The June sunshine is like melted honey, flowing stickily on the gravel of the gently sloping trail.
When the fine gauze on the hem of Hua Jinyue's skirt was lifted by the wind, the hidden anti-slip texture of the lining could be seen - she had specially asked the tailor to sew it in to facilitate climbing in an emergency.
When she squatted down to smell the lavender, the pearl chain on the edge of her straw hat swayed slightly with her movement. Each pearl was hollow, and the one at the bottom contained a micro locator, which was emitting weak signal fluctuations as she moved.
"Look, Sister Nai!" She picked up a dandelion with her fingertips, the fluffy ball gleaming silver in the sunlight. "The specimen album my brother bought me last year was missing this type with serrated leaves."
As she spoke, she turned her wrist and seemingly casually pinched the dandelion between her fingers, but her fingertips skillfully pressed on the juice secretion point of the flower stem - this was the herbal identification technique she learned from her family's traditional Chinese medicine, which could determine the characteristics of the plant by the viscosity of the juice.
The SLR camera that Bai Zhiye was holding was a custom-made one. There were fine scales engraved on the lens ring. It looked like decoration, but it was actually a conversion table for wind speed and distance.
When she adjusted the focus, she tapped the hidden button next to the shutter button twice with her index finger, and the camera simultaneously transmitted the real-time encrypted image to Duan Shuce's cloud server.
"Sister Nai, can you take some pictures for me? I want the kind that... well, look a little fairy-like! I'll show them to my brother when I get home!"
Bai Zhiye laughed and obediently picked up the camera: "Okay. Stand a little closer. Yes, you can lift your hat a little bit to let the light fall on your face..."
She patiently guided Hua Jinyue in posing and finding the right angles. Hua Jinyue also cooperated very well, standing or sitting among the flowers, smiling sweetly and moving nimbly.
Bai Zhiye's camera captures every beautiful moment of her, with a focused and gentle look in her eyes.
The mountain breeze blew up their skirts and hair, and the sunlight gave them a warm golden edge.
After taking a few satisfactory photos, Hua Jinyue ran back to Bai Zhiye contentedly and leaned over to look at the preview on the camera screen.
"Wow! This one looks good! This one looks good too! Sister Zhiye, you took such great photos!" She praised without hesitation.
The mountain breeze brings not only the fragrance of flowers, but also the faint chirping of birds in the distant pine forest.
Bai Zhiye suddenly stopped, listened attentively for two seconds, and his fingers unconsciously stroked the metal buckle on the camera strap - the inside of the buckle was engraved with a Morse code table.
She watched Hua Jinyue skipping towards the iris bushes ahead. The sunlight danced in the girl's hair, and the delicate skin on the back of her neck exposed under the straw hat. However, no one noticed the ultra-thin microphone behind her ear, which was converting sound waves within ten feet into electrical signals.
"Sister Zhiye, does the purple color of this iris look like the dark pattern on my brother's tie?" Hua Jinyue squatted among the flowers, her fingertips sliding across the water droplets on the petals, and suddenly looked up and smiled.
Hidden in the folds of her skirt at her knees was a foldable alloy rod, which was now slightly pressed against her inner thigh as she moved. The coolness of the metal came through the fabric, adding a subtle sharpness to the innocence in her eyes.
The moss on the rock wall shone with a faint blue light, and in the cracks in the rock where Ning Xiwan's fingertips were clasping, there was half a finger deep of leaf mold.
As she climbed, the teeth on the soles of her hiking boots left tiny marks on the slippery rocks, and every time she exerted force, her calf muscles stretched into smooth arcs under her combat pants.
As Duan Shuce was belaying below, the climbing rope left deep red marks on his palms, his knuckles turned slightly white due to his intense concentration, and the veins on the inside of his wrists throbbed gently as the rope expanded and contracted.
"The air pressure has dropped to 942." Duan Shuce's voice came through his tactical headset, a crackling sound. "Pay attention to the loose rock two meters to the right. The infrared scan shows insufficient load-bearing capacity."
The shadow of the rock wall was reflected on his glasses. In fact, the built-in micro-display was analyzing the stress distribution of the rock in real time. The veins next to his temples were slightly bulging due to the continuous calculation.
When Ning Xiwan was adjusting the direction, her left hand suddenly stopped - half of the climbing rope was stuck in the crevice of the rock, and the rope core had been worn out to reveal white fibers.
She picked up a strand of rope hair between her fingertips, held it to her nose and sniffed it. Then, through the bone conduction microphone in her throat, she whispered, "The rope has been worn for more than 72 hours. A professional climber may have been nearby."
When they stood on a huge protruding rock platform, below them was a bottomless, mist-shrouded valley, and in the distance, the mountains were like solidified green waves, stretching to the horizon.
The sun shone unobstructedly across the entire platform, dispelling the chill in the forest.
"Wow!" Ning Xiwan couldn't help but exclaim in admiration, opening her arms as if to embrace the vastness of the world. The mountain breeze blew fiercely against her hair and clothes.
Duan Shuce immediately took out the positioning device and a small folding telescope again and began to record the coordinates and observe the surrounding terrain.
He looked focused, as if the stunning scenery before him was just a point that needed to be marked on the map.
Ning Xiwan admired the scenery for a while, then walked over to Duan Shuce, naturally leaning on his strong arm, and looking through the telescope's eyepiece: "Did you see the direction Qingliu and the others were heading upstream?"
Duan Shuce slightly adjusted the telescope's angle, his finger sliding quickly across the locator screen, connecting several coordinate points into a line. "The approximate location is confirmed," he pointed to a point on the screen. "They should be at this pond."
Ning Xiwan leaned over to take a look and nodded with satisfaction: "Okay, write it down. Show it to him when we get back, so he won't always say that we treat him like a child." There was a teasing smile in her tone.
Duan Shuce pushed his glasses up and said nothing, silently saving the coordinate data. The two stood side by side on the platform at the top of the mountain, the sunlight stretching their figures very long, blending them into the vast mountain background.
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