“Master Kong Gan, as you’ve seen for yourself, the person we’re looking for can’t afford a delay of even a few hours. We can set up camp at the spot you mentioned — there’s no one chasing us from behind — but it’s different for him. Someone might catch up to him while we’re sleeping. Getting there even one second earlier could save a life. I know everyone values their life. You only need to point the way — you don’t have to walk at the front. If things get dangerous later, you’re welcome to stay at the back.” She stepped forward. “Maybe arriving even a second earlier could save a life. I know everyone values their own life. You only need to point the way — no need to walk at the front, and if it comes to a fight, you can stay at the very back.”

Kong Gan let out a sigh and shook his head. “You’re not afraid of hardship, not afraid of exhaustion, not afraid of blood or sacrifice — fine, let’s go!”

Diao Zhuo looked around at the other members of the rescue team, and everyone gave a nod. He then turned to Liu Ming and the others. “We plan to search through the night. As for you all…”

Liu Ming didn’t wait for him to finish. “We don’t mind. Finding the person as quickly as possible is what matters.”

“Thank you.” Ba Yunye said sincerely. Regardless of whether they were plainclothes officers, as long as their goal was the same, they were all comrades. The others waved it off saying it was nothing — only A’Shui quietly slid half a step behind the others, instinctively pulling her hat brim even lower, reducing her presence to the absolute minimum. There were many people and the light was dim, so Ba Yunye hadn’t managed to get a clear look at everyone. Seeing that everyone agreed to keep moving, she pointed toward the left-front diagonal. “That way.”

Diao Zhuo looked at her with a questioning gaze. Seeing her give a firm, certain nod, he asked no further questions.

“Heading that way goes downhill, but once you cross a small river, you’ll have to climb over the mountains.” Kong Gan’s eyes carried a warning as he said gravely: “I’ve heard that no one has ever made it over those mountains alive. Back in the day, many Japanese soldiers died over there, and even those sent to collect the bodies never came back. Whether it’s foraging for mushrooms or gathering medicinal herbs, we never go that way. Heh heh… I’m not trying to scare you. There’s something sinister about it. When I was small, the elders warned us — if you’re not in control of yourself, led by the nose by those strange and sinister things, death is certain. It doesn’t matter how capable or clever you are. Understand?”

Ba Yunye was unimpressed. “The Japanese invaders killed so many of our civilians — they deserved to be taught a lesson. They need to know: come as tourists, you’re welcome; come to cause destruction, absolutely not! Since these are Chinese mountains, they naturally make it their business to deal with ill-intentioned foreigners, and they’ll treat us Chinese sons and daughters kindly. Take that hanged ghost, for example — Long Ge was completely fine when he was setting the trap, so why did that other person get bitten by a snake the moment he touched the tree trunk?”

This logic was completely airtight.

Ba Yunye stole a glance at Liu Ming and the others. Their expressions weren’t very clear, but their eyes were curved as if they were smiling. She had her own calculations running through her mind — Even if you’re plainclothes officers, after hearing me say this, you should understand that I’m a patriotic young person with an impeccable revolutionary background.

Kong Gan looked at her with an expression somewhere between exasperation and amusement. Knowing Diao Zhuo’s relationship with her, he patted Diao Zhuo on the shoulder, laughed, and shook his head. “Alas! Let’s go. I hope the person you’re looking for hasn’t really gone that far… I’ll say it upfront: leading you across the river is no problem, but continuing to climb those mountains after that — forgive me for declining. It’s not that I’m afraid of death; it’s that I’ve genuinely never been there.”

Ba Yunye shot him a dissatisfied glance, and her peripheral vision swept again over the corpse. She didn’t know if it was psychological, but she felt that the green fuzz on its body had grown even more plentiful, and even what had originally been dark brown hair seemed to be taking on a greenish tint. She deliberately averted her gaze, rubbed her arms to soothe the sudden goosebumps that had risen, and thought — regardless of whether the green-fuzz corpse had any scientifically explainable aspects — this is no place to linger!

The group set off again. Several people on the rescue team recalled how, back in Qiang Tang, Ye Xun had taken all the food away, and how Ba Yunye had led everyone in singing “Unity Is Strength” to boost morale. Now they began clamoring for her to do it again:

“Master Ba, say a few words to everyone — fire up the troops! Let’s go all out and find Long Ge in one push!”

