Chen Hao was still squatting on the ground, holding the stone in his arms, his palms sweaty. He dared not move, afraid that if he relaxed his grip, the charade would be exposed.
The creature stared at him without blinking.
“If you keep acting like this, it’ll think we run a zoo here,” Carl whispered.
"Do you have any other ideas?" Chen Hao asked, his head lowered and his voice almost touching the ground. "Right now, I'm playing the role of the team's father."
Susan didn't speak, but slowly took half a step back, her heel lightly touching Nana's shoe sole. Nana immediately understood and followed suit, her movements as light as if she were stepping on cotton.
The creature's ears twitched, its head turned slightly, and its gaze slid from Chen Hao to the others.
Chance!
Chen Hao slammed the stone forward and turned to crawl backward. The others got up at the same time, bending over and hugging the rock face as they retreated towards the scree slope. They didn't dare to move quickly, but they didn't stop for a moment.
Five meters, ten meters, fifteen meters...
Only when they heard a low growl behind them did they dare to speed up slightly.
“It didn’t catch up,” Carl said, panting as he glanced back. “But it didn’t leave either.”
“It’s watching where we run.” Susan leaned against a large rock, still gripping her short stick tightly.
Nana had already opened the scanning interface. "There is a slope twenty meters ahead, with ravines on both sides. There is a crevice on the right, about seven meters deep, with a hidden entrance, suitable for hiding."
“Then let’s split into two groups,” Susan said immediately. “Karl and I will go to the left and make a noise to distract it. You two go in from the right, and don’t leave any continuous footprints.”
"I'll leave the marks." Chen Hao grabbed a handful of pebbles and deliberately stomped a few messy footprints on the ground, then broke off a dry branch and threw it a little further away.
"Pretty professional," Carl said, glancing at him.
"I practiced skipping classes all the time," Chen Hao grinned. "When wasn't it always about running and scattering notes to confuse the homeroom teacher?"
Susan didn't smile, she just nodded. "We'll begin in three minutes."
As soon as she finished speaking, she and Carl hurried along the ditch on the left. They hadn't gone far when Carl began tapping the rocks with his tools, producing a crisp sound. Susan, on the other hand, threw a small stone every few seconds, which clanged against the metal fragments.
The creature was indeed attracted; it leaped onto a high rock platform with its front paws and stared intently in the direction of the sound.
"Let's go!" Chen Hao patted Nana on the shoulder.
The two immediately crawled forward along the right-hand rock wall, their knees scraping against the rough ground, inching closer to the crevice. The entrance was half-hidden by a pile of collapsed rubble, just big enough for one person to squeeze through.
Chen Hao went in first, then turned and pulled Nana in. The space inside wasn't large, just big enough to stand up straight. The air was damp and smelled of earth.
"What do we do now?" he asked in a low voice.
Nana pulled up the map. "The drainage system must be abandoned pipes from the old base, leading deep underground. We can follow it and avoid being tracked on the surface."
"It sounds like a sewer adventure," Chen Hao sighed. "I'm terrified of rats."
“There are no rats here,” Nana said. “Only moss and sediment.”
"You're making it even scarier by saying that."
The sounds outside continued. Susan and Carl walked further and further away, the knocking becoming intermittent, but the rhythm quickening.
Suddenly, the wind changed direction.
A cold wind blew down from the top of the slope, carrying dust into the crack.
Chen Hao's nose itched, and he almost sneezed, but he managed to hold it back.
"Oh no," Nana whispered, "the scent will be brought back."
"What do you mean?"
"Our sweat and lingering breath are drifting back to where we were. If it goes back and takes a sniff..."
Before he could finish speaking, the outside fell silent.
All sounds stopped.
Even the wind seemed to have stopped for a moment.
Then, faint footsteps came from afar—not from the direction of Susan and Carl, but from the hilltop they had just left.
"It's back." Chen Hao held his breath.
The creature did indeed turn back. It didn't chase after them, but stopped where they had initially retreated, sniffed the ground, and then looked around.
Then it slowly turned towards the crack.
“It found it,” Nana said.
"So, is it time to surrender or fight?" Chen Hao touched the lighter in his pocket.
“Neither.” Nana quickly took a small bottle out of her backpack. “This is plant sap I collected earlier, containing volatile masking components. Applying it to the skin can interfere with olfactory recognition.”
