Xiao Yu drove to Lanqiong Mountain, but her car broke down halfway. In order not to delay her, she had to park the car at a nearby repair shop and go to find Yin Wenxian to meet up.
She was dressed casually, carrying a hiking backpack, and on the surface, she looked like an ordinary tourist.
In reality, she had a mission. Previously, the Queen of Spades had asked her to temporarily stop her original work and be on standby at any time. Last night, the Queen of Spades gave her a document about a Ghostly Ancient Tomb and ordered her to go into the mountains to look for suspicious Supernatural phenomena in the vicinity.
She had to carry out this seemingly baffling task. Fortunately, the tasks given by Big Dipper in the past were all like this, just a bit of a rip-off. Xiao Yu didn't have any intention of delving into it. After making thorough preparations, she headed straight for Lanqiong Mountain.
When she was just an ordinary person from a modest background, she dreamed of traveling all over China, admiring its magnificent landscapes, and tasting all the world's delicacies. So she wasn't opposed to this kind of outdoor travel.
With the backing of the Playing Card Organization, she was confident even when hiking through wilderness areas; a broken-down car was no big deal for her.
Standing at the foot of the mountain, Xiao Yu saw a dilapidated little car, with Yin Wenxian leaning against it, his expression inscrutable.
"This car is really... unique. Young Master Yin, have you gone bankrupt?" Xiao Yu teased as she stepped forward.
Yin Wenxian sighed, "My original car broke down, and after I got a new one, I was in a car accident and almost totaled the car and myself. This journey has been incredibly difficult."
Xiao Yu's smile vanished, "Really? To be honest, my car also broke down on the way. Is this a coincidence, or is there more to it?"
The two men exchanged a glance. They had been causing trouble for Big Dipper employees lately. Could this be a retaliation? In their line of work, being cautious was never a bad thing. They couldn't afford to overlook any small details. Even if they didn't have a clue for the time being, they had to keep this suspicion in mind.
A while ago, a terrifying video went viral online. Some netizens pointed out that the video was filmed at Lanqiong Mountain, so the number of tourists in the surrounding tourist areas has increased slightly in the past few days.
Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian encountered a group of hikers on their way. They were carrying large backpacks, wearing hiking gear, and there were seven of them. They were chatting and laughing all the way.
The leader was a round-faced girl wearing glasses. She was very outgoing, and when she saw Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian traveling with them, she came over to greet them, "Hello, are you also here because of the video online?"
"What?" Xiao Yu was stunned for a moment. "We're just here on vacation, we don't know anything about videos."
The round-faced girl immediately took out her phone and showed the video to Xiao Yu. "The woman in the video is called Ning Yun. She's missing, and we still can't find her."
Xiao Yu raised an eyebrow. "So you guys organized yourselves to rescue people?"
The round-faced girl clicked her tongue. "How could that be! This deep mountain forest is too dangerous. Professional work should be handled by professionals. I came here to explore paranormal phenomena. Those strange people in white clothes in the video are rumored to be ghosts and ghost soldiers!"
"You're really curious..." Xiao Yu smirked. This girl must be someone who doesn't need to work and is financially independent; she must be bored out of her mind to come to this desolate wilderness to cause trouble. But for Xiao Yu, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Traveling with these hikers and using them to cover her identity was a pretty good option.
Shortly after entering the mountains, Yin Wenxian was the first to notice something amiss. "Why is this road so wet? It looks like it rained heavily."
"No way, we checked the weather forecast before we came. It's been sunny for the next two weeks, and the road at the foot of the mountain was very dry, without a trace of rain," the round-faced girl said.
"Could it be a localized, small-scale rainfall?" Xiao Yu asked, puzzled. She didn't know much about this, but the mountain path and the surrounding trees were indeed wet. She remembered seeing a video online where half of a street was raining and the other half was sunny, which is why she made that comment.
The group was chatting away when suddenly a large dark cloud drifted overhead, followed by a light drizzle.
The sky suddenly turned extremely dark. Fortunately, this tour group was already used to outdoor survival and was not surprised by this kind of thing. They quickly set up tents and everyone crawled inside to take shelter from the rain.
