododendrons growing in the fir forests. The flower can also be cultivated, but it requires grafting. Like Master Ba just said, wild ones are rare and need to be protected… That’s about all I know — after all, I’m not the mountain god or earth deity of this place.”

Diao Zhuo noticed that Kong Gan seemed somewhat reluctant when answering, and couldn’t tell if it was because of the failed escape attempt leaving him in a poor mood. But the immediate priority was not managing Kong Gan’s emotions — it was finding the missing person. So he pressed relentlessly: “Where does wild sulfur rhododendron grow?”

“In the mountains.”

“Which mountains?”

“Cangshan in Dali, and Biluo Snow Mountain, like I just said.”

“So there must be wild sulfur rhododendron in this primeval forest too, otherwise these two wouldn’t have flower petals on them, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know.” Diao Zhuo fixed him with a piercing stare. “If you don’t want to guide us, stay here and wait for the police — but you must tell us where the wild sulfur rhododendron grows.”

“Team Leader Diao is a clever man; I’m sure you already know the answer in your heart. Since you say I may stay here, I’ll keep watch over the corpse and the two madmen on your behalf, and wait for the police to arrive.” The crafty, wily Kong Gan said with a smile.

Diao Zhuo gave him a brief glance, then ignored him. Holding cloth over his nose, he went to search through the corpse’s personal belongings and backpack, and everyone else held their breath against the stench and crowded around to help. The power of the smell of death is not something ordinary people can endure. Before long, Xiang’an had to dash to the side to vomit, followed shortly after by Qi Zi, Old Bao, Old Sun, Tan Lin, Da Qin… Ba Yunye, who had moved away early on, looked up and noticed that A’Shui was also standing off at a distance. Suddenly, she was struck by a strange sense of déjà vu, as though the scene before her had played out somewhere before.

Where? She tried hard to recall.

Qiang Tang.

Right — it was when they had found Zou Kaigui’s body, and the whole group had been bagging the remains while turning their heads to vomit.

Why had she thought of Zou Kaigui? Ba Yunye rubbed her eyes and stopped trying to work it out.

The corpse’s belongings appeared to have already been gone through once before. There was no phone or navigation device, and certainly no weapons. Before long, officers on the outer perimeter received word and reported back: a search of the deceased’s identity card revealed he was a repeat offender with an extensive criminal record, as well as a drug addict, who had made his living engaging in various illegal and criminal activities in order to fund his drug habit.

With two corpses appearing in succession, the police’s attention seemed to have already shifted away from Long Ge entirely.

“Anyone else who wants to stay behind, stay now. The rest of you, come with me.” Diao Zhuo gathered himself and strode forward.

Several people cast looks of contempt at Kong Gan. He, on the other hand, sat down cross-legged right where he was and lit a cigarette with an expression of relief, as though he had truly just escaped with his life. Everyone set off again. Liu Ming, curious, asked Diao Zhuo, “He said you already knew the answer in your heart — what exactly did he mean?”

“The highest elevation along our entire route hasn’t reached 2,000 meters. Now that we’ve reached the gorge, the elevation has dropped to just over 1,000. Kong Gan’s refusal to tell us where the sulfur rhododendron grows isn’t out of any concern for protecting an endangered species — it’s his tacit acknowledgement that at the elevation range from where we entered the mountains down to the gorge, sulfur rhododendron simply can’t grow there. He couldn’t give us a good reason for refusing. He mentioned Biluo Snow Mountain, which is a branch of the Western Himalayas and one of the major ranges of the Hengduan Mountains. It branches off from the Tanggula Mountains in Tibet and extends into Yunnan Province, with no fewer than fifteen peaks exceeding 4,000 meters in elevation. If there are stands of fir trees along the way, they would certainly be growing above 3,000 meters, and the botanists who found large expanses of wild sulfur rhododendron there confirmed that the species is best adapted to elevations above 3,000 meters.” Diao Zhuo checked the route map plotted on the GPS. “Looking at our entire line of travel, the only section where we could potentially reach above 3,000 meters is ahead, near those few mountains up front — the very place Kong Gan has been unwilling to go the entire time. When he saw what had become of those two individuals just now, he became even more reluctant to guide us, which is also why he wouldn’t share his theory — that those two escaped from somewhere among those mountains, and it’s not out of the question that it’s connected to Long Ge’s disappearance.”