“Yeah, sing us a song or something.”

“This time we’ll really sing along with you!”

Ba Yunye thought for a long moment, then raised both hands high and shouted out a battle cry: “Down with Japanese imperialism!”

“Pfft — ha ha ha ha ha!!” The whole group lost it and burst out laughing. Diao Zhuo glanced up at Ba Yunye’s enthusiastic retreating figure, a faint smile settling quietly in the depths of his eyes.

The group switched to torches and slowly pressed forward, nibbling on provisions as they went. Ba Yunye paid close attention along the way and sure enough, spotted several more marks Long Ge had left behind. Because the marks indicated the opposite direction, Long Ge had left his beaded prayer beads without hesitation under each marked tree — one bead at the first mark, then two, three, four at the ones that followed.

The moisture in the air grew heavier at night. Even when torch flames or sparks brushed against branches and leaves, nothing would catch fire. The various spiders that made their home here had woven all manner of webs — the torches served both to burn through the dense masses of spider silk and to keep certain insects and snakes away with their heat and light.

Everyone in the group regularly participated in wilderness rescues; their physical strength and endurance were far beyond ordinary people. Even pushing through the night without sleep, they could manage. The only issue was the overwhelming darkness on all sides, which created a lingering sense of unease. The rescue team members chatted and joked loudly to keep each other’s spirits up, while Liu Ming’s group maintained their usual silence.

“Cough cough! Whose bread was this? Why is there spicy strips stuffed inside? This dark cuisine is going to be the death of me!”

“If you can’t handle the spice, I have candy.”

“What? You’re a grown man — why are you carrying candy?”

“I can’t kick you hard enough! I was trying to be kind, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Ha, what’s wrong with a single dog eating some candy?”

“Oh right, so it’s dog food then.”

“Get out of here!”

Though it was downhill, the path was far from easy. The ground was slick with moisture, and one careless step meant a slide and a bruised backside. Ba Yunye was quite enthusiastic about helping — she steadied herself with one hand gripping a tree trunk while extending the other to offer a loose supporting reach to those passing by. Liu Ming and the others, who always kept to the rear of the group, politely inclined their bodies when she stretched out her hand. “No need, thank you, thank you — we can manage on our own…”

She didn’t pay much attention to it and continued walking down, then suddenly stopped and looked back at Liu Ming and the others. They immediately stopped as well, looking back at her with a slightly nervous, wide-eyed stare.

Ba Yunye promptly broke into a grin. “I keep forgetting you’re all from the mountaineering club. This kind of terrain must be child’s play for you.”

“That’s… that’s right…” Liu Ming gave an accommodating smile.

She turned back and kept walking. She always had a feeling that something was off about those few, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what they would gain by tagging along.

They had been walking downhill for quite some time when the sound of flowing water became audible. Kong Gan explained that this area was full of springs, with countless small rivulets seeping out and merging into streams that eventually formed a small river further down. It sounded rather pleasant, but the terrain ahead was treacherous in the extreme. The rivulets didn’t flow gently downward — they wound through clusters of protruding rocks with significant drops between them, making any direct path through completely impossible.

“Can you be sure he came down this way? If you’re not certain, perhaps we should try a different route.” Kong Gan asked, while carefully picking his way onto a rock free from tree cover above. “Mind your footing and watch your heads…”

Ba Yunye had a persistent feeling that there was a strange odor in this area — not fragrant, not foul, somehow familiar. She inhaled deeply, but the scent came and went, and she couldn’t tell what was giving it off.

Xiang’an craned his neck to look down. Below was a yawning pit of darkness with no visible bottom — it gave off a feeling of instability and danger. He asked Ba Yunye, “If Long Ge wanted to go down, how would he do it?”

“If it were me and I had enough time, I’d chop down two or three saplings and build a makeshift bridge between the rocks. But given his weight… chopping trees would waste too much time.” Ba Yunye patted the tree trunk beside her. She felt a coolness on the back of her neck, as if a few drops of dew had fallen there — she’d run around in the wilderness often enough to not think much of it. “Rope? I don’t know how many ropes he had with him. After building that trap, he probably didn’t have any left.”