Yin Wenxian pretended to look at his phone while keeping his head down, but actually took out the Queen of Spades of Spades Playing Cards from the corner. When Xiao Yu looked over, he only whispered, "I wonder how long this rain will last. It's causing too much trouble. I'll talk to my superiors and see if there's any solution."
Xiao Yu nodded. "If there's a problem, contact the organization." She just didn't know if the Playing Card Organization had the ability to interfere with the weather.
Wait a minute, is Yin Wenxian testing just how powerful the Playing Cards really are?
The rain didn't last long; it stopped after a short while. Yin Wenxian looked very excited and nodded slightly to Xiao Yu.
The group got up, discussed it briefly, and decided to continue along the original tourist route, enjoying the scenery and taking photos along the way, until they got tired and chose a sheltered spot behind a hillside as their campsite. There was a river of moderate size nearby.
The campsite was quite ideal. Someone had suggested setting up the tent on the riverbank, but the round-faced girl said that it had just rained and if it rained again later, the area near the river might be flooded.
The group quickly cleared the area, lit a campfire, boiled water, and cooked rice. The water in the frying pan on the tripod gradually boiled, and Xiao Yu sat to the side, watching the flames below to absorb the heat while munching on biscuits. The food she prepared was simple, just enough to fill her stomach.
"Here, this is for you..." The round-faced girl held a tray with hot food in it. This was brought by the group of hikers themselves. Xiao Yu and her companion had been with them all the way. They were all well-off and wouldn't be stingy with such a small thing.
"Thank you!" Xiao Yu had a good impression of this small group. They thought Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian were just ordinary hikers, but they didn't know that the two had another purpose for coming here.
The information provided by the Queen of Spades was vague and did not explain in detail what abnormal phenomena they would encounter. However, Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian both seemed very confident, especially after successfully stopping the rain. They were even more certain that they had found a powerful patron.
After eating and drinking their fill, Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian rested together. As dusk approached, a scream suddenly rang in their ears.
"Something terrible has happened! I saw someone floating downstream!" the round-faced girl cried out in a panic.
Her expression was grim. A group of people were playing around the campfire when they suddenly saw someone floating on the water downstream. No one would be happy to encounter something like this while traveling.
Although the light was dim and they couldn't see the specific situation clearly, they could still roughly tell that it was probably a drowning victim, clinging tightly to a piece of driftwood, their condition unknown.
This is a mountain area; calling the police or an ambulance would take a long time. If the victim is still alive, being submerged in cold water for an extended period might cause hypothermia and death.
Many of the people present could swim, but... none of them dared to go into the water in this environment and weather. They could offer help to others in a way that was appropriate, but they wouldn't risk their lives to help others.
However, this was a piece of cake for Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian.
Yin Wenxian took off his coat, stretched his limbs, carefully entered the water, took a deep breath, and quickly moved towards his target. The victim didn't look very old. Yin Wenxian grabbed the person's arm and quickly pulled him back to shore. The whole process took less than three minutes. The onlookers were amazed and exclaimed that he was a master!
Just then, a Flashlight beam suddenly shone from not far away, and two men approached. One of them had an ordinary-looking face, and next to him was a man wearing an armband with the insignia "Forest Ranger" written on it.
"Who are you?" the forest ranger asked, frowning.
The round-faced girl explained, "We're traveling, and we just happened to pull someone out of the water."
Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian were busy rescuing people. They carried the person who had fallen into the water to the shore, bent down to listen to his heartbeat, and found that he was still alive, but was temporarily unconscious.
Yin Wenxian took a closer look and noticed that the person who had fallen into the water had injuries on his hands and feet and was covered in bruises.
Just as Yin Wenxian was checking the man for any other hidden injuries, the forest ranger and the generic-looking man approached.
"This person is injured. Why don't we take him to our village to rest? There's a clinic in the village, and the doctor lives there. He can start treatment right now," said the simple-minded man with an ordinary face who identified himself as Liu Jun. "The village isn't far from here. Would you like to come and rest at the village guesthouse? It's too dangerous to sleep outdoors."
