The ground tremors, which consisted of three short and two long vibrations, had just stopped when Chen Hao's mechanical finger twitched.

It wasn't a hallucination, nor was it system glitches. He looked down at his right hand; his five knuckles were still making adaptive adjustments, and the outermost knuckle, etched with a smiley face, made a soft "click," as if in response to something.

"You felt it?" he asked.

Nana didn't turn around, her electronic eye fixed on the radar interface: "It's not a seismic wave, it's a regular knocking. The frequency is close to the Snow Wolf communication rhythm, but the encoding method is unfamiliar."

"Did they hold a meeting and change the group rules?" Chen Hao rubbed his face. "Last time it was a coordinated attack, this time they're using Morse code?"

“We can’t rule out a tentative approach,” she said, pulling up the waveform graph, “but it’s more likely a decoy.”

Before the words were finished, a silver-gray shadow swept across the ice in the wind and snow.

Then came the second and third lines—seven or eight blurry silhouettes weaving through the snow, moving in perfect unison like dancers who had rehearsed.

"Wolf pack!" Chen Hao grabbed the ice spear leaning against the wall.

"Wait," Nana raised her hand to stop him, "You're going the wrong way."

She pointed to the radar screen, where red dots covered a hundred meters ahead, all concentrated on a flat ice field. But her thermal imaging showed that the body temperature of those moving objects was too uniform, even their breathing was synchronized.

“It’s too neat,” she said. “Living things wouldn’t be like this.”

“But they’re moving.” Chen Hao squinted and looked out. “Look at that pouncing action, the angle at which its claws are raised is just like the real thing.”

“It’s because it’s so realistic.” Nana switched to spectral mode. “The ice surface has a reflective layer, and they’re stepping on a preheated zone. These ‘shadows’ are visual persistence created by utilizing temperature differences.”

Chen Hao paused for two seconds, then suddenly burst out laughing: "So what we're watching now is... a live stream of the Wolf Pack concert? And the kind with holographic effects?"

“It’s a trap.” Her tone turned cold. “They want us to rush in.”

He didn't say anything more, but bent down, picked up a piece of broken ice, weighed it in his hand, and then flung it violently towards the center of the distant reflections.

The ice block hit the ice surface and exploded with a "pop".

For a fleeting moment, all the reflections paused—like a video clip freezing in time.

"See?" Nana said, "Real prey can't be 100% synchronized."

Chen Hao grinned: "So Snow Wolf has started using AI face-swapping too."

As he was speaking, his foot suddenly sank, and the ice made a faint cracking sound.

Nana reacted even faster, instantly deploying her electromagnetic net, wrapping it around his waist and pulling him back. Before he even hit the ground, the spot where he had been standing collapsed with a "boom," revealing a pit more than a meter deep underneath, its bottom filled with sharpened icicles, gleaming coldly.

"The load-bearing capacity is only half left." Nana closed the net. "There were signs of deliberate weakening; it was set up at least six hours in advance."

"They're pretty good at timing," Chen Hao said, panting. "By the time we step inside, it will be just in time for dinner."

“This isn’t a normal hunt.” She crouched down to examine the edge of the crack. “It’s tactical baiting. They know you’ll act impulsively, so they’re using decoys to lure you into the trap.”

"So I've become a plot device?" He patted the snow off his clothes. "Next time I'll play the villain and let them taste what it's like to be tricked."

Nana didn't reply, but instead looked up and around.

The wind stopped, and the snow lessened. Moonlight filtered through the clouds, illuminating the entire ice field as if it were covered in mercury. The reflections remained, standing silently, as if nothing had happened.

But she knew that the real hunter never showed himself.

Until a low sob came from behind.

The two turned around at the same time.

The snowdrift on the east side silently split open, and a snow wolf leaped out, its fur almost transparent, its eyes gleaming with a deep blue. Then came a second, a third... six adult wolves formed a semi-circle, moving slowly but resolutely.

"Energy remaining at 38%," Nana whispered. "We can't fight this head-on."

“I’m at a disadvantage in close combat too.” Chen Hao flexed his right hand, his mechanical knuckles sluggish due to the low temperature. “This damn hand is about to freeze to the point of stopping.”

