The two of them made their way to the site where He Zhengrun’s body had been discovered. Not far off stood an abandoned suspension bridge. Several days of drizzling rain followed by one heavy downpour had severely damaged the scene. Although the on-site investigation had long since concluded, a handful of stubborn officers were still wading through the water in search of any remaining useful physical evidence. The stones beneath the water were slippery, and one officer lost his footing and went down, soaking half his body.

When the officers noticed Ba Yunye had arrived, they put their heads together and began whispering among themselves, as though wary of her. This attitude had long since aroused Diao Zhuo’s suspicion. He quietly harbored a feeling that there was more to He Zhengrun’s death than met the eye — that Long Ge might even be nothing more than a red herring.

The primeval forests of Gongshan stretched across a vast expanse, extending for hundreds of kilometers. The terrain was complex and varied, with an elevation difference of more than two thousand meters between the highest peaks and the lowest river valleys, and five distinct climate zones distributed throughout. Wandering through it, one might glimpse towering snow-capped mountains, plunging waterfalls, and the remnants of ancient battlefields, sacrificial sites, and the old Silk Road trading routes. It was home to the world’s highest-altitude tropical rainforest, and the transitional zone between tropical rainforest and temperate forest concealed extraordinarily rare species. Beyond all this, countless legends and disappearance cases lent the forest an air of mystery. Perhaps the most widespread tales were of secret ancient Dian Kingdom tombs and green-haired reanimated corpses lurking within. Some grave-robbing novels had drawn inspiration from this place, depicting the forest as riddled with hidden mechanisms and sinister strangeness at every turn. Over the years, wave after wave of experts and adventurers had risked their lives to enter the dense jungle — some returned empty-handed, while others became part of the legend themselves.

Ba Yunye followed Diao Zhuo upstream along the river, wading through the water, flanked on both sides by tree trunks twisted into grotesque shapes by clinging vines. Past the last man-made stone bridge lay a horse-and-pedestrian trail cut into the mountain at some forgotten point in time. Following the narrow path uphill deeper into the forest brought them to the spot where Long Ge’s bracelet piece and blade had been found. Word had it that a guide from a nearby ethnic minority village had already led a group of officers into the dense jungle to conduct a search.

Diao Zhuo hefted Ba Yunye’s backpack — a dense, heavy lump — and couldn’t guess what she’d packed inside. She had experience surviving in extreme environments, and whatever fit in that bag was bound to be useful. He didn’t ask. He had heard from veterans who had previously scouted this forest that food and water were plentiful inside, but the regional climate was hot and humid, which meant an abundance of venomous insects and snakes, as well as unknown plant life full of undiscovered dangers. On top of that, the slippery trails were difficult to navigate, especially on certain cliff faces and massive boulders where there was also the risk of a fatal fall. As for the legendary mysterious disappearances reminiscent of the Bermuda Triangle, and tales of wild men — none of the veterans had encountered those personally. They simply said: once you’re in there, you just tough it out with thick skin.

Tough it out with thick skin… Diao Zhuo cast a sideways glance at Ba Yunye. She seemed to catch his gaze, and her hand strayed over to give his backside an unruly pat. “Watch the path, not me. You’ll have plenty of chances to look later.”

Diao Zhuo gave a cold snort. “Are you really that worth looking at?”

Ba Yunye pretended not to hear.

He gave her shoulder a firm clap, and in the same motion pulled her into the crook of his arm, answering his own question: “Worth it.”

She let out a soft laugh and shook her head with a helpless smile. This man had been completely won over by her — he’d long since stopped caring about keeping face.

Up ahead, a crowd of people milled about. Among the sea of camouflage and standard police uniforms, several men in bright orange mountaineering jackets stood out conspicuously. Seen from a distance, their faces stirred a sense of familiarity. They were in the middle of inventorying the standard contents of their rescue packs — first aid kits, toolboxes, military folding shovels, portable oxygen canisters, filtered face masks, climbing ropes, and other equipment arranged in neat rows.

Someone spotted Ba Yunye. They nudged one another, then broke into excited waves as they walked over.

“Hey, Master Ba, we meet again! You’re still as sharp as ever!”