Diao Zhuo pulled at the vines that could be seen all around. “What about these?”

“That works too. Twist them together, it saves time compared to cutting trees. The downside is you can’t retrieve it afterward — it basically tells anyone who comes along, ‘I went down this way,’ and you can’t stop someone from climbing down after you.”

“Let’s look around first.” Da Qin waved them over.

Several people switched on their headlamps and fanned out through the area, weaving between rocks to search.

“There are mosquitoes here — my legs are so itchy!” Xiang’an had barely gone a few steps before he couldn’t resist slapping at his trousers.

Qi Zi laughed. “Baby face — now you know the importance of leg hair!”

Xiang’an wasn’t having it, retorting: “Monkeys have more hair and they get fleas.”

Someone else chimed in, saying they’d also been bitten by mosquitoes and were feeling a bit itchy.

“Look at this—” Though the headlamp light was limited, they were sharp-eyed enough to spot some broken pieces of wood wedged between the rocks. When they pulled them up, they turned out to be bamboo, and the cut ends were quite fresh. Others reported finding several severed vine tendrils nearby, along with wild fruit pits that had been gnawed completely clean.

Diao Zhuo asked Kong Gan, “Is there a bamboo grove around here?”

“There’s a small one.”

Ba Yunye gave a satisfied sound. “Bamboo is great! It’s highly flexible, you can find water in it, the hollow tube can store things or be used for cooking, and there might even be bamboo worms inside…”

“The kind that taste like chicken and crunch when you bite them?” Xiang’an asked.

She swallowed, clearly genuinely craving them.

“He must have built a simple ladder and then destroyed it once he got across safely.” Diao Zhuo pulled up more broken bamboo pieces, one end of which had vine and a length of branch tied to it. “As expected of someone who’s survived extreme wilderness situations multiple times.”

For the rescue team members carrying some equipment, descending down along the rocks was comparatively manageable. Diao Zhuo divided everyone into small groups — some responsible for lighting, some for scouting the path, and some for securing the rope and makeshift ladder.

“There aren’t… snakes here, right?” Perhaps still shaken by the corpse from earlier, Liu Ming asked Kong Gan cautiously.

Kong Gan shook his head with great certainty. “Not many.”

Liu Ming had just begun to feel somewhat reassured when he heard Ba Yunye say with the casual confidence of a seasoned veteran: “Then that means there’s a reason that makes snakes afraid to gather here. Master, tell us — what is it? Centipedes? A mongoose? Or is there just one king cobra lurking around?”

Xiang’an, ever the curious one, asked: “What? If there’s a king cobra, no other snakes dare come?”

“Of course.” Talking about this creature, Ba Yunye couldn’t help but get goosebumps. “Why do you think it’s called the king cobra? It has a very strong territorial instinct.”

Kong Gan waved a hand. “There’s a lot of Paris polyphylla around here — we can pick some shortly just in case.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” Seeing that Xiang’an and the others didn’t understand, Ba Yunye explained: “It’s also called ‘seven-leaf one-flower.’ It’s said to treat venomous snake bites, and snakes also dislike its scent.”

Everyone relaxed, and seeing that the ropes had been secured, they prepared to descend. Kong Gan stopped Da Qin and Tan Lin who had rushed to the front and once again asked if they could wait until daylight.

“Master Ba, on the back of your neck… what is that!” Xiang’an suddenly cried out.

Ba Yunye instinctively tucked her head in, reached back with her hand to feel, and found she was touching several soft, slippery things. When she grabbed at them, her hand came away covered in blood.

Diao Zhuo was just about to rush over when the mountaineering club’s Pang Hou suddenly called out: “Where is all this blood coming from!”

Everyone quickly turned to look his way. Several beams of light swung toward him, revealing his neck and one hand drenched in streaming blood — utterly horrifying, as though someone had slashed him across the neck with a blade.

Before anyone could make sense of what was happening, Qi Zi also seemed to feel something uncomfortable. He stomped his foot hard, dropped himself to the ground, and yanked up his trouser leg — his calf was also soaked in blood, with over a dozen small holes seeping dark red.