"Emergency braking! What happened?"
In the armed escort car at the very front of the military train, the pen in Su Mingfeng's hand scored a long line across the document.
The violent jolt nearly threw him out of his chair.
The soldiers in the car reacted swiftly, grabbing nearby fixtures almost simultaneously to steady themselves.
Every face showed shock and uncertainty.
This was a top-priority escort mission on a classified route. Regulations strictly prohibited stopping along the way unless the tracks were damaged or a mountainside had collapsed.
"Reporting, sir!"
Xiao Zhang, his guard, rushed over from the observation post, his face deathly pale and his voice trembling with disbelief.
"Up ahead... on the tracks ahead, there's... there's something!"
Su Mingfeng knitted his brows, shoved aside the documents in front of him, and strode to the observation window.
He wore a crisp military uniform, the two bars and four stars on his shoulder boards gleaming in the car's dim light.
As the supreme commander of this escort mission, he had weathered countless storms, but this was the first time he had experienced emergency braking without any warning.
"What is it?" His voice was steady, carrying a trace of unquestionable authority.
"It's... it's a wild animal!" Xiao Zhang swallowed. "A... a huge white leopard! It's standing right in the middle of the tracks!"
Su Mingfeng froze for a moment.
A leopard?
Here in the uninhabited northwest, even wolves rarely had the nerve to block a train, let alone leopards.
He snatched the military binoculars from his guard and leaned toward the observation window.
Through the binoculars, the wind and snow were still fierce, and visibility was extremely low.
Through the swirling curtain of snow, he saw it.
About a hundred meters ahead of the train, an enormous white figure was indeed sitting squarely in the middle of the tracks.
That size, that posture, that snow-white fur and those black rosettes...
It was a snow leopard!
Su Mingfeng sucked in a sharp breath.
He had heard his old commanding officer speak of this king of the snowy mountains, but seeing it in person delivered a visual impact that images could never match.
It possessed an innate majesty and oppressive presence belonging to an apex predator.
But that was not the only reason he was shocked.
He adjusted the binoculars' focus until the view was as sharp as possible.
Then his breath stopped.
On... on that snow leopard's back...
Was there something else?
A tiny bundle of red was almost entirely hidden by the snow leopard's enormous body and thick fur.
It moved slightly, seeming to lift its head.
The wind and snow were too heavy for him to see clearly.
Yet for no apparent reason, Su Mingfeng's heart gave a sudden, violent thump.
"Everyone, enter level-one combat readiness!" He lowered the binoculars, turned, and issued orders with a grave expression. "Teams one and two, check your weapons and prepare to disembark! Team three, hold the car and protect the supplies! Radio operator, contact the locomotive immediately and find out what's happening!"
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers throughout the car immediately sprang into action. The sounds of bolts being worked rang out one after another, and a grim atmosphere instantly filled the car.
Su Mingfeng raised the binoculars again.
He had to see clearly.
What exactly was it?
The wind and snow seemed to ease a little.
For an instant, the view cleared.
He saw it clearly.
It was not some object.
It was a child.
A little girl in a ragged red padded jacket was lying on the beast's back.
She looked so small, so frail, covered in snow like a little snowball that had rolled through the drifts.
Her face was red from the cold, like a fully ripened apple.
Su Mingfeng's mind buzzed, then went completely blank.
A child?
Riding on a snow leopard's back?
Stopping a national-level military train deep in these deserted snowy mountains, where temperatures were dozens of degrees below zero?
How was that possible?
Was this a hallucination?
He rubbed his eyes hard and looked again.
It was no hallucination.
The little girl even raised her hand in his direction, seemingly wanting to say something, but she was too far away for him to hear a thing.
"Sir, the locomotive has replied!" The radio operator ran over, speaking urgently. "The driver reports that it's not just a snow leopard blocking the tracks. All around... the surrounding valleys are full of howling wolves! They suspect the wolves and snow leopard are acting together, and they don't dare proceed!"
A wolf pack?
Su Mingfeng's heart sank.
The situation was even stranger and more dangerous than he had imagined.
Yet he could not take his eyes off that tiny figure in red.
For some reason, looking at that child filled him with an inexplicable unease.
It was a stirring that reached deep into his bones, a tug of shared blood.
Just like... just like the feeling he had experienced years ago when he first held his newborn niece.
No, impossible.
Su Mingfeng immediately rejected the absurd thought.
His younger sister and her husband had died in that accident five years ago.
His little niece Nuannuan had also disappeared amid the chaos, with no sign of her alive and no body found.
Over the past five years, the Su Family had used every resource at its disposal and practically turned the entire country upside down, yet had found no clues.
How could she possibly be here?
And like this?
"Sir, what should we do? Should we fire warning shots to drive the animals away?" Xiao Zhang asked for orders.
"No shooting!"
Su Mingfeng all but roared the words.
His voice was somewhat hoarse with agitation, startling the soldiers beside him.
Everyone looked at him.
As far as they remembered, their commander had always been calm enough to remain unruffled even if a mountain collapsed before him.
This was the first time he had ever lost his composure like this.
Su Mingfeng also realized he had overreacted.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
But his eyes remained fixed on that tiny figure in the binoculars.
He saw the child's body sway, seemingly from cold and weakness, and she nearly fell off the leopard's back.
At that instant, it felt as though an enormous invisible hand had seized Su Mingfeng's heart and squeezed it hard.
He could no longer remain calm.
"Team one, disembark with me!" He tossed aside the binoculars and grabbed the military greatcoat and sidearm hanging on the wall. "Remember, no one fires without my orders! I repeat, no one fires!"
"Yes, sir!"
The car door was pulled open.
A bone-chilling wind instantly poured inside.
Su Mingfeng was the first to jump off the train. His feet sank unevenly into the thick snow as he walked, step by step, toward the snow leopard and the child.