Anomaly and Gold

With a snap.

He had accidentally stepped on a dead branch buried beneath the fallen leaves. It was like stepping on a spring, and he nearly lost his balance. If not for the wooden staff in his hand supporting him, Liu Dahai would have practically dropped to his knees on the spot.

"Brother, you okay? Take it easy."

"...Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine."

As a seasoned outdoor enthusiast, little accidents like this were nothing unusual.

The only sounds were their brief exchanges, which seemed especially clear amid the silence on the southern slope of Taicheng Mountain.

Pulling his leg free of the dead leaves, he looked up at the sky. It was only a little past noon, yet the daylight was gradually dimming as though evening had arrived early.

It was not the oppressive darkness of storm clouds before rain, but rather a hazy, murky feeling, as though the entire sky had been washed over by mist.

Ordinary clouds had never looked like this.

"Is it going to pour?" Fatty Zhao, who was leading the way up front, wiped away his sweat. Noticing where Liu Dahai was looking, he raised his head to glance at the sky as well, then turned back and asked through heavy breaths.

He let the trekking pole in his hand jab into the soft humus soil with a muffled thud.

Li Moli had fallen behind and was holding up her phone, searching for a signal. Yet the signal icon in the upper-left corner stubbornly remained at barely one and a half bars.

"The forecast clearly said it'd be sunny today..."

She muttered as her thumb swiped across the screen a few times, then suddenly froze. "Huh?"

"What is it?" Liu Dahai turned around.

"Look at my compass..."

Since they all knew each other, Li Li