The newcomers were running at considerable speed — a rough count put the number at five or more. Several of the people who had been chased and bitten by the frenzied individuals the night before exchanged glances and started silently calculating how they’d deal with five or more pain-immune, bite-crazed attackers.
“Up the trees!” Ba Yunye shouted instinctively.
As if doused with a bucket of cold water straight to the head, everyone immediately grabbed the nearest tree and scrambled upward.
A sharp crack of gunfire rang out, followed by wave upon wave of echoing reverberations.
Everyone froze. For a moment, no one could decide which was more frightening — the frenzied attackers, or someone with a gun.
“Police?” Xiang’an guessed.
Even as the words left his mouth, the group had already arrived — eight in total, a mix of foreigners and East Asian faces, every one of them levelling a firearm. By their looks, they were not police. Sure enough, the moment this group drew close, they pointed their weapons and ordered everyone down from the trees — this was not the manner in which public security officers dealt with ordinary citizens.
Ba Yunye was the first to jump down. She swept her gaze around and quietly memorized the types of weapons in their possession, feeling a wave of unease, while at the same time sensing a faint familiarity about one of the men. She finally settled her gaze on him — Li Haozhang. Although the two had never confronted each other face to face, she recognized the scar on his hand where a tattoo had been removed by laser treatment. Since he was among this group, it was clear that these newcomers meant trouble. Based on the positioning, Li Haozhang was not the leader of these eight — so she held her tongue and waited to see how things developed.
Once everyone had climbed down from the trees, Li Haozhang visibly brightened. He stepped forward and murmured something in the ear of a red-bearded foreigner. The red-bearded man gave a satisfied nod, even offering a look of approval, then let his gaze settle on Ba Yunye and said, “Good.”
The red-bearded man looked familiar. Ba Yunye thought back for a while, then suddenly remembered — the year before, when she had tailed Zhang Chenguang to Yuzhu Peak, she had seen the red-bearded man there. This meant their meeting at Yuzhu Peak had not been coincidental — they might very well all be part of the same operation. She stretched her neck to look more carefully, but Zhang Chenguang was nowhere among the group.
Diao Zhuo stepped in front of Ba Yunye, clearly having judged that these people were not to be trusted. At the same time, he could also assess that this group, just like them, had not yet found Long Ge — which meant Long Ge was, at the very least, still safe for now.
“These arrivals don’t mean well…” Ba Yunye murmured, reaching out to pull him aside. But he stood immovable as bedrock.
“You must all be here looking for someone too,” Li Haozhang spoke up. With others to back him, he seemed particularly emboldened. “Heh, I wonder if the person we’re looking for and the person you’re looking for happen to be one and the same?”
Diao Zhuo ignored him and suddenly turned to glance back at the mountaineering association members. They stood perfectly rigid, their faces obscured by masks, their expressions unreadable.
Seeing Diao Zhuo unwilling to speak, Liu Ming — who typically never put himself forward — surprisingly stepped up. “We are a rescue team and volunteers, commissioned by the local public security authorities to search for a man named Renlong Duoji.”
“What a coincidence — so are we. We’re volunteers too,” Li Haozhang said, shamelessly.
“Volunteers with guns. Quite impressive,” Ba Yunye said with a scornful smile. “And you even went to the trouble of bringing along foreign friends to help. What a fine example of international cooperation and goodwill.”
“There are plenty of wild animals in the mountains — we’re just defending ourselves,” Li Haozhang replied with a hollow smile.
“Are there, now?” Diao Zhuo shot back, then adopted a look of mock realization. “No wonder you’ve been sustaining casualties.”
The colour drained from several faces in the opposing group. It was clear that the two corpses and the two deranged individuals they had encountered earlier were all among their associates.
“Let’s speak plainly.” The red-bearded man broke his silence. Evidently, the fact that he could speak Chinese at all meant he was no stranger to the country and had learned to adapt. His Mandarin came out with a strong foreign inflection, clumsy and halting, though his eyes were fierce with a shadow of cunning behind them — the kind of man who would be very difficult to deal with. “Since we share the same goal, and Ms. Ba is someone close to Renlong Duoji, she must know him very well. Why not travel together? We could find him more quickly.”
Ba Yunye had heard barely half of it before her temper flared. She jabbed a finger at him and yelled: “Who is his woman! Say that again clearly!”
At her shout, the group raised their weapons in unison. To prevent unnecessary chaos from breaking out at an inconvenient moment, Li Haozhang threw up his hand and said loudly, “Would you please listen properly — he said ‘someone close to him,’ as in someone in his circle.”
“Oh, in that case…” Ba Yunye composed herself.
“You’d better not cause trouble. We need you to guide us, but as for the others, they’re useless to us. Every time you act up, we kill one of them.” Li Haozhang fixed his gaze on Ba Yunye and pointed at Diao Zhuo. “The first one will be him.”
