Unique Tracking Techniques

At noon, Hong Fei and Frank boarded a plane bound for the other side of the world.

Frank wore a suit, paired with a neat crew cut and a face carved like a blade. His aura had instantly gone from laborer to underworld boss.

Hong Fei, on the other hand, dressed more simply. His casual clothes made him look like a college student.

"Frank, next time we go out, put on sunglasses and stand behind me."

Frank curled his lip. "You want to be the boss?"

"It's not that I want to be. I already am!"

"That's right, you are the boss." Frank replied with a smile, though his tone sounded anything but sincere.

Hong Fei simply put on an eye mask and lay back to rest.

The plane took off, crossing continents and oceans.

After several transfers and more than twenty hours, the two arrived at their destination, Afghanistan, while it was still daylight.

After leaving Kabul Airport, Frank said, "I never thought there'd come a day when I'd willingly return to this godforsaken place."

"Life is just that wonderful."

"Where are we going next?"

Hong Fei hailed a cab. "To sleep, of course. I haven't seen nighttime in over twenty hours."

After checking into the hotel, the two immediately collapsed into bed.

At nine that night, they headed out.

A hotel attendant handed Hong Fei a leather bag.

Inside were only two keys.

Frank frowned. "This is all you prepared over the last two days?"

Hong Fei smiled. "Don't rush."

After leaving the hotel, the two walked through several turns and arrived in a deserted suburb filled with shipping containers.

Staring at the numbers on the containers, Hong Fei eventually stopped in front of one. After inserting the key, he turned around and said, "Ready to witness a miracle?"

Frank kept silent with a long face.

The iron door rattled open, revealing pitch-black darkness inside.

Hong Fei's eyes faintly reddened. Everything in the darkness became crystal clear to him. With a snap, he flipped on the switch, and the lights at the top of the container immediately came on.

In an instant, an off-road vehicle with a sand-yellow exterior and incredibly rugged lines came into view.

"This is good stuff. It's discontinued, so it wasn't easy to buy." Hong Fei sighed, then turned toward the container beside it.

When he opened this one, the contents finally moved Frank deeply.

From goggles to helmets, from pistols to assault rifles, from light and heavy machine guns to sniper rifles—piles upon piles of ammunition, crate after crate of grenades with different functions. Rocket-propelled grenade rounds were stacked from the floor to the ceiling of the container, and behind the packed crates, he even found a mortar!

"Are you insane?" Frank stared at the massive stockpile of military supplies in disbelief.

"Insane?" Hong Fei raised an eyebrow. "I think you misunderstand me. Maybe you even misunderstand yourself. What did you think I brought you here for?"

Frank turned to stare at Hong Fei, his eyes wide.

"What exactly do you want to do? I can help you for intelligence, but there are lines I won't cross!"

"I know. Of course I know. Boundaries are good things. Everyone should have them. I would never cross my own boundaries. Do you know what the first rule of my code is?"

Frank continued glaring at him.

Hong Fei said, "Rule one: if I don't have to kill, I never kill. So? Isn't that just a little higher than your boundary?"

Frank narrowed his eyes, catching the implication behind Hong Fei's words. After all, when Frank got moving, he usually left no survivors.

The argument came to an end, and the two entered the container to change.

When they emerged again, they were fully armed from head to toe. At a glance, they might have looked more elite than the special forces of many countries.

There was no other reason—they had spent an absurd amount of money!

Hong Fei touched the gear strapped all over his body, finding it all rather novel. In truth, if Frank had not been there, he might not even have known how to put the equipment on.

Frank was unquestionably a veteran, an elite soldier with exceptional military training.

He reached out and adjusted the infrared thermal imager on Hong Fei's helmet, unable to stop himself from saying, "It's such a waste to put equipment like this on you."

"Hey, don't go too far. I paid for this!"

Frank sighed. He turned to look at the huge pile of equipment inside the container, pondered for a moment, then frowned and asked again, "What exactly do you want to do? If you don't tell me now, I can't adjust our loadout. There are only two of us. We can't bring everything."

It wasn't impossible!

But seeing Frank's serious expression, Hong Fei held himself back.

"This isn't a kidnapping in the true sense. Our target will first be attacked by a group of local militants, and our job is to snatch him back after the attack. They'll be the mantis stalking the cicada, and we'll be the oriole behind them."

"I'm not a bird."

"I wasn't calling you a bird, illiterate fool!"

Next, Frank began selecting from the huge pile of weapons. He took the most machine guns and ammunition, followed by rocket-propelled grenade rounds.

The more Hong Fei watched, the more something seemed off. Finally, he decided to do it himself.

Frank immediately stopped him. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"Helping!"

"Are you sure we need that thing?"

In front of Hong Fei stood the only mortar in the entire container.

"Of course. I spent a lot of money on it. Wouldn't it be a waste to leave it behind?" Hong Fei said matter-of-factly.

Frank disagreed. "It's definitely powerful, but we only have one vehicle. If we bring it, we'll have to bring shells too. That will reduce how much other weaponry and ammunition we can carry."

"It won't reduce it by much. We have to bring it. Wouldn't one shell be more useful than you spending half a day aiming?"

This had always been Hong Fei's core belief. Unlike sparring matches, if his goal was purely to inflict damage, he could abandon personal combat without hesitation and embrace modern weaponry instead. In his previous life, this was also one of the things Master Hong had been heavily criticized for.

Applied to the current situation, that meant if artillery could solve the problem, he would never use guns.

"The enemy won't stand there like idiots and let you fire shells at them."

"Then don't let them spot us."

"Do you know how to use it?"

"No, but aren't you here now? Don't tell me you don't know how. Besides, we don't have much time. Are you sure you want to keep arguing?"

Frank let out a heavy sigh, turned away, and continued loading ammunition.

Before dawn, the vehicle, packed full of ammunition, set off toward the wilderness.

Frank asked, "Do you know the exact location?"

"Roughly."

"There's no such thing as roughly in the military!"

"Enough. This isn't the military, either. I'm starting to regret bringing you along." Hong Fei grumbled, then added, "Kunar Province isn't large. There aren't many armed factions active in this area, and there's only one with both the nerve and ability to snatch someone from the US military. Their past operating range has been a long, narrow strip. It's hard to pinpoint an exact location in the desert mountains, but if we add the US military's area of operations, the overlap reveals a route they must take."

Frank considered that briefly before saying, "Even if everything you said is right, how can we find their exact location? They know these mountains and deserts better than we do. If we drive around, we'll be discovered sooner or later."

Hong Fei snapped off the headlights.

Only dim moonlight remained in the night. It was impossible to see more than a few meters ahead.

"You can't see, but I can. Also, I forgot to tell you—I'm a mature hunter. I have unique tracking techniques."

The Shinigami Eye activated once more. Aside from the sharp black-and-white image, his vision now showed unusually distinct white trails, stretching across the ground in straight or winding lines. At the end of those trails, he would often find a red body: animals active in the desert at night.