The Leading Stars

A whilе lаtеr, Diао Zhuo closеd thе diary аnd glancеd аt Вауunуe. "You, сome with me."

Bayunуе stuffed hеr hands intо hеr роckеts аnd sаuntеrеd aftеr him with a carеfrеe аir. He stoрped аnd turned arоund, hаnding thе diаrу bасk to her. "Кеeр this with уоu at аll times. Yе Хun must not get his hаnds оn it."

She tоssed the diarу up and down рlауfully. "Yоu trust me that much?"

Diао Zhuо reасhеd оut аnd сaught it. With his оthеr hand, hе unzipрed her windbrеakеr. Shе didn't flinсh or dоdgе, stаnding рerfectlу still. He suspectеd that even if hе strippеd her nаkеd, she wоuld still wear that utterly willing expression. He looked at her face and found her gazing back at him with a raised eyebrow, a faint smile playing on her lips. Keeping a stern expression, he found the inner pocket of her jacket, stuffed the diary inside, and zipped it back up.

"I believe you won't let Ye Xun do it," he said, patting her shoulder. The next second, she suddenly grabbed his wrist, pivoted, and tried to throw him over her shoulder. Anticipating her move, he blocked with his left hand, preventing the throw.

"Quick reflexes. You've trained too," she remarked, not having used her full strength and now relaxing her grip. If he hadn't blocked, she would have had him pinned beneath her in an instant.

They released each other. Diao Zhuo flexed his wrist. This woman had a bizarre thought process and was extremely aggressive—she required 360-degree, round-the-clock surveillance.

They walked back side by side. Halfway there, Bayunye suddenly stopped. "Diao Zhuo, remember this: you just took off my clothes. Next time, I'll take off your pants."

Diao Zhuo lit a cigarette, ignoring her declaration. "You think my pants are that easy to take off?"

Bayunye pointed at him. "I'll make you take them off yourself."

"Wait and see," Diao Zhuo replied, snapping his lighter shut and walking ahead.

Back at the lakeside, several members of the Rescue Team were crouched on the ground, examining the remaining items and discussing Zou Kaigui's whereabouts.

Ye Xun sat alone on a folding stool. Seeing them return, he opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again. Regardless, the Rescue Team had made a breakthrough. Now was not the time to argue with them. Besides, he wouldn't win anyway.

Diao Zhuo remained silent as well, joining the others in examining the remaining items from the bag: a nearly empty bottle of chili sauce, a satellite phone, a pair of hiking boots, several pairs of socks and insoles, and an open small black square bag.

Lao Jin had explained that when they accidentally found this snowmobile, they took all the gasoline, compressed biscuits, and unopened packets of pickled vegetables, sausages, and other supplies from the bag. At the time, the bag also contained a solar charger, a gasoline stove, repair tools, a switchblade, and other daily necessities, which they deemed useless and threw into the lake along with the snowmobile.

Diao Zhuo clearly remembered Lao Jin's first words: "We unzipped it and rummaged for a long time..." This indicated that when the snowmobile was abandoned, the saddlebag had not been opened. Zou Kaigui hadn't had time to take anything out—food, warmth, self-defense items, nothing. He hadn't even taken the most crucial GPS or the satellite phone that could connect him to the outside world.

Abandoning these things, even a primary school student would know, meant certain death. Zou Kaigui must have left in an extreme hurry, or perhaps his departure caught even himself off guard.

"This is..." Hippo picked up the small black square bag. "A camera case?"

"Exactly," Bayunye glanced at it. "Oh, it's a mirrorless camera."

"No camera inside," Tuzi stated firmly.The protection team members seemed skeptical of their story and demanded sternly, "Did you take it or not?!"

"We didn't!"

"I've killed people before—you think I'd be afraid to admit to stealing a damn camera?!"

The two seemed to turn on each other. Lao Jin shoved Tuzi. "Was it you who stole it?!"

Tuzi flared up. "Fuck you! Who wants your shitty camera?! If it weren'tt for you tricking me into looking for that Heavenly Tso, I wouldn't be stuck on this dead-end road with you!"

"Stop arguing!" a protection team member ordered, and the two finally fell silent.

Tan Lin couldn't quite make it out. "...What's Heavenly Tso?"