The red-bearded man was far steadier than Li Haozhang. He gestured for him to lower his pointing hand. “Ha — Li, be a little more civil toward our cooperative partners.”
Diao Zhuo gave a derisive half-smile, letting out a quiet, contemptuous sound — as though the threat had not registered in the slightest. “You all entered the mountains several days before us, yet here you are still wandering around. What’s the matter — did you get lost too?”
Li Haozhang looked mildly embarrassed. He pressed his lips together tightly and glared at Ba Yunye. “Enough talk. Show us the way!”
Ba Yunye fished out her wildly spinning compass and held it up for the red-bearded man — her delivery carrying an uncanny resemblance to a Japanese villain in a television serial. “He is saying — we, same as you, lost the way we have, too.”
The red-bearded man’s eyes narrowed. He clearly hadn’t caught all of that, and he didn’t believe her. Li Haozhang didn’t either. “Whether you’re lost or not, you’ll go find him, and you’ll be heading in the right direction.”
Diao Zhuo’s mind gradually settled. It was becoming clear that Long Ge’s disappearance was more directly linked to this group — he must have gotten hold of something, either a physical object or some kind of secret, that made the red-bearded man and his associates chase him relentlessly. He glanced back once more at the mountaineering association members, who continued to stand there with their characteristic imperceptible presence. He weighed his options and quietly swallowed every word he had been about to say to Ba Yunye, so as not to complicate things further.
He turned to Li Haozhang. “Our numbers aren’t much smaller than yours, which makes keeping us all in check quite difficult. You clearly see me as the greatest threat to her — so why not let me stay and come along to find him, while the others remain here and wait. They don’t know what Renlong Duoji looks like.”
Da Qin and the others understood immediately that Diao Zhuo was volunteering to walk into danger alone in order to protect them. A tide of sorrow and admiration rose in their chests. They looked at the armed criminals, then thought of everything they had once gone through with Diao Zhuo and Ba Yunye in the no-man’s-land. They exchanged glances for a few seconds, then one after another spoke up:
“We are the Beidou Rescue Team. We have a mission. If anyone’s going, we all go.”
“We’re all lost out here right now — we can’t even find our own way back. And there are venomous snakes and dangerous animals out here. More people means more help.”
“Team Leader Diao, I, Xiang’an, am not leaving! Damn it, I can’t fight worth anything, I know — but I’m not going to just stand by while Master Ba…” He exhaled sharply through his nose.
What Da Qin and the others hadn’t expected was that the mountaineering association members — who appeared to have the least stake in any of this — also refused to wait behind. Their reason was simple: they were lost anyway, and travelling together was safer.
One of the criminals, a foreigner with an oversized earring, said in English with a Portuguese accent: “Having this many people along really is a hassle. Better to keep the useful ones and take care of the rest.” He then mimicked a sweeping gunfire motion. The others laughed along — one with dyed yellow hair, one with a streak of blue, one in a military-green vest — all of them cackling away, the sight of it utterly revolting.
Ba Yunye, who had never excelled academically in English, didn’t catch it all — but the rescue team members understood enough. Diao Zhuo pressed down on his brow. To make himself clearly understood by the red-bearded man, he switched to English: “Along the way here, we came across several of your companions — some dead, some injured, all appearing to be accidents. Without being certain of their identities, we notified the police and transmitted specific coordinates. Even when the police arrive, they will likely reach an accidental-death conclusion. But if the officers find multiple bodies with bullet wounds, the situation becomes entirely different. China’s controls over firearms and ammunition are extremely strict, and given that this area sits at the intersection of Yunnan, Tibet, and Myanmar — where maintaining stability is the top priority — emergency protocols would have to be activated. This could even be treated as a counter-terrorism operation. The ones surrounding you at that point would not be a handful of local constables — they would be the military. Possibly even special operations forces.”
This was somewhat of an exaggeration, but the phrase “special operations forces” clearly gave the criminals pause. They looked at their weapons, muttered among themselves, and appeared to abandon their plans for a mass killing.
The red-bearded man looked down at all of them with contempt, then deliberately struck his chest twice with his fists — a dull, heavy thud — demonstrating his imposing, muscular build.
“Why are you people chasing Long Ge?” Ba Yunye asked out of nowhere.
The group fell into sudden silence at that. Several seconds later, a brawny man in a camouflage bandana gave a cold laugh and pointed his gun rudely at Ba Yunye, his eyes carrying a lewd light. “Women always talk too much! Once we find Renlong Duoji, I’ll make sure you’re so satisfied you can’t say a word…”
Yellow-hair, Blue-streak, and Military-vest all nodded their agreement, then broke into lascivious grins. The man with the oversized earring went so far as to thrust his hips in a crude pantomime, laughing coarsely — a sight too vulgar to stomach.