“That Kong Gan is such a slippery old fox. If we weren’t pressed for time, I’d have a real go at him!” Ba Yunye said through gritted teeth.

Diao Zhuo patted Ba Yunye on the back. “A green corpse, the decomposed body we just found, and two individuals who’ve lost their minds — at least four people have been following Long Ge’s trail over the past few days, some armed. It’s safe to assume far more people entered this primeval forest. We’ve been searching along the way, but so far we haven’t seen a large group of people retreating, which suggests Long Ge is still safe — perhaps none of the people pursuing him have even caught sight of him yet.”

“That’s such a relief…” She let out a breath.

Diao Zhuo looked around. After a night of nonstop chaos, everyone was covered in mud and bloodstains, exhaustion written plainly on their faces. He thought for a moment. “Let’s walk a bit further, find a spot without leeches, rest for a few hours, and push on as soon as it’s light.”

They pressed on for a stretch, and Ba Yunye spotted a direction marker Long Ge had left on a Chinese coffin tree. Since the trees were spaced farther apart here and it wasn’t as damp as near the stream valley, they made camp at that spot. Before long, several tents were set up, glowing like small orange lanterns.

Da Qin used a small portable gas stove to boil a pot of water. He crumbled in some compressed biscuits, then as they softened, gradually added canned luncheon meat sausages and mushrooms they had picked along the way, and finally spooned in a generous scoop of spicy chili bean sauce. He seemed to be feeling a little sentimental. “Master Ba, we ate like this in Qiang Tang too. I thought it was the most delicious thing in the world back then, but when I made it again after coming home, I couldn’t get through a single bite. I suppose your state of mind changes the taste of things.”

Ba Yunye laughed and pointed at Diao Zhuo. “We’re different — back in Qiang Tang I already thought his bootleg lamb bread soup was terrible. Then I went to Xi’an and had the real thing, and the bootleg version seemed even worse by comparison!”

“It clearly wasn’t his cooking that won Master Ba over,” Da Qin said.

“I didn’t need him to win me over. The key is…” Ba Yunye draped her arm casually around Diao Zhuo’s shoulder, “I’ve always been the one trying to win him over. When I can’t win him over, I just resort to force — I’ll beat at him until his heart moves.”

“Now that you put it that way, I’m genuinely curious — if you two actually came to blows, who would win?” Tan Lin had just witnessed the two of them handling the frenzied individuals earlier, and both were clearly far beyond ordinary ability.

“That’s something I’ve always wanted to know too,” Xiang’an said, in a tone that practically invited trouble.

Ba Yunye didn’t take it seriously. She lifted the lid of her instant noodles, and a cloud of steam rose into the air. “Oh? Not enough chaos for you already — are you trying to goad us into beating each other up?”

“Don’t worry, you two would never come to blows. How could he bear to lay a hand on you? Besides, if he were to hit a woman, we’d all lose respect for him.” Da Qin nudged Xiang’an with his shoulder. “No matter how you look at it, Master Ba wins.”

“That’s not what I want to hear. If I’m going to win, I’ll do it on merit—”

To Diao Zhuo, this conversation was as dull and pointless as a group of illiterates debating the origins of the universe. He snapped apart a pair of disposable chopsticks. “Open your mouth. I’ll feed you.”

That single line was enough to completely deflate the spirited Ba Yunye. Amid everyone’s teasing and cheers, she snatched the chopsticks away and buried her face in her noodles.