Zhaba Duojie waved a hand dismissively. "It's fake. There's no such place."

Bayunye blinked and gave Lao Jin and Tuzi a thumbs-up. "You two are lousy hunters, but you're pretty good at turning on each other."

"What the hell did you say, bitch?!"

Bayunye repeated slowly, "I said you're dogs."

Lao Jin and Tuzi were furious and wanted to rush over and beat her up, but they were too injured to move, so they could only curse at her.

"Captain Diao, they're insulting me," Bayunye complained.

Diao Zhuo glanced at Lao Jin and Tuzi. They were indeed making a racket, so his expression darkened, his eyes turning fierce. "Shut the hell up."

The two poachers were opportunists. Seeing his build and expression, they decided he wasn't someone to mess with and reluctantly backed down.

With someone backing her up, Bayunye was practically gloating.

Diao Zhuo could do nothing about her antics and chose to ignore her. "So, when Zou Kaigui left, he likely took the mirrorless camera with him?"

Everyone wore expressions of confusion at this behavior.

Diao Zhuo examined the remaining items one by one, sinking into thought again. Meanwhile, the others began speculating:

"Could he have run into another group of poachers?"

"Poachers would only take food and gasoline, but his food and gasoline were still here—they were taken by Lao Jin and his crew."

"Maybe he encountered a wolf pack or a bear, or had the misfortune to run into a crazed wild yak like we did?"

"Only someone fleeing in panic would abandon everything and run like that!"

"You can't outrun animals."

"If he didn't come back for the car and his belongings after escaping, it means he couldn't return."

"We should be able to find... uh... his remains nearby?"

Ye Xun perked up at this and volunteered eagerly, "I'll lead a search team! We'll use this spot as the center and search within a 5-kilometer radius first!"

"Agreed. Three vehicles stay here, the other four start searching nearby," Diao Zhuo stood up. "Master Ba will lead."

"Got it," Bayunye replied readily. She also leaned toward the idea that Zou Kaigui had encountered a dangerous animal and had a feeling they'd find his remains on this trip. Before getting into the car, she instinctively glanced at Diao Zhuo. He happened to look back at her, patted his chest, deliberately glanced at Ye Xun's car, drew an arc with his right hand, pointed downward at the ground, and finally seemed to ask if she understood his meaning.

She gave him a thumbs-up, got into the car smoothly, and closed the door.

The four vehicles split into two teams and drove off in different directions.

Diao Zhuo still felt there were too many unanswered questions. Using binoculars, he scanned the area and noticed numerous tire tracks nearby, but for some reason, they seemed chaotic, with even skid marks from sudden braking. After a moment, he turned to look at Lao Jin and Tuzi, who sat dejectedly in their vehicle.The two men were startled. Without hunting rifles in hand, they were utterly terrified. Thinking everyone had left and Diao Zhuo was now settling scores, they hurriedly apologized, "Brother, sorry, sorry... We didn't mean to insult your woman earlier... We're scum, we're dogs, alright? Please... please don't..."

Unexpectedly, Diao Zhuo didn't take the bait. Instead, he asked, "When you found the snowmobile, did you see anything else?"

Lao Jin said, "A tent... I saw a tent floating in the water, quite far away. We didn't plan to retrieve it, so we left it alone."

"Zou Kaigui took out the tent..." Diao Zhuo repeated. This indicated that Zou had arrived at the lakeside in the evening, intending to set up camp and rest, when something unexpected occurred. Could it really be... a wild beast?

Then, Tuzi said, "Oh, and two sheep, dead. We thought about skinning them, but they were already unusable, so we didn't bother."

Da Qin asked, "What kind of sheep?"

A protection team member explained, relieved, "When they say 'sheep,' they mean Tibetan antelopes."

"Where are they?"

"Still over there." Tuzi pointed. Not far away, two sharp horns protruded from the lake water.

The remaining few immediately went over and dragged the Tibetan antelope corpses out of the lake. They discovered there were more than just two—two females and one male, three in total, all heavily decomposed.

This abnormality caught Zhaba Duojie's attention. Ignoring the foul stench emanating from the corpses, several of them crouched down to examine them.

"There's still rope on the legs..."

"Swollen so much... they've been dead for a long time."

"The legs are broken. No signs of tearing or biting."

"This female was pregnant, tsk tsk, how pitiful."

