It would greatly help him evade Xu Corporation's pursuit.
Gao Linzhi remembered something he'd read on a forum: in a real martial arts world, the so-called boundaries between factions would be completely shattered.
Expecting these martial arts experts to follow the arrangements of powerful factions was absurd.
They would only use their martial arts to flout the law. When they acted, they mostly put their own interests and preferences first, and their respect for rules would be far lower than that of ordinary people.
For example, when ordinary people ran out of money, they would first think of selling their blood or doing manual labor. These martial arts experts would think of robbing the rich to help the poor.
As a result, the major factions would devolve into easily governed "City-States."
Each city lord would be the most powerful expert in their own region, and could only govern a small area nearby.
The sky grew brighter and brighter.
Gao Linzhi picked up his pace.
With Basic Lightness Skill bolstering him, he felt he could nearly match a light jog.
And so, Gao Linzhi continued south.
He kept going until the afternoon.
Looking ahead, he could already see a plain and a village in the distance, beyond the hillside.
Moreover, the Minimap hadn't issued any warnings along the way.
Clearly, the other side hadn't pinpointed his route yet.
Once he entered the mountains, there were no more cameras, and many tracking methods would become useless.
The best option would be to use dogs bred specifically for tracking.
But he wasn't worried about that.
As he walked, he would occasionally summon the Corpse Vine, scrambling the scent he left behind.
Of course, once it had muddled his scent, he would put it away in the Game Backpack, so the Corpse Vine itself wouldn't leave too many traces.
To a tracking dog's nose, it would seem that a "tiger" had appeared amid his scent.
Actually, it was far stronger than a tiger.
It could easily overpower his scent, making the dogs afraid to track him or unable to pick him out.
It was like a hunter using the droppings of a ferocious beast to scare off a pack of wolves.
Even so, Gao Linzhi had taken plenty of precautions.
He looked down at the village and headed toward it, pretending to take a route down the mountain.
In reality, halfway there, he circled back into the mountains and headed somewhere even more remote.
The reason was simple.
Xu Corporation had now branded him a suspect in "deleting the database and fleeing," and had openly issued a wanted notice.
This was the Information Age. Everyone had a phone, and the villagers would certainly see his wanted notice.
Entering the village recklessly would be like walking into a trap and exposing his whereabouts.
Instead, he needed to lie low in these mountains.
The range was vast, narrow from north to south but stretching for over a thousand kilometers from east to west.
Xu Corporation wasn't big enough to surround a mountain range this large.
A medium or large company with hundreds of thousands of employees might be able to bring in swarms of drones, robot dogs, and countless overworked employees, then spend a fortune combing the mountains.
That might at least cause Gao Linzhi a little trouble.
But Xu Corporation had just over twenty thousand employees. It didn't have that kind of capacity.
Besides, their main target right now was Lin Qing. They couldn't possibly devote that many search resources to him.
Not unless they discovered his true value.
He would train himself here, strengthen his ability to survive, and eventually crush companies big and small beneath his feet!
He'd refuse to eat beef and do whatever he wanted!
Moon Fang!
Meanwhile.
Qi Cheng and two others were leading a team into the mountains to hunt him down.
They'd assembled a security team fifty strong, and, sure enough, had brought professional tracking dogs—six of them in all.
They'd already obtained items Gao Linzhi often used, such as socks, from his home.
Using surveillance footage, they'd discovered the route Gao Linzhi had taken into the mountains at first.
But once they entered the mountains, there were no more cameras, so they could only rely on the dogs to track him.
At first, things went well.
The six dogs followed the route Gao Linzhi had taken, racing along excitedly. The scent was clearly still strong.
Qi Cheng and the others were delighted. It meant they could complete this mission quickly.
As far as they were concerned, there was no way a mere corporate drone would have professional counter-surveillance skills.
But when they reached a steep slope, the six dogs suddenly froze. Then, inexplicably, they collapsed to the ground. Looking closer, they had actually wet themselves!
It was exactly like a video they'd seen, where a dog encountered a tiger at a zoo and reacted in the same way!
"What's going on?" Qi Cheng asked in surprise.
"They seem to sense a powerful beast nearby. But the most we have in these mountains are a few wolves, wild boars, and venomous snakes. There aren't even any bears, let alone tigers," Zhao Xianqing said with a frown.
He couldn't make sense of it.
The dog trainers tried their hardest to soothe their dogs, but no matter how they coaxed, calmed, or commanded them, all six dogs just whimpered and refused to get up, let alone take another step forward.
"Useless!" Qi Cheng said, instantly displeased.
Zhao Xianqing shook his head. "They must have smelled a pack of wolves. Domesticated dogs are afraid of wild ones."
"Shouldn't it be the other way around? With so many people backing you up, you should be acting like a dog with a man behind him. What are you scared of?" Qi Cheng retorted.
Without the dogs to track him, their fifty-odd people might seem like a lot, but in a vast mountain range, they wouldn't make a ripple.
Whenever criminals were hunted down in the mountains, didn't it take tens of thousands of people combing the area shoulder to shoulder?
"Damn it, the bastard should've stayed home and waited for us to catch him. He actually dared to run. Does he think he won't die just because he got away?" Qi Cheng said viciously.
"Enough. Ask people passing by if they've seen anything," Zhao Xianqing said impatiently.
Everyone looked up at the boundless mountain forest. A breeze passed through, and the leaves rustled.
Without the dogs, how were they supposed to catch him?
They all felt completely at a loss.
"I've got an idea," Liu Jinshan suddenly said. "Our company has over twenty thousand employees. We can divide this mountain range into a grid."
"Under the pretext of a company team-building event, we can assign employees to different sections."
"Then we can raise the reward for leads. Anyone who spots Gao Linzhi gets a hefty payout."
"That way, we can increase the odds of running into him."
Zhao Xianqing nodded. "That should work. Let's do it right away."
"The longer this drags on, the more likely he is to get away."
Modern companies were highly efficient.
They'd barely submitted their report when, just half an hour later, it was approved.
Most of Xu Corporation's non-priority departments received notice of a large-scale company team-building event.
"Get fit and stay healthy so you can work for the company for fifty years!"
"If you don't work hard today, you'll work hard looking for a job tomorrow!"
"Loyalty, loyalty, and more loyalty!"
At that moment.
Though Gao Linzhi knew nothing about Xu Corporation's plans, he could still guess what they would do. They'd use a human wave to search the mountains.
And they would send drones to patrol the area.
Before you continue