After leaving the fake address, we walked for about three kilometers before finally choosing a sheltered, open area to set up our tents.

We thought that once we reached the coordinates, we could begin the next phase of our investigation into the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace, but it turns out that Fengmen Village had this trick up its sleeve.

I sat in front of the tent, staring at the piece of paper over and over for a long time, but I couldn't find anything interesting about it.

Seeing that I had been sitting there for so long, the monkey couldn't help but come over and say, "Young Master Duan, your eyes are practically burning this piece of paper! It's already been confirmed that this news is fake, and the team that came before us has already checked the surrounding area. What can you possibly see by looking at it from here!"

I put the paper aside, feeling a headache coming on: "Fengmen Village would never give us such a useless piece of paper, so the secret to finding the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace must be on this piece of paper. But what information does this piece of paper convey?"

Lin Que speculated, "Brother, do you think this could be a treasure map? Maybe the people of Fengmen Village buried information about the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace at this coordinate location, and are waiting for us to dig it up?"

"Won't!"

After thinking about it for a moment, I felt that the possibility of this was very small: "Since Fengmen Village has announced such news, they must want a group of people to search for the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace at the same time, and the most capable person will win in the end. If they only hid one copy of the information, then the competition would be over the moment the first person got the information. This kind of speed contest is too unsophisticated."

Jiang Man then came out of the tent and gestured to me with the paper in her hand: "Why do I feel like this is a code?"

When I heard Jiang Man say that, I immediately looked at her: "What password?"

"I'm just speculating, because there's nothing on this map except numbers. If there's a problem, it must be with this string of numbers."

Jiang Man paused for a moment, then continued, "Fengmen Village only gave us a list, not a codebook, so they must be using a common cipher! For example, Morse code, four-way cipher, Polfe cipher, etc... I don't know much about this kind of thing, but Xue Dong, who went to Yunnan with us, is a cipher expert. Maybe we can ask him to take a look at this."

"What you're describing is very possible! Fengmen Village set up this trap to guard against us, but not entirely! They're wary that someone might sell this information to someone else. If someone gets this information and comes here but can't find anything, they'll naturally doubt the seller's authenticity!"

I suddenly realized: "You should contact Xue Dong now and verify if this guess is correct."

After Jiang Man finished her call with Xue Dong, we waited patiently.

However, before Xue Dong could call back, my satellite phone rang first.

When I entered Sichuan this time, my satellite phone was a temporary one, and only a few people knew about it. Before I could even speak after the call connected, Wei Shengnan's voice came through first: "I am Wei Shengnan."

Wei Shengnan set off around the same time as us, so she should be in Sichuan by now.

I initially thought she was calling to confront me because she couldn't find anything at the coordinates, but before I could even speak, she added, "The coordinates you gave me are wrong. That's not the final destination; it's a password."

I heard that Wei Shengnan and Jiang Man shared the same idea, so I pressed them for details: "How did you know it was a password? Have you already confirmed it?"

"Yes, it uses standard Morse code, which was deciphered by Song Laosan. The message contains five characters: 'Eighty li to the southeast.'"

Wei Shengnan paused for a moment: "How's the situation on your end?"

I was about to explain this to Wei Shengnan, but seeing that she already had an answer, I replied, "We also suspect it's a code and are working on deciphering it, but we haven't found anything yet."

Wei Shengnan invited, "We don't know what the situation is like in Ping'an Village yet. Why don't we all travel together and set off together?"

When I thought about Jiang Man's resistant attitude towards Wei Shengnan, I decided to refuse her: "We've already reached an agreement, so it's better to act separately to avoid disagreements."

"Alright, then be careful."

Not long after Wei Shengnan hung up the phone, Jiang Man came out of the tent and gestured to me with the satellite phone: "Xue Dong replied. He has deciphered two characters so far. The content is 'Southeast,' but the rest is still unanswered."

I glanced at my watch; it was already 5:30 PM. Without mentioning Wei Shengnan's call to Jiang Man, I said, "We're too close to the original coordinates given by Fengmen Village, and the terrain is perfect for camping. When other teams arrive and find they've come to nowhere, they might choose to camp here too! It's not dark yet, so let's continue southeast for another 15 kilometers. That's enough for today; we'll make plans for tomorrow."

...

We had just set up camp that night when Xue Dong called, and the content was the same as what Wei Shengnan had told me: eighty li to the southeast.

Xue Dong's response and Wei Shengnan's conclusion confirmed to me that our intelligence was accurate.

The monkey, upon learning that Ping'an Village was actually forty kilometers away from us, exclaimed in amazement, "The people of Fengmen Village are truly ingenious! They managed to place a fake address next to the real one and even make the coordinates a password. How did they do that?"

"This is quite simple. After all, the fake address we went to had nothing there. They just need to keep exploring and find the location that matches the password. They don't set the password by the location, but rather they use the password to determine the location."

I had figured things out by now, and said to everyone, "Let's stick to the old rules. Tonight, we'll take turns on night watch and set off early tomorrow morning. Except for Jiang Man, Monkey, Manjing, and Lin Que, the three of us will each take three hours."

"Brother, in this situation, we don't need to stay on night duty, right?"

Lin Que yawned and glanced at the dense forest around him: "The area we're in is just a bit teeming with snakes, insects, and rodents, but there aren't any wild beasts. Besides, this location was chosen randomly, so who could possibly find us?"

"Let's be careful. Have you forgotten the attack we suffered last night?"

I placed the travel bag containing the pistol beside me: "I'm first in line, you guys go and rest."

As the moon rose and the sun set, the sweltering jungle finally cooled down. I sat comfortably on a large rock, smoking, enjoying the cool evening breeze.

I know everyone is quite tired after walking so much all day, so it took four hours before I was ready to wake up Monkey to take over my shift.

Just as I was about to get up, the satellite phone next to me rang again.

I wondered who would call me in the middle of the night, and pressed the answer button: "Who is this?"

A strange male voice came from the other end of the phone: "Get out of your current campsite! And hurry!"