Once everyone had eaten their fill, they all seized the chance to sleep. Diao Zhuo’s tent still had its light on. Ba Yunye was inside with him, and they were tending to each other’s minor wounds. Her calf had been bitten by one of the frenzied individuals; the deep tooth marks from before had now faded into a few small red dots. Diao Zhuo took a cotton swab, dipped it in erythromycin ointment, and gently applied it. In the dim lamplight, beneath his thick brows, a pair of clear and handsome eyes caught the light, and the angle of his jaw carried a distinctly masculine quality. Ba Yunye reached up and touched his face. He raised his eyes to meet hers, and the two held each other’s gaze for a moment, emotions flowing between them in silence. Ba Yunye gave a soft smile and looked away.

Diao Zhuo glanced at his watch. “Get some sleep.”

She stretched lazily and was just about to lay out her sleeping bag when she suddenly remembered something. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Of all the team members you brought, Xiang’an ranks dead last in a fight — but you still chose him to come with us to scout ahead. Why?”

He tilted his head back and drank several mouthfuls of water, his throat bobbing up and down. “Do you want the false reason or the true one?”

Ba Yunye’s mind always worked differently from everyone else’s. With genuine curiosity, she said: “Give me the false one first.”

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

“Who’s the egg?”

“Liu Ming and the others haven’t shown what they’re capable of yet. If I sent all the strongest fighters down to scout ahead, the ones left behind couldn’t hold the line — if something unexpected happened, it would be impossible to handle both fronts at once. I know what you’re capable of, so by rights, one of us should have stayed behind while the other scouted. But I wouldn’t do that — not because I don’t trust you, but because I can’t stop worrying about you. No matter how capable you are, I can’t stop worrying.”

“Good heavens, that sounds almost too sincere,” Ba Yunye said, covering her mouth. “Quick, tell me the true reason.”

He looked at her, a hint of a smile in his eyes. “Xiang’an has feelings for you.”

That answer left Ba Yunye at a complete loss. “Plenty of people have feelings for me. Are you planning to drag every last one of them along to fight monsters? Oh, I see — you’re jealous, so you’re deliberately making his life difficult? I’d advise you to be more gracious about it. A real man has a generous heart.”

Diao Zhuo pinched her cheek with a bit of pressure, then immediately released it the moment he saw her wince. “For someone so thick-skinned, do you actually feel pain?”

“Want to bet I’ll deck you?”

“I believe you.”

“Then keep talking.”

“He has feelings for you, so he’ll pay closer attention to you than any of the other fighters. If I’m momentarily unable to look after you, or if something happens to me, he can step in.” Seeing her about to protest, he covered her mouth with his hand and made her listen through to the end. “In this world, Long Ge is not the only person willing to lay down his life for you — so can I, and I will. If it truly came to that, I could die for you. But I would want you to survive after I’m gone. He might be able to buy you a few extra seconds to escape — someone without feelings for you might not do the same.”

Ba Yunye pried his hand away with force and clutched him tightly, her jaw clenched. She had never once said that only Long Ge shared a bond forged through life and death with her. Back in Qiang Tang, the moment he had thrown himself over her trying to shield her from bullets — from that instant onward, the two of them had been bound by the same bond between life and death!

“Diao Zhuo, when you once said my jacket looked like a food delivery uniform, could you have imagined you’d one day be willing to be delivered in a lunchbox for me?”

“No.”

“And who gave you the right to think that I, Ba Yunye, could just stand by and watch you die?” She looked at him with the utmost gravity. “If you dare die, I’ll…” Diao Zhuo’s brow furrowed, his gaze sharpening in an instant. He gripped her wrist hard, terrified she was about to say something about taking her own life.

“I’ll defile your corpse!” she announced.

The corner of Diao Zhuo’s eye twitched. The thousand surging words that had been rising like a tide within him collapsed instantly into a single thought —

Damn.