The night was dark, and the rustling of animals moving about could be heard from time to time in the pitch-black valley. The hooting of owls made people feel uneasy.
In a dark valley, a dim light appeared. Jiang Man covered the screen of her handheld terminal with her clothes, recorded our coordinates, and then made a call to Xue Dong via satellite phone. She said to me, "Xue Dong and his team are still searching the area around the convoy, but they haven't found anything."
Seeing that the surrounding weeds had not been trampled, I walked in another direction: "This further proves that the monkeys were taken away after being attacked, which is why there were no signs of fighting or escape left at the scene."
"I've already made an agreement with Xue Dongxue that we'll share our coordinates every five minutes and make a phone call every twenty minutes. If we lose contact, they'll go to our last marked location to provide support immediately..."
Jiang Man walked beside me, and halfway through her sentence, she suddenly grabbed my wrist and waved to the people behind her: "Stay hidden!"
When I heard Jiang Man say that, I quickly squatted down behind the bushes next to me, looked ahead at the dark valley, and asked, "What did you see?"
"When I was talking to you just now, I saw a flash of light in front of me. I don't know if I was seeing things."
Jiang Man stared into the distance and said in a low voice, "It's pitch black here. That light was quite dazzling. I shouldn't have seen it wrong."
Hearing Jiang Man say that, I took out night vision goggles from my travel bag, turned them on, and projected them into the distance.
Sure enough, there were dappled lights and shadows in the grass a few dozen meters away.
Judging from the outline, it was a person crouching in the grass with his hand hanging by his side, probably smoking. What Jiang Man just saw was probably the light from his lighter when he lit the cigarette.
At this moment, one of the Jiang family's bodyguards also spotted the man and asked in a low voice, "Miss, it seems he's the only one around here. Should we grab him and interrogate him?"
"No, let him go."
I stared at the person in the distance and gently shook my head: "We can't be sure how many teams are around here, nor do we know if this person is from the team that kidnapped the monkey. If we kidnap the wrong person, their companions might find that one of them is missing and start searching as well, which would add unnecessary trouble for us."
There are many mosquitoes in these mountains. Even though I sprayed mosquito repellent on myself, I could still feel the mosquitoes buzzing around me.
We couldn't stand it, and neither could the people in the distance. That person was squatting in the grass, probably not even finished a cigarette, when he stood up from the grass, pulled up his pants, and walked towards the hillside behind.
"Keep up!"
I saw the person move, so I stood up and followed. The person in front was very cautious, turning around to look behind every few steps, while I, with the advantage of night vision goggles, followed him from a great distance.
About three minutes later, Jiang Man saw the person in front turn around and hide behind a tree. She said with some frustration, "This guy is too cautious. Why is he leading us in circles? Could it be that we've been exposed and he's waiting for backup?"
"No, if he really found us, he should have led us to meet his companions instead of repeatedly checking here."
I shook my head: "The fact that this person is so cautious means that they must have discovered something, which is why they are so careful. They even defecate far away to avoid leaving any traces or being detected by the hunting dogs."
Jiang Man sighed: "These people are so cautious, hopefully they are the same group that kidnapped the monkey."
The person in front wandered around in the mountains for about five minutes. Seeing that nothing was wrong, he relaxed, turned on his flashlight, and continued on his way.
I followed him all the way. After the man passed through a grove of trees, he entered another valley. I watched his figure disappear from sight and quickened my pace to catch up. But when I reached the front of the valley, it was empty. Even my night vision goggles could no longer detect him.
"This is unbelievable!"
Jiang Man looked at the steep terrain on both sides of the valley and said in surprise, "The people in front of us were only thirty or forty meters ahead of us at most. How could they have disappeared so quickly?"
"That person must be hiding."
One of Jiang Man's bodyguards interjected, "There's a high chance that cover was dug in the valley beforehand. Either all of these people are hiding in cover, or the person who just hid inside could observe from the shadows to see if anyone is following him."
“That makes sense. The terrain here is steep and the valley is long and narrow. The most likely reason that person disappeared is that he is hiding.”
I pointed to the cliffs on both sides: "We'll split into two groups. I'll go to the top of the hill to keep watch, and you guys leave some people in the valley. If I turn on my flashlight on the hillside to give a signal, you guys go to the direction I'm shining my light to arrest people!"
At my instruction, everyone quickly split into two teams. Jiang Man and I took two bodyguards up the mountain, while the rest of us stayed at the foot of the mountain.
As I climbed the hillside, my view opened up, and I also discovered glimpses of the valley below.
Two large pits were dug out at the bottom of the valley. The pits were covered with many branches for cover, and the lights inside were blocked by the branches and leaves, but there were still flickering lights.
Within the field of view of the night vision device, one can also see the light spots formed by the heat emitted by the human body through the gaps.
Seeing this, I took a deep breath: "I thought that person was hiding, but I didn't expect them to be working."
Jiang Man asked, "When you say 'working,' do you mean tomb raiding?"
"Tomb raiding has always been a serious crime in all dynasties. The most basic skill for tomb raiders is to cover their tracks! In addition to tombs in deep mountains and forests, there are many ancient tombs in cities or villages. To commit crimes in such places, tomb raiding gangs often need to prepare for a long time, such as enclosing land to build factories, renting farmland, or renting nearby houses and digging tunnels in the rooms, etc."
I pointed to the two covered pits in the valley and said, "Besides the method I mentioned above, there is another method called 'drawing a cake on flat ground.' This was originally the slang of folk artists and acrobats. In the old days, the performance venue for street performers was an open-air flat ground. They would draw a circle with white powder to mark the boundary of the performance venue. The artists likened this to a painted cake or a pot. They made a living off this flat ground. So this term also means starting from scratch when you have nothing."
In the context of tomb raiding, this method represents a gang encountering an ancient tomb in a busy urban area but lacking the resources to purchase land or build a factory for cover. Instead, they fence off a plot of land, wait until nightfall, dig a pit on flat ground, conceal it, and then risk excavating from within.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com