Sudden Incident

"Yes. No. 325 was the most meticulous person. When he sent those images yesterday, he personally promised to report the latest developments at nine tonight. There was no way he could have forgotten. No information came through, which left only one explanation: something had happened to him."

"That place can't be located," Changye said. "Finding him would be like fishing a needle out of the sea."

"That's why I wanted to ask this criminal investigation prodigy to give it a try—see whether he can create a miracle in a damned place like Prison Mountain!"

Two pairs of eyes turned toward Lin Xiaosu.

Lin Xiaosu's brows drew tightly together...

Number 88 said, "The main mission of this operation is to find No. 325. If you complete it, you'll receive 300 points. The side mission is to discover the major finding he mentioned. If you accomplish that, you'll receive additional points based on your contribution."

Lin Xiaosu shook his head. "With a comrade's life hanging in the balance, why talk about points? The key is... why could information be transmitted from that place, but not its location?"

Number 88 explained why.

Prison Mountain lay on the border of Southern Sichuan Province. It was immensely mysterious, its magnetic fields abnormal. Once someone entered the interior of Prison Mountain, all signals became impossible to transmit, and there was no way to locate them.

To send a signal outside, a person within had to actively seek out special areas with satellite reception, such as the summit of a high mountain, and send information out from there.

But it was difficult for people outside to send signals to those inside. When you sent a signal, the person inside was nine times out of ten in a signal dead zone, utterly unreachable.

"He sent back some images? Where are they..." Lin Xiaosu asked.

Number 88 smiled faintly. "Accept the mission, and you'll be able to see the image data."

"Fine, I accept!" Lin Xiaosu agreed without hesitation.

"Let's go!"

The three rose at the same time and stepped out of the library. They had barely reached the flying car when a huge macaque suddenly dropped from a tree—oh, no, Xin Yue dropped down.

The moment Xin Yue landed, she sprang to Changye's side and grabbed her hand. "Sister Changye, I'm going too, I'm going too..."

"You don't even know what the mission is, and you're going?" Changye asked.

"Who cares what mission it is? As long as it can earn points!" Xin Yue said. "Esteemed instructor, there are points for this mission, right?"

She was asking Number 88.

In front of Number 88, she was always getting points deducted. She had learned her lesson lately, and even the way she addressed him had begun to edge toward flattery.

Number 88 said with a stern face, "The points are generous enough, but you need to make a contribution before you can earn them."

Xin Yue leaped eight feet into the air and boarded the flying car directly. "Wonderful! On one hand, I can soar straight into the clouds with all those points; on the other, I can snatch this brat's points and stomp him into the mud. Killing two birds with one stone! Instructor, even if this trip means staring at your coffin face every moment, I'll work hard to imagine that face as an idol star's..."

Lin Xiaosu wore an expression as though his teeth ached. He looked at this one, then that one. "You're targeting me so openly. Out in the middle of nowhere, are we going to end up fighting?"

"Don't worry. I equipped you with a gun," Number 88 replied coldly.

Once inside the flying car, Lin Xiaosu looked out and saw a sky full of stars.

They were still in Unit 101, where classified information could not be leaked, so everything from the Outside World was sealed off.

Number 88 tossed Lin Xiaosu and Xin Yue a set of equipment each.

The equipment looked light, but when Lin Xiaosu opened his set, he was thrilled.

Standard Qianlong equipment.

There was a set of clothing that looked like a bodysuit, but the material was extremely special. It repelled insects and moisture while remaining breathable; it could not be torn or ripped apart, and it had superb elasticity. Worn on the body, it could not stop heavy machine guns or submachine guns, but it could withstand one or two waves of pistol bullets, let alone the brambles and thorns in the mountains and forests.

A dagger, its gleaming blade etched with dragon patterns.

A pistol—the training firearm he knew best. The difference was that this was a real gun.

There were also several hundred rounds of ammunition. All the equipment was connected to the outfit in the most practical manner. The moment Lin Xiaosu put it on, he felt as though his entire being had ascended.

Xin Yue put hers on at the same time, and after wearing it, she swelled with confidence too. She patted Lin Xiaosu on the shoulder. "Lin Xiaose, don't get too puffed up over there. You got your best gun, but the Dragon Armor on this young lady is bulletproof!"

"Lin Xiao...se? How am I perverted?" Lin Xiaosu glared at her.

"When you fired, you didn't aim anywhere else—you aimed at this young lady's... boobs. And you say you aren't perverted?"

Lin Xiaosu was completely speechless.

Changye and Number 88 had probably long grown used to her reckless lack of restraint. Nothing about it surprised them anymore.

Number 88 lightly tapped the screen with a finger, and several images appeared amid the star-filled sky around them. These were the images No. 325 had sent back...

It was a strange orchid.

The plant was abnormally tall. Its measured height was 1.89 meters.

It bore eighteen-petaled orchid flowers, with filaments like those of an Other Shore Flower.

The entire plant was colored very strangely. Rather than possessing the vivid hues of ordinary flowers, it was dark green like leaves. In a primeval jungle that was a sea of green, it would have been impossible to notice from afar. No. 325 had only discovered it after getting close.