His sincere and warm-hearted attitude deeply moved the hikers present. They were surprised that the villagers living in the mountains were so hospitable. Led by the round-faced girl, the group readily agreed to stay in the mountain village as a kind of farm stay experience.
"How come I don't remember there being any villages around here?" someone muttered under their breath. The speaker seemed to have been to Lanqiong Mountain before. When the voice reached Xiao Yu's ears, she subconsciously narrowed her eyes and gave Yin Wenxian a wink.
Liu Jun had clearly heard this as well. A barely perceptible glint of coldness flashed in his eyes as he exchanged a glance with the forest ranger beside him. "Our village has a small population. Most of the young people don't want to stay here and have moved to the city. It's normal that you haven't heard of it."
"How about we go check the situation first, and come back to pick you up when we're sure the village is okay?" Xiao Yu said in a low voice, clearly showing her distrust of Liu Jun.
"No need." The group of travelers thought Xiao Yu was making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, there were quite a few of them, and they were all carrying some weapons, which were originally for protection against wild animals. They weren't afraid that these villagers would have bad intentions.
Xiao Yu thought for a moment and stopped trying to persuade her. Having experienced those Supernatural events, although she still held onto her principles deep down, she no longer cared as much about the lives of ordinary people as before; her heart had long since become numb.
Whether they would encounter danger next was beyond her prediction. Although she sensed something was wrong, the other hikers themselves didn't seem to care, so what could she say?
"Let's all go together." Yin Wenxian said calmly. Based on his sixth sense, he also felt that the journey ahead was unlikely to be pleasant and that they were very likely to encounter trouble. But his mission was to explore trouble. Anyway, he had something to rely on: the Queen of Spades of Spades could be used to contact his superior in an emergency and summon a door. There was nothing that couldn't be solved.
"Everyone, we've arrived. This is our village..." After walking for about half an hour, the group indeed saw a village.
With the unconscious drowning victim on his back, Xiao Yu Yin Wenxian looked around. It seemed that there was only one road leading out of the village, which was very dilapidated and full of potholes, probably due to years of disrepair.
"Give him to me, I'll take him to the clinic." Liu Jun took the drowning man from behind Yin Wenxian and walked briskly towards the clinic.
The sky was overcast, and the entire village was deserted, without a single artificial light source, except for this clinic, which was brightly lit.
The tour group chatted excitedly, but Xiao Yu and Yin Wenxian subconsciously tensed up. Ever since entering the village, they had both sensed something was wrong. It was far too quiet here. Even in a remote mountain village, shouldn't it be at least a little quiet?
The desolate mountains, the unlit villages, and the unfamiliar environment where not even the chirping of insects could be heard—all of these things stimulated the nerves of the two of them.
In contrast, the tour group next to them seemed relaxed, with no one noticing the unusual surroundings.
"Excuse me, where is the restroom? I'm in a real hurry," someone in the line suddenly asked.
Liu Jun pointed in a direction, and the man grabbed another companion and hurriedly ran over.
The doctor at the clinic carefully examined the person who had fallen into the water. "It's nothing serious. He's just temporarily unconscious due to exhaustion. He'll need an IV drip of glucose and hypertonic saline later. He needs to rest quietly for now, so please don't disturb him."
"Okay," everyone responded.
"It's getting late, let me take everyone to the guesthouse to rest," Liu Jun said with a smile.
No one suspected anything. The so-called guesthouse was just a small, old building opposite the clinic, but it was very clean. The group went to their rooms, and Xiao Yu reminded them to lock the doors at night.
After entering the room and locking the door, Xiao Yu breathed a sigh of relief. When she was standing near the clinic earlier, she felt like she was being watched by a faint, unseen gaze. It seemed as if countless invisible people were spying on her in the dark, unlit room.
Could this be an illusion? Or is someone really spying on us?
In either case, Xiao Yu dared not be careless. She kept in constant contact with Yin Wenxian via phone. Late at night, when all was quiet, she quietly left the room and met up with Yin Wenxian outside...