“Then don’t rely on brute force,” she said. “Use what they fear.”

"for example?"

"fire."

As soon as she finished speaking, a light screen popped out from the projection port on her shoulder, projecting the image of a giant brown bear onto the leeward ice wall. It was at least three meters tall, with bushy fur and exposed fangs. Immediately afterward, a recorded roar blasted through the night sky.

The wolf pack paused together.

One of its ears stood up, and its nostrils twitched rapidly, clearly not expecting a top predator to suddenly appear.

"It works?" Chen Hao's eyes lit up.

“It can only last thirty seconds,” Nana said. “They’ll figure it out soon.”

"That's enough." He pulled the last packet of chili powder mixture from his tactical bag, a small, dusty bag. "Let's make one with special effects."

He lit the flint and threw the powder at the largest continuous ice surface.

The fireball ignited upon landing, its orange-red flames leaping wildly across the smooth, mirror-like ice. Due to multi-angle reflections, the light instantly split into dozens of spots, flashing crisscrossing up, down, left, and right, like a swarm of fireballs falling from the sky, bouncing back and forth between the reflections.

The snow wolf panicked completely.

They are already sensitive to high temperatures, and the scene before them is very similar to the legendary "fire of divine punishment"—in ancient records, a meteorite fell into an extremely cold place, causing the ice field to spontaneously combust, and the entire species was wiped out overnight.

One wolf was the first to retreat, its steps faltering.

The other one bumped into its companion and growled.

The encirclement began to loosen.

Just as they were preparing to retreat, the oldest leader suddenly raised its head and let out a sharp, long cry.

In an instant, all the "wolf shadows" in the reflection turned around simultaneously and looked at them.

It's hard to tell what's real and what's fake; eyes are everywhere.

"Oh no." Chen Hao's throat tightened. "It's learned to use it in the opposite way."

“It’s not the opposite.” Nana stared at the radar. “It’s just copying our tactics—using reflections to mislead us.”

“Now the question is,” he gripped the ice spear tightly, “which is real, and which is fake?”

“Listen to the sound,” she said. “A real wolf’s footsteps on the snow will make a slight sinking sound, but a reflection won’t.”

The two held their breath.

The wind rustled across the ice.

Suddenly, a strange sound came from the right front—like the friction of claws scraping against a hard surface.

Chen Hao suddenly hurled the ice spear.

The spearhead grazed a wolf's shoulder, leaving a trail of blood.

The truth has been revealed.

Seeing that their plan had been exposed, the remaining snow wolves stopped pursuing them, turned around and leaped into the snow ditch, disappearing into the snowstorm in an instant.

Several broken ice shards were still stuck in the bottom of the pit, proving that what I had just seen was not a hallucination.

Chen Hao was panting heavily; the mechanical knuckles of his right hand were starting to get hot from gripping it for so long, but he didn't let go.

"That move they just made..." his voice trembled slightly, "was it something they copied from us?"

“Not only that.” Nana retracted the light screen, its outer shell covered in frost and dust. “They memorized the reflection path of the chili pepper fire and deliberately made the reflection mimic the trajectory of the fireball.”

"So that was a signal for a counterattack?"

“It’s learning,” she said, turning to him. “They’re evolving coping strategies.”

Chen Hao looked down at his hands, his fingertips trembling slightly. The newly implanted mechanical fingers were still a bit unruly, sometimes twitching on their own, as if they had their own consciousness.

He suddenly laughed: "Alright, the wolves are starting to swarm, we can't just lie down."

He bent down and broke off a flat piece of ice from the edge of the pit, wiped it with a cloth, and held it up to the moonlight.

"What?" Nana asked.

“Keep this in mind,” he said. “Next time they play with mirrors, we’ll give them a live, reverse lesson. I’ve even thought of a title—'How to Scare Away an Entire Den of Snow Wolves with a Broken Mirror.’”

Nana's electronic eyes flashed, but she didn't say anything.

The snow-covered ground trembled slightly in the distance.

This time it was two short and one long.

The rhythm has changed.

Chen Hao raised the ice shard and aimed it at the direction of the vibration.

The mirror reflected a blank snowfield.

But at the edge of the reflection, a very faint shadow flashed by—half a beat slower than the other reflections.