The moment he discovered this species he had never seen before, he used the high-precision specialized camera he carried to photograph it and send the images back to base for analysis.

Changye stared at the cluster of flowers. "The major discovery No. 325 mentioned wasn't really this mutated flower?"

"Probably not. By the time he said that, he had already collected samples of this flower. If this had been the major discovery, he should have said so plainly. He didn't, which showed that he had merely discovered some clues to the major finding, without truly pinning it down."

Xin Yue's eyes flickered. "Sister Changye, you think the flower itself is already a major discovery, don't you?"

"Yes! Judging by the form of the plant, it's an ordinary orchid, but it has inexplicably grown so large, and its flowers have evolved camouflage coloration. Such evolution is rare even in the animal kingdom, and rarer still in the plant kingdom."

When it came to understanding plants, if Changye called herself second, no one would dare claim first.

Because she was a poison specialist.

Her lifelong mission was to study the various genes within plants.

In the Qianlong Botanical Garden, she was one of the few authorities.

There were very few plants under heaven that she did not understand.

Most plants blossomed, and most flowers were delicate, eye-catching, and fragrant.

Why?

Plants had no sense of aesthetics. They did not bloom to admire their own solitary beauty.

They bloomed carrying the burden of life's continuation.

Flowers were eye-catching, fragrant, or even foul-smelling because their fundamental purpose was to attract little insects that discovered things through smell and sight. The insects pollinated the flowers, allowing the flowers' lives to be passed on.

Orchids were no exception.

Their small size, vivid flowers, and fragrance were the result of millions of years of natural selection, because such traits were most suited to the continuation of the orchid species.

But the orchid before them had betrayed its ancestors' decision...

Its plant body was as tall as a tree.

Its flower color blended into the surrounding environment.

And according to the monitoring data No. 325 had sent back, the flower had no scent whatsoever—neither fragrant nor foul.

That was strange...

It avoided every key link in the chain of life's continuation. It seemed determined to let a lonely orchid bloom quietly...

Lin Xiaosu stared at the images from different angles inside the flying car, and his thoughts quietly branched off as well. Botany was not only Changye's expertise; he was proficient in it too, and he also felt this was a point of suspicion.

"No. 325 can't currently be located, but what about the place where he sent these images? Can that be located?"

His Temporal Reversal could currently trace scenes back only five days.

As long as he could find any point from No. 325's past five days, he could follow that point all the way along his trail.

How to make the process appear scientific was a matter on another level.

The key was that as long as this point could be located, completing the mission was inevitable.

In theory, what he said was correct.

No. 325 had sent images just last night. Image transmissions could be tracked for location, and through various high-tech methods, it should have been possible to precisely determine where the signal had been sent from.

However, Number 88 shook his head. "It seems you don't understand Prison Mountain's peculiar nature. Prison Mountain is called Prison Mountain because, in a sense, it resembles a prison between heaven and earth. From the summit of a mountain there, a signal might occasionally be sent out, but the place from which it is transmitted cannot be located."

It could not be located—then what were they supposed to do?

Number 88 laid out the plan he had formulated long ago in full.

No. 325 had entered Prison Mountain Tavern a month ago, then entered Prison Mountain twenty-nine days ago. If they followed the route by which he had entered and walked it again, they might find traces of his passage. After all, Qianlong members had basically been taught from the same textbook, and jungle survival came with familiar routines.

Qianlong members would recognize these routines at a glance—for example, which places were suitable for camping and which were convenient for climbing. Their judgments would be broadly similar. As long as they found his campsite, they might be able to determine his next route from the traces and find him in the primeval jungle.

The method was stupid, and the outcome was highly uncontrollable. But once they reached a place high technology could not touch, the most primitive method became the only method...

Changye and Xin Yue looked at each other, somewhat dazed.

Yes. From their position, they had long been accustomed to Qianlong's high technology. For people in the world, let Dragon Eye search; for matters in the world, look them up online. But in places Dragon Eye could not reach and networks could not access, searching the vast primeval jungle for someone who had entered the mountains a month ago made both of their heads ache.

Lin Xiaosu let out a soft breath. "It seems the most primitive method is the only option, but I don't recommend using your method. It's simply too uncontrollable."

Number 88 frowned. "My method may be uncontrollable, but it is the only method!"

"No, it isn't the only one," Lin Xiaosu said.

Xin Yue's eyes widened. "Contradicting the instructor—according to Article 135, Paragraph 1 of the Reserve Corps Regulations, deduct twenty points! Instructor, go on and deduct them..."

Number 88 shot her a glare, then turned to Lin Xiaosu. "Tell me."

Lin Xiaosu pointed. "For example, these four images convey some information."

Number 88's gaze flickered. "You mean this small river?"

Changye's eyes lit up...

Finding a person in the jungle was difficult, but finding a river was relatively much easier. Did Lin Xiaosu mean they should find this river?

As long as they found the river, the search area would shrink dramatically.