Search and rescue had a so-called golden window, referring to the seventy-two hours after a disaster, when victims had a higher survival rate. After seventy-two hours, their chances of survival diminished with every passing moment.
The reason for Yang Xiaoyan's group's disappearance was unknown, but the golden window still applied. Every second counted. After Qin Luming and Che Yun explained the situation, search-and-rescue captain Fang Dayong took a rescue dog and prepared to set out with the advance team.
"Captain, their disappearance is a little strange. This place is cursed. You need to be especially careful." Having explored the road ahead himself, Qin Luming became the lead scout. As he walked, he warned Fang Dayong and the other team members behind him.
"I know, but I feel like you haven't told us the whole truth." Fang Dayong was the founder of City A's search-and-rescue team. He had established it in 2011 and could be said to have survived countless trials. During many rescue operations, they really had encountered some inexplicable, bizarre incidents.
When Qin Luming reported the situation to the police earlier, he had glossed over many details. The officers had not noticed, but Fang Dayong had. Those details were precisely the key points in search-and-rescue work. As a secondary team member, Qin Luming should not have been so unprofessional.
"Didn't I say there were domestic pigs attacking people here? When I first saw that herd, the missing people's clothes were right beside them. You definitely wouldn't believe me if I said they turned into pigs, but I think there's a ninety percent chance they really can't be found anymore," Qin Luming explained.
"Of course I don't believe it. Don't say such discouraging things yet. We won't give up even the slightest hope. Lead us to where you said the clothes were piled up first." Fang Dayong frowned slightly. He had seen some unimaginable strange incidents too, but people turning into pigs was simply too absurd.
Qin Luming nodded and pointed ahead. Fang Dayong reached out and stopped him, making him follow one position behind.
Since Qin Luming carried hardly any equipment, Fang Dayong feared he would be more vulnerable to danger. Fang Dayong himself, meanwhile, was fully equipped: a helmet lamp, a spare headlamp, a high-powered flashlight, a laser baton, a rescue knife and rescue pack, a life jacket and safety harness, carabiners, climbing rope, a descender, an entrenching shovel, GPS, a GoPro, and more. If anything happened while Fang Dayong scouted ahead, he believed his chances of survival were far greater than Qin Luming's.
Qin Luming had no choice. He only held an entrenching shovel in his hand; if someone dressed like that insisted on taking point, everyone would only think he was unprofessional.
"Little Qin, that batch of entrenching shovels you got last time was really great. They're much better than the ones we used to buy online." Zhang Zhitong, behind Qin Luming, patted him on the shoulder.
For outdoor work that often involved unexpected dangers, equipment quality could sometimes be a matter of life and death.
City A's search-and-rescue team was made entirely of volunteers. Naturally, they had no official positions and no government funding; the team members basically pooled their own money to operate. Qin Luming had also participated in procuring supplies.
"The one in my hand is even better, but I got it from someone else." Qin Luming waved the entrenching shovel in his hand.
Zhang Zhitong took it and examined it, praised it, then returned it to Qin Luming.
They moved more slowly at night, and they also had to observe their surroundings, search for clues, and call out the missing people's names. It took more than an hour before they once again reached the riverbed bank where Qin Luming had encountered the pigs during the day.
"Little Qin, this is where you saw the clothes?" Fang Dayong stood there, searching for the clothes Qin Luming had described.
Qin Luming pulled out the photos on his phone for comparison. It really was the place, but the clothes had vanished.
"This place is rarely visited, so the possibility of someone else coming here and taking the clothes is very small. I hope they returned here and took the clothes themselves, but if so, where have they gone now?" Fang Dayong asked in confusion.
"They turned into pigs," Qin Luming muttered to himself.
Fang Dayong and Zhang Zhitong exchanged a look. Although their rescue work was hardly the setting for lighthearted joking, they still could not help laughing aloud... because they had no good impression of adults who lacked professional training, had no professionals accompanying or leading them, and ran into undeveloped, restricted areas.
"Let's go. Let's look farther ahead." Zhang Zhitong took a few photos of the surrounding area, then called everyone onward.
It was past two in the morning when the group led by Fang Dayong and Zhang Zhitong finally withdrew to the mountaintop, exhausted, and set up camp. Another team that had departed later was still searching farther out. They had not searched around the dam again, so Qin Luming did not need to worry about them.
So much more time had passed, meaning Yang Xiaoyan's group was even more likely to have met with disaster. Fang Dayong once again called for more people in the search-and-rescue team's group chat, planning to expand the search.
Everyone had more free time on the weekend. Aside from two members of the first team who said they were not currently in City A and could only return tomorrow, everyone else arrived. The second team also received an overwhelming response, with members bringing their equipment and rushing over from all parts of the city.
Seeing everyone united in purpose and working together to save people, Qin Luming sighed softly, helpless. He looked at the deepening night. The towering dam stretched across the valley, faint shouts drifting through the air as beams from headlamps and flashlights occasionally swept across the night sky. Qin Luming knew that before such supernatural mysteries, human effort would ultimately be futile.
Since he had already guessed that the dam might be Zhou Nan's next target, he naturally connected all the strange events here to Zhou Nan.
Yang Xiaoyan's group turning into pigs might have been Big Black Pig's doing. But that Big Black Pig... had originally been a pig, or had it also been transformed from a human? If so, then who had it been?
Was it one of Zhou Nan's followers, or some unlucky person Zhou Nan had encountered on Earth?
Qin Luming sat down tiredly. Many people were still gathered around him. Some search-and-rescue members who had remained on the mountaintop were setting up camp, preparing food, water, and places to rest.
Qin Luming drank some water and ate two chocolate bars. Just as he was about to go talk to Fang Dayong, he spotted a plump figure from behind amid the crowd. The person was slightly hunched over, shifting his thick neck from side to side as though observing something.
As if sensing Qin Luming's gaze, the figure turned around. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, revealing an intrigued expression, while an honest, simple smile bloomed across his round face.
Ma Shilong!
Qin Luming stood up in shock, instinctively reaching for the entrenching shovel at his side as he stared in disbelief at Ma Shilong, whom he had met only once.
He had personally watched Zhou Nan's massive hammer strike Ma Shilong, killing him in Ma Shilong's study. Qin Luming had checked Ma Shilong's breathing and heartbeat; at the time, he had been completely dead.
Later, Qin Luming had considered that Ma Shilong had been struck by such a huge hammer without shedding a drop of blood. Perhaps he had suffered some special attack from Zhou Nan, perhaps there had been hope that he was alive.
But in his memories, he had more often believed Ma Shilong was already dead.
Yet now, this guy appeared alive and well before Qin Luming, and he really had grown much fatter than before... When they had met in Ma Shilong's study, Qin Luming remembered Ma Shilong as merely slightly overweight.
Now he was practically a man and a half.
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