When Li Li came out, it was already past dinner time. After a comfortable sleep, she looked much more spirited. Chen Zui figured that the energy she had managed to drag back with such difficulty probably wouldn’t last a day, and by Monday, it would all be dedicated to the great cause.
Workaholics, right? That’s just how they are. Although she often heard her say things like “whoever loves to be a beast of burden can be one,” whenever there was work, no one was more invested than her.
Habit is something that is easy to form, yet hard to change.
Chen Zui hadn’t seen Jiang Feiwan afterward, and it wasn’t convenient to disturb her work, so she hadn’t even sent a message.
Responding to the “vast” employee complaints, Chen Zui didn’t go wandering around drinking coffee when she had free time. Coupled with the fact that the previous email regarding the natural pigment collection had received a reply, the specific time, reward, and pictures of the pigment color were detailed clearly.
The other party was law-abiding. Mass collection of natural pigment minerals is not permitted in China, so the email repeatedly stated that if possible, she only needed to pick the surface layer and bring it to her; she could subsequently carry out technical processing and make a one-to-one copy.
This email was checked a bit late, so for Chen Zui, the time was very tight. The other party needed the pigment by next week. The reward was very substantial, reaching six figures, but as for the degree of danger, it completely matched the figure.
Chen Zui had looked up the natural forest in Yun City—it was very dangerous and very mysterious. In the past 10 years, countless teams had wanted to venture into it, but without exception, those who went missing, got injured, or couldn’t even make it in.
People who were fortunate enough to walk out from inside revealed that the magnetic field inside was very chaotic, and a compass was completely useless. Even worse, the weather could be clear and sunny one second, and the next second, a thick fog would rise, making it impossible to see the path at all.
Getting lost was just a matter of a split second.
Although Chen Zui had been to many dangerous places and had stumbled into an indigenous tribe in South America by accident—leaving a knife scar on her back from her escape that remained to this day—no matter how dangerous it was, it was ultimately physical danger with mostly human factors.
The Yun City natural forest was a bit different. It was like a territory ruled by a god, possessing supreme and absolute power.
Chen Zui explored nature while also holding reverence for it.
She never believed that humans ruled the world.
A creature that is merely a speck of dust in the long river of the universe—how could it possibly direct the operation of the universe? In a higher-dimensional space, when they look at humans, aren’t they just looking at an ant colony with rules?
Therefore, Chen Zui had a little hesitation. It wasn’t because she was afraid of a real accident where she wouldn’t be able to come out; her point of hesitation was whether she could bring the pigment out, even if there was someone to meet her and provide backup.
After much deliberation, Chen Zui accepted this order.
The departure time was set for Wednesday morning, with a terrain survey in the afternoon. After resting for a night, they would set off early the next morning.
To prevent special circumstances from arising, she brought a helper whom she had met previously while rock climbing, named Han Ling. Han Ling had a slightly larger reputation abroad, and several times Han Ling had led her along new routes, counting as half a teacher to her.
As soon as Han Ling heard that she was going to the wild forest in Yun City, she bought a ticket without a second word, so excited she was ready to bounce up.
“Chen, why did you suddenly want to come to Yun City? You refused every time I persuaded you before!” Han Ling asked sincerely.
“When did I refuse?” Chen Zui didn’t quite admit it, “I said it depended on the situation, but I didn’t refuse.”
“Don’t Chinese people all say that not taking a stance is equivalent to refusal?” Han Ling pouