Chapter 50: Nowhere to be found
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“Dispose of their corpses, then return to the military camp immediately to report this matter. Especially you, Liu Guangwen. You better get the GPS tracker out of your body as soon as possible,” Mo Wen said calmly while casting a glance at the seven corpses on the floor.
Although it was in the jungle, the corpses still had to be disposed of. In addition, Liu Guangwen and Wang Yuan were badly injured, so they had to be treated in the military camp quickly. With regards to the reason and whether they would want to report the truth, it was up to them.
“Both of you return to the military camp first; I will find Qin Xiaoyou.”
As soon as he said that, Mo Wen disappeared in a flash towards the trail leading up the mountain. At that time, the sky had completely darkened with only the moon as a source of light shining down upon the lush forest, so the visibility was less than sixteen feet.
Mo Wen’s eyesight was relatively good with a night vision of about 165 feet though. So he was not worried about not finding Qin Xiaoyou.
Mo Wen searched along the mountainous path and walked further up a few yards, but he still didn’t catch sight of Qin Xiaoyou.
As the time passed, Mo Wen’s face was gradually becoming more gloomy. The fight happened less than three minutes ago, so Qin Xiaoyou, being a girl, couldn’t have run too far away.
However, he was still unable to find Qin Xiaoyou, even though he was already halfway up the mountain.
Did she hide somewhere?
Mo Wen thought of this possibility immediately. It was impossible for Qin Xiaoyou, with the physical strength of a girl, to run a few miles in five to six minutes. It was more likely that Qin Xiaoyou was behind him, but in hiding.
He immediately turned around and walked back towards the base of the mountain. This time, he was more careful to not miss any detail.
However, after looking for half an hour, he still couldn’t find Qin Xiaoyou.
He even shouted for every short distance that he walked, but nothing came back.
Could something have happened?
Mo Wen had a somber expression on his face. The fight and his search up the mountain took less than ten minutes. Could something happen during this period of time?
After the search up and down the mountain, Mo Wen couldn’t help but start to feel anxious, as he was still unable to find Qin Xiaoyou.
Suddenly, he thought of something and immediately ran towards the campsite at the base of the mountain. At this moment, the four tents were pitched at the base of the mountain, Wang Yuan and Liu Guangwen were not around as they were getting rid of the corpses.
He took the backpack out of the tent, fished out the satellite communication device from the backpack, and attempted to contact Qin Xiaoyou.
When they were separated into groups of four, the satellite communication device was setup to connect the groups and prevent them from getting lost in the mountains.
He remembered that Qin Xiaoyou’s satellite communication device seemed to be in her pocket all this while.
After a minute, Mo Wen walked out of the tent with a grave face.
Uncontactable!
The satellite communication device was, surprisingly, unable to contact Qin Xiaoyou. He tried consistently for several minutes, but there was no response from the other side.
There were only two possibilities under such circumstances: Qin Xiaoyou switched off the satellite communication device of her own accord, or she had walked to a place where there wasn’t any satellite signal.
The former was obviously impossible. Under such circumstances, Qin Xiaoyou wouldn’t switch off the satellite communication device of her own accord.
The latter did not seem possible either, as only a special geographic environment would be able to disrupt the satellite signal. In normal circumstances, there wasn’t any place that the satellite signal wouldn’t reach. The fight took only about half an hour, so it was impossible for Qin Xiaoyou to walk too far away. Therefore, how it could be possible for her to walk to a place the satellite signal couldn’t reach?
Since the two possibilities were slim, there could only be one other possibility. Qin Xiaoyou was abducted and someone switched off her satellite communication device.
With this in mind, Mo Wen became more anxious than before. If he had known this would happen, he wouldn’t have let Qin Xiaoyou walk up the mountain alone just now.
However, it was too late to talk about it now. Fortunately, the period of time taken was short, so there should be a chance to mitigate the situation.
He immediately picked up his haversack and once again treaded up the mountain. This time, he was more cautious as to not to miss out any trace and detail.
After half an hour, Mo Wen appeared halfway up the mountain. The edge of a cliff was in front of him, and the cold wind was blowing constantly against the cliff, causing his face to be a little cold.
Mo Wen was holding a shoe in his hand; it was Qin Xiaoyou’s.
When he found the shoe at the edge of the cliff, his feelings were at a low ebb. From the clues at the scene, and as there was a long dragging mark on the ground that extended to the bottom of the cliff, Qin Xiaoyou had most probably fallen off the cliff.
He could imagine that Qin Xiaoyou was definitely rushing forward in a panic and didn’t know which route to take. With the low visibility of the night, she must have rushed over the cliff and accidentally fell off.
Mo Wen stepped onto the edge of the cliff and peered down. It appeared to be bottomless, perhaps a several thousand feet deep.
If a person were to fall from the cliff, the probability of staying alive was almost equivalent to the probability of striking a lottery.
He took a deep breath. Regardless of the situation, he must find Qin Xiaoyou, dead or alive.
It was useless to regret now, as there wasn’t a cure for regrets in this world. He could only pray that Qin Xiaoyou was alive and bet on that slim chance of one in ten million that she survived.
He walked horizontally along the ledge of the precipice for a few hundred feet, but realized that there wasn’t a route to the bottom of the cliff. The further he walked, the narrower the cliff seemed to become.
He suddenly realized that the cliff had strangely joined. It didn’t seem to be a cliff, but a huge crevice on the side of the mountain.
In order to confirm his guess, Mo Wen again walked along in the opposite direction for a few hundred feet.
Indeed, the cliff disappeared. The two sides of the cliff wall were joined together with a sharp, thin, pitch black crevice at the end.
It was indeed not a cliff. It seemed to be a huge crack in the mountain like a mouth that was bottomless deep.
Mo Wen furrowed his brows, as he could not understand why there was such a huge crack in the mountain. It explained why Qin Xiaoyou would fall into it though. With such low visibility in the night, anyone could have missed this sudden, huge crack on the ground.
He inhaled deeply, as under the present circumstances, there was absolutely no route down the cliff; the only way was to climb down this crevice.
Once again, Mo Wen walked to the position where Qin Xiaoyou had fallen and took out a rope from the haversack. The rope was about 500 feet long. He wasn’t sure if it would be long enough to extend to the bottom of the crevice, but he didn’t have a choice now. Saving a life was like putting out fire; you couldn’t wait for others to help – he had to act now.
He affixed the military dagger firmly into his thigh pouch. With the rope tightly tied to the big tree, Mo Wen gradually began to lower himself down the crevice.
After descending 500 feet, Mo Wen realized the two sides of the cliff walls were getting narrower. It seemed to be about twelve inches wide, which would not allow anyone plump to get through.
Mo Wen didn’t know how deep the bottom was, but the rope had reached its end.
He took a deep breath and released the rope. His back leaned against the cold cliff wall while his legs were placed against the opposite cliff wall. He then began to continue sliding his body down.
IMo Wen could roughly control the speed of the descent with the help of the friction between his body and the two cliff walls, as it prevented him from falling straight into the crevice.
Unknowing of how deep he had descended, Mo Wen discovered that the two cliff walls were getting narrower and narrower.
Eventually, he realized that he couldn’t go down any further; his body was stuck in between the two cliff walls.
“What d*mned place is this?!”
Mo Wen forced a wry smile as he felt as if he was dropped into a funnel – the deeper he went, the narrower it was.
He scoured the walls but didn’t catch sight of Qin Xiaoyou through the thin cracks of the cliff walls. The bottom continued to be pitch black as before, unknowing how deep it was going to go.
However, he was not surprised. Although the two cliff walls were narrow and might trap a big guy like him, it might not be able to trap a girl like Qin Xiaoyou, who had a slender and petite body.
However, with such geographical landform, hope gradually began to rise in Mo Wen’s heart. The two cliff walls were effective in exerting frictional force which would reduce the velocity of the fall, so perhaps Qin Xiaoyou was still alive now.
With this in mind, Mo Wen was even more determined to get to the bottom.
He took another deep breath and shook his body. There was a sudden crackling sound coming from the bones in his body, as if all the bones in his body were changing.
In a second, his body had suddenly become thin and gradually descended again.
According to Mo Wen’s understanding of the body, he would naturally know Body Contortion. He could completely contort the 206 bones in his body at whim.