“Master Ba, it’s been a while — hope you’ve been well?”

“Master Ba is still Master Ba — but Captain Diao? Looks like he’s become Master Ba’s Captain Diao now~”

“This flower has a keeper already. Had I known, I wouldn’t have bothered coming.”

A cluster of familiar faces surged forward in greeting, and Ba Yunye was briefly stunned, standing there for a good long moment before breaking into a grin. “Da Qin, Xiang’an, Qi Zi, Tan Lin… you all came!”

“Master Ba and Long Ge are in trouble — how could we possibly stand by and do nothing?” they said with smiles. After a quick exchange where everyone briefly shared their thoughts, Ba Yunye took a look at the scouting map for a moment, then prepared to set off. But before she could, a police officer stepped in front of her. After checking her ID, he said: “You’re Ba Yunye? Since you’re not a member of the Beidou Rescue Team, and given your close relationship with Renlong Duoji, as far as this search is concerned… you’d best stay back and wait for news.”

Ba Yunye understood their concerns. She wasn’t bothered. She offered a composed smile. “I hear you found Long Ge’s personal belongings? Could I have them?”

“No.”

“Then at least let me take a look at the photographs.”

The officer nodded and had someone bring over several photos. Ba Yunye went through them one by one, then raised her eyes and glanced without expression toward the depths of the jungle.

Among the crowd, a cluster of people dressed as ordinary civilians huddled together. One of them — a man in dark sunglasses — had been watching Ba Yunye and Diao Zhuo ever since she appeared. He was slightly hunched, wearing a large black bucket hat with a wide brim that obscured nearly half his face. A raised collar and camouflage neck gaiter covered his mouth and nose, making it impossible to make out his features.

Diao Zhuo caught Ba Yunye’s eye and gestured for her to quietly slip in among their group. The rescue team members were all tall, broad-shouldered men — they formed a ring around her, and the police officers wouldn’t notice for a while. She plopped down on a nearby rock, asked for a pair of scissors, grabbed her ponytail in one hand, and snipped it off in several quick cuts. The remaining short hair fell loose around her face, giving her a look that recalled the male leads of 1990s Hong Kong films.

Diao Zhuo, sharp as ever, had read her intent the moment she asked for scissors. The moment the braid was cut, he pulled off his black cap and clapped it onto her head, then stripped off his outer jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She pulled it on swiftly. She was tall to begin with, and with her newly cut short hair, from behind she was impossible to identify as a woman.

The guide assigned to the Beidou Rescue group went by Kong Gan — people said his real name was much longer. He was a lean, dark-complexioned middle-aged man with shoulder-length hair worn loose, a large bamboo tube slung diagonally across his chest, its contents unknown. Like other locals, he wore his bamboo backpack basket with its straps across his forehead, a wooden board cushioning the back of his neck. This manner of carrying a bamboo basket was distinctive and could be considered one of the local ethnic customs. He said he would do his utmost to lead them as deep into the forest as he knew.

What he meant — though he left it unspoken — was that he could only take them as far as he himself had been. Beyond that, he had no desire to venture.

“Let’s go.” Ba Yunye wasted no further words, pointing in a direction. Kong Gan didn’t say anything more, and stepped forward. The others reacted with swift efficiency, striding off in the direction she had indicated.

The police officers noticed the Beidou Rescue team setting out. They squinted over from a distance, saw five or six men heading off in single file — and among them, no sign of the long-haired Ba Yunye. Reassured, they turned back to their other work.

The man who had been watching Ba Yunye so intently waved to his companions, and the group quietly fell in behind them.

“Just like that — you cut it right off…” Xiang’an said, catching up to her in a few strides once it was clear the police weren’t following. There was a note of mild regret in his voice.

“Hair grows back. It’s not like I castrated myself,” Ba Yunye replied dismissively. She shot a glance at Diao Zhuo and said, with exaggerated courtesy, “As long as Captain Diao doesn’t mind.”

Perhaps because he had found her again after nearly losing her, Diao Zhuo had abandoned his usual blunt, iron-man style and had been putting serious effort into the art of saying the right thing. He went against his nature and said: “I wouldn’t care even if you shaved it all off.”

She lifted the cap off her head and reached for the scissors again. “Since you put it that way…”

“Stop right there.” Diao Zhuo shoved the cap back down onto her head.

Everyone burst out laughing. Someone asked: “So we’re just heading straight in this direction?”

Ba Yunye glanced back. The subtropical foliage behind them was a dense, tangled curtain — no police telescope could have penetrated it. Once they were fully out of the officers’ line of sight, she handed Diao Zhuo’s jacket back and changed into her own camouflage jacket, which offered strong concealment in the jungle. “Of course. Long Ge is almost certainly in this direction,” she said. “At the very least, this is the direction he headed in at the start.”

Diao Zhuo relaxed. “The items he left behind gave you a clue?”

“That’s right. The piece on his bracelet was a wood carving — a dragon.” Ba Yunye continued, “What sets it apart is that most people use an ‘ascending dragon,’ a symbol of rising prosperity. He’s the only one I know who uses a ‘descending dragon,’ which turns the symbolism on its head — not exactly auspicious on the surface. I never really understood it before, but thinking about it now, I think it was to honor his sister-in-law. When she passed, he felt he had no right to keep climbing higher on his own. So the sign he used to point the direction wasn’t the dragon’s head — it was the reverse: the dragon’s tail. Wherever the tail pointed, that’s where he went.”

“He wasn’t pointing the way for ‘someone,'” Diao Zhuo said with certainty. “He was pointing it for you. He believed you’d come find him.”

“And the police won’t even let you go,” Da Qin said with a sigh. “They’re so busy worrying about you helping Long Ge flee that they never stopped to think — precisely because you two know each other so well, you’re the one most likely to find him.”

“Which is exactly why I didn’t tell them.” Ba Yunye flashed a sly smile. “We have to find Long Ge before they do, get the full story, and then — if he needs to turn himself in, he turns himself in; if there’s something to explain, he explains it. He’s not some vicious criminal. This can be cleared up.”

“You’ve grown,” Diao Zhuo said with approval. She responded with a look.

Perhaps hearing the steady sound of footsteps behind them, she glanced back — it wasn’t the police. She relaxed slightly. Diao Zhuo turned around to address the people who had been following close behind. “Hello. Could I ask — who are you?”

The group stopped openly. A stocky middle-aged man chuckled and said, “We’re a few members from the provincial mountaineering association. We’ve been here before. Same as your Beidou Rescue — we came to help look for someone.”

Ba Yunye caught his accent and suddenly spoke to them in dialect, asking a few questions. The middle-aged man replied fluently in the same cadence, and the others occasionally chimed in — the same regional lilt, some from Baoshan, some from Dehong.

“My name is Liu Ming. Him… we usually just call him Pang Hou. Then there’s Old Sun, Old Bao, A’Shui.” Liu Ming gave a brief introduction of each. All of them wore wide-brimmed hats — likely a precaution against hornets and other venomous insects — with every exposed patch of skin carefully covered.

Diao Zhuo gave a brief introduction of the others on his team. They were wearing Beidou Rescue jackets and also had hats on, so neither group managed to properly commit the other’s names to memory. With the same goal in mind, they naturally fell in together and continued deeper into the forest. The mountaineering association group, though traveling alongside them, showed little interest in conversation, chattering among themselves in dialect. No one paid it much mind — they all kept to their own pace.

The man called A’Shui walked at the rear of the group, deliberately maintaining distance from Ba Yunye — yet his gaze never left her back. Whenever she turned slightly or tilted her head, he immediately looked down and pretended to watch the path, as if terrified of her noticing him.

Once Ba Yunye had confirmed the group were genuinely from the province, she put them largely out of mind and occupied herself hunting for a suitable branch.

This stretch of forest was nearly untouched by human presence. There was no worn path, just a surface blanketed in multiple layers of fallen leaves like a natural cushion underfoot — each step sinking to an unpredictable depth. Every so often, startled beetles and spiders would burst up from beneath the leaves, too quick to identify before vanishing again into the gaps between them. Tree roots knotted and overlapped in every direction; vines sprawled in wild tangles; moss clung to bare rock faces; clumps of white bird droppings dotted the moss like small flowers; and between several nearby boulders, long strings of viscous liquid hung suspended. The deeper they went, the more the canopy blocked what little sunlight reached below. The surroundings grew dim and hushed — cobwebs everywhere, the smell of wet rot hanging in the air, laced faintly with the musky scent of reptiles and the strange sweet perfume of unseen plants.