Da Qin wondered, "Poaching?"

A protection team member shook his head. "Doesn't look like it. If poachers hunted Tibetan antelopes, why wouldn't they take them? Those guys earlier wanted to skin even the dead ones. Look at this knot..." He pointed to the ropes on the antelopes' legs. The ends of the ropes had loops, as if something had been tied to them. "This is a dead knot, so it's not a trap either. More like what you see on TV—tying something heavy to them so they sink to the bottom and can't float up."

Another protection team member said, "No bullet holes found, and no shotgun pellets on their bodies. They weren't killed by hunting rifles. One thing is certain: even though this is an Uninhabited Area, whoever did this didn't want anyone to find these antelopes. We just don't know the motive..."

Diao Zhuo wondered if this was related to Zou Kaigui's disappearance.

Da Qin asked curiously, "Can you tell how long they've been dead?"

"Hard to say," Zhaba Duojie replied. "The average temperature here is low, like a big refrigerator. Especially for most of the year, it's below zero. When an animal dies here, even if it isn't eaten by predators, the corpse decomposes very slowly. There are even cases of animals dying in winter and remaining preserved until the ice melts the following year. These antelopes are so badly decomposed, we can only guess that the daytime temperatures have been slightly higher recently, and they floated to the surface. Thawing during the day and freezing at night—after a few cycles of that, they rotted."

"Their bones are broken," another team member examining the corpses made a new discovery. "This one... leg bones, ribs, all broken. The leg bones are shattered!"

Zhaba Duojie quickly crouched down to inspect, shaking his head and sighing as he looked.

Suddenly, Lao Jin sneered and said, "Hit by a vehicle."Zhaba Duojie asked sternly, "Did you use this method before?!"

Lao Jin replied with a playful grin, "That method easily damages the hide. Besides, how fast can antelopes run? Our beat-up vehicle couldn't catch up."

Tuzi chimed in, "We came to the lakeside following tire tracks. When we arrived, there were many chaotic tracks, and we wondered what was so special about this place that so many vehicles passed through. But after coming here, it’s nothing special—just a whole lot of nothing."

Diao Zhuo pondered as he slowly paced along the lakeside, looking down as if searching for something. After walking a considerable distance, he suddenly turned and waved to the others, making a "take a photo" gesture. Da Qin immediately grabbed the camera and hurried over.

Diao Zhuo pointed to several shoe prints on the dried mud and said, "Take pictures of these."

While photographing, Da Qin sighed, "What are these holes? They look like they were made by women’s high heels. Wearing high heels here? Really..."

There were three sets of shoe prints in total. Two appeared larger, around size 40 or above, likely belonging to men. The high heel prints clearly belonged to a woman. The prints showed signs of friction, and mixed in the mud were a few tufts of animal fur. Diao Zhuo stood beside them, observing for a long time, before saying to Zhaba Duojie and Da Qin, "Three sets of footprints: one belongs to Zou Kaigui, and the other two belong to two unidentified illegal crossers—a man and a woman. The border guards at the checkpoint weren’t the last to see Zou Kaigui; the illegal crossers were."

Da Qin was overjoyed and pointed at the footprints, asking, "Which one is Zou Kaigui’s?"

"This set," Diao Zhuo pointed. "Before entering Qiangtang, Zou Kaigui took a full-body photo in Shiquanhe. The shoes he wore were the same model as the spare hiking shoes we found, just a different color. In his diary, he mentioned wearing two pairs of shoes alternately during his crossing of Qiangtang. Based on the wear patterns on his soles, I deduced his walking habits and posture—he tends to drag the outer back of his heels when walking, so that part of the sole is more heavily worn. From the direction of the wear, he has a habit of walking with his left foot slightly splayed outward and his right foot relatively straight. Additionally, when his foot lands, he puts more weight on the outer edge, followed by the forefoot. I doubt there’s another hiker in the Uninhabited Area wearing the same shoes and walking with the exact same posture as Zou Kaigui."

Da Qin exclaimed, "This man and woman must be connected to Zou Kaigui’s disappearance!"

Diao Zhuo nodded, "Not only that, but Zou Kaigui’s disappearance is also related to Tibetan antelopes."

Zhaba Duojie was taken aback, "What do you mean by that?"