Why didn't you say so earlier?
"You didn't ask."
Chen Hao rolled his eyes, took the bottle, squeezed out a large dollop, and smeared it on his neck and hands. It tasted like rotten chives mixed with mud.
"It smells so good," he said. "I feel like throwing up myself."
Nana applied some as well, then handed over another bottle of dried moss powder. "Light it later to create a smoke barrier."
"I'll go up and push the stones." Chen Hao crouched down and climbed out. "You guys prepare a fire source."
He carefully climbed the steep slope above the crevice, using both hands and feet to try to make as little noise as possible. A huge boulder overhead had been loose for a long time, its edges cracked, and it could roll down with just a push.
Below, the creature had reached the crevice, its front paws resting on the rocks, about to peer out.
Now!
Chen Hao braced himself against the base of the boulder with both hands, gritting his teeth and exerting all his strength. The boulder wobbled twice before crashing down onto the narrow path, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Almost simultaneously, Nana lit the moss powder.
Thick smoke rose instantly, a gray-black column of smoke shooting into the air, spreading with the wind and obscuring the entire slope.
The creature was startled and quickly retreated. The smoke blinded it, and it shook its head, letting out a low growl of discontent.
At that very moment, Susan and Carl quickly turned back from the other side and, under the cover of smoke, quietly circled around to the back of the crevice.
The four met up, and no one spoke, communicating only with gestures. Nana pointed to the ground—the drain opening was nearby.
They slid into the underground passage one by one, landing lightly and silently.
The passageway was narrow, its ceiling covered with rusted metal pipes, and the floor was slippery, requiring one to hold onto the wall for every step. There was almost no light; the only illumination came from the faint glow indicator on Nana's wrist.
“It didn’t follow,” Carl said softly.
“Not necessarily.” Susan still held the short stick. “This creature might be good at nocturnal activity.”
“But I just set up a sound-based decoy.” Carl pulled a circuit board from his bag, connected to two small speakers, “which can play the recording three more times, simulating the sound of us continuing to move forward.”
When did you record this?
"Ten minutes ago, while you were pretending to protect your cub."
"I'm not really stupid," Chen Hao muttered. "I'm strategically playing dumb."
Nana walked at the front, the infrared scanner constantly updating the terrain ahead. "There's a fork in the road 80 meters ahead. The left path is blocked, the right path leads to an open cave."
“Let’s go to the cave,” Susan said. “It’s easy to get trapped in narrow places.”
They moved slowly, their footsteps extremely light. The echoes in the passage were so strong that even a cough could give away their location.
After walking for about ten minutes, the space ahead finally widened. The cave was oval-shaped with a relatively flat floor, and some abandoned pipe remnants were piled up in the corners.
The four sat down against the wall and took turns drinking water to replenish their energy.
Chen Hao rubbed his old wound; it felt a little tight, but he could still bear it.
"Do you think it might come looking for the cigarette smoke?" he asked.
“No,” Nana said. “The wind has been blowing from the north, and the smoke has long since drifted away. Besides, we changed our route three times along the way, and our tracks were also disrupted by areas washed away by the rain.”
"So, we really shook it off?"
“No thermal signals have been detected approaching at this time.” Nana turned off the scanner. “The safety window is at least thirty minutes.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, their shoulders slumped.
Carl leaned against the wall and knocked on the metal pipe three times, making a short "thump, thump, thump" sound.
“This is our agreed-upon safety signal,” he explained to Chen Hao. “Back in the school lab, we would tap it like this every time an experiment was successful.”
“Your school is really interesting,” Chen Hao said. “Where we go, we successfully skip class by whistling.”
Susan suddenly raised her hand, signaling for quiet.
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
Outside the cave, a metallic clanging sound came from afar—clang, clang, clang—exactly the same rhythm as Karl's earlier.
Chen Hao's face turned green. "Who's banging outside?"
“It can’t be anyone else.” Carl frowned. “Only we know this rhythm.”
Nana immediately restarted the scan. "No life signs."
What was that sound?
“Perhaps it’s an echo.” Susan slowly stood up, gripping the short stick tightly.
“The echo won’t start on its own.” Chen Hao stared at the cave entrance. “And… that one was half a beat slower than our knocking.”
Carl knocked again: thump, thump, thump.
There was a pause outside for a few seconds, and then—
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
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