Ba Yunye glanced sideways at the veins that had appeared on Diao Zhuo’s forehead and neck, and the corners of her mouth curved slightly — he had lost his temper.
The group split into two and negotiated who would watch over whom, then ordered the rescue team and the mountaineering association members to line up at the front and walk, forbidding anyone from speaking to one another. They followed from behind, occasionally barking orders and urging them along, lording it over everyone like jailers. Li Haozhang’s charge was Ba Yunye herself. Having suffered at her hands before, he had no particular lust for her — he only aimed a snide jab: “Master Ba, in the days when you ruled the scene with such authority, did you ever imagine you’d end up like this? Are you regretting that you didn’t treat me a little more kindly back then?”
Ba Yunye walked at a leisurely pace. “Don’t stand there like a life coach trying to serve me motivational platitudes. The hardships I’ve endured would fill more pages than the meals you’ve eaten.”
In comparison to the armed criminals, Diao Zhuo seemed far more focused on the mountaineering association members. If his suspicion was right, Li Haozhang’s group was the obvious diversion — and those few were likely the real manoeuvre behind the scenes. The opposing side had an overwhelming advantage in numbers, to say nothing of the guns. What was to be done?
They walked for a considerable stretch, and Ba Yunye spotted a tree bearing Long Ge’s carved marker, with an additional mark of her own carved beneath it, and a scatter of beads on the ground. She let out a soft sigh and came to a stop.
“Why have you stopped?” Li Haozhang asked.
“If we keep going, we’ll just end up walking in circles.” Ba Yunye dropped herself onto a protruding tree root and took a sip of water, then pointed a finger up at the sky. “It’s raining. Can’t make out the sun’s position. Following Long Ge’s markers only brings us back to the same spot. Haven’t you noticed? We’ve gone around this same loop three times.”
“Don’t you dare play games with us.” The earring man had only caught part of it, but was already fuming. He shouted in his own language: “They say you were in the military — and you can’t even figure out which direction you’re going?!”
Diao Zhuo looked left and right. This grove of Chinese coffin trees was peculiar — the spacing between every tree was identical, and every dozen or so steps, there was a tree that looked exactly like one they had seen before, but with the canopy facing the opposite direction. If one tried to determine orientation by the density of the foliage, the reading would reverse every dozen meters or so. No matter which direction one walked, the only outcome was circling back to where one had started.
Ba Yunye tilted her chin and said, with all the swagger of a streetwise rogue: “Then perhaps you’d like to lead the way.”
“Stop wasting time.” Li Haozhang said coldly, toying with the weapon in his hand. “Try any more tricks, and we’ll make your companions pay for it.” With that, he delivered a heavy kick at Diao Zhuo, intent on demonstrating his absolute dominance. What he had not anticipated was that before he could even retract his foot, Diao Zhuo had seized his ankle and twisted it aside. Li Haozhang instinctively reached out to brace himself, but was instead hurled to the ground. One of his legs was wrenched back at an unnatural angle, and he could hear his own joint protest the strain with a series of sharp, cracking pops.
It had to be said — when Diao Zhuo struck, there was no technique to speak of. It was pure physical dominance. You could land a hit on him, but he could absorb it, and while doing so, he’d hit you back without the slightest hesitation, putting you down hard first and asking questions later.
Several gun barrels pressed against Diao Zhuo’s head simultaneously, and everyone held their breath.
Even Ba Yunye felt Diao Zhuo’s move had been reckless.
Diao Zhuo released the pressure. Li Haozhang lay curled on the ground clutching his leg, convulsing in pain, cold sweat breaking out across his skin.
Everyone let out a collective breath. Liu Ming couldn’t help but counsel: “Young man — a true man knows when to bend and when to stand firm. When patience is called for, one must exercise patience.”
Diao Zhuo glanced at Ba Yunye, as though something lay hidden behind his gaze.
She gave him a slight nod — she had understood. He had merely been testing them. When Li Haozhang was attacked, the others had all simultaneously turned their weapons on Diao Zhuo. In truth, all it would have taken in that moment was for a single person to redirect their barrel away from Diao Zhuo for him to have been forced to release his grip. This group had received no professional training as killers, let alone any kind of organizational discipline.
But one person had remained entirely unruffled throughout. When Diao Zhuo had dealt with Li Haozhang, he had neither drawn his weapon nor shown the slightest anger — and that was genuinely someone difficult to contend with: the red-bearded man.
“All right, all right — peace is prosperity; let’s stop fighting at every turn.” She waved a dismissive hand. “We’re all hungry, aren’t we? Hunger makes tempers run high. Come on, let’s eat a little something and then keep moving.”
The criminals didn’t budge. They waited for the rescue team and mountaineering association members to bring out their provisions, then ordered all food and water to be handed over to them for “safekeeping.”
Everyone understood at once. The criminals had ammunition to spare — but they had just eaten through the last of their own food supply.