“Watch your step. Don’t tread on anything you shouldn’t,” Kong Gan reminded the group.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Da Qin’s boot came down with a wet squelch — directly into some unidentified animal’s droppings. He lifted his foot with a grimace of resignation. “What exactly shouldn’t I step on?”

“Snakes,” Ba Yunye answered for Kong Gan. She had just found a branch about as thick as her wrist, and was now walking ahead, beating it against the ground left and right as she went. “There are venomous snakes all through here. One bite and you’re not going to laugh it off — even if everyone carries you out together and you make it to a doctor, there’s no guarantee.”

Kong Gan nodded, his dialect accent thick. “We come in occasionally to gather mushrooms, so maybe there are fewer snakes in this part. But deeper in — forget snakes. There are bears.”

Ba Yunye said: “When I was in the army, one of our survival training exercises in uninhabited territory was exactly like this — they’d dump you at the foot of a mountain, hand you a few sets of coordinates, no water, no food, and five days to find them. Similar to this… but this is even more wild. Possibly more complex than anywhere I trained.”

Qi Zi blinked. “That sounds absolutely brutal!”

“It was all right — mostly boring, especially at night. Back then I’d lie there wondering if there were actually wild men up in the mountains. And if there were, if one or two came out — ideally male ones — I’d…”

“You’d do what?” Diao Zhuo fixed her with a sideways look.

She rubbed her hands together. “Challenge them to a card game, obviously.”

No one took the bait. They all thought: Sure, and we’re just supposed to believe that.

“What do you do about food?” Da Qin asked, genuinely wanting to know.

“Basically, anything a monkey can eat, you can eat too. The odds of actually encountering a monkey, though… pretty slim. They’re crafty. Spot a large group of people, they’re gone before you blink. Spot a small group, and you’d better hope they don’t steal whatever food you’ve managed to scrape together.” Ba Yunye used the branch to sweep away spider webs left and right as she walked, clearing a path. No snakes yet. “I can’t speak for everywhere, but here in Yunnan, wild fruit is fairly abundant. If you recognize it, go ahead and eat freely. If you don’t, take a tiny bite first, wait a while — if your mouth doesn’t go numb and your stomach doesn’t rebel, eat a little more, but still don’t overdo it. If you’re lucky, you might come across a hornet’s nest — now that’s a treasure. Never mind the honey — the larvae inside? A genuine delicacy! How you get to it is your problem… some people never even taste the honey; they get stung to death first. Ha!”

The group listened to her with great interest. Someone asked: “Have you ever eaten other insects? The ‘tastes like chicken, crunchy’ type?”

She laughed. “I’m not Bear Grylls. If you need to survive, gnawing bark or eating wild grass is fair game, but insects — don’t go touching those casually. It’s not just about whether they’re toxic. You have no idea what parasites they’re carrying. Whether the crunch is worth it, I honestly don’t know — but it could end up being worse than a venomous snake bite. Personally, I’d rather drop dead from a five-step viper than spend the rest of my life unable to function independently — defecating on schedule at eight in the morning, waking up on cue at nine. Ha!”

Xiang’an shook his head in wonder. “Where exactly did you train? You really have encountered every kind of hazard imaginable.”

“Can’t say.” Years out of the service, but the secrecy protocols remained.

They talked as they walked, keeping a careful eye on the ground. After a long stretch, nothing new had turned up. When the group paused again to log their coordinates, Diao Zhuo pressed his lips together and thought seriously: Long Ge had left no markers after the bracelet piece and the knife. That didn’t add up. Any ordinary person would know to leave something — Long Ge couldn’t have overlooked it. Unless there was another reason. Like… not having the time.

Ba Yunye suddenly leaned over and said quietly: “Something about Liu Ming’s group feels off to me. They don’t quite seem like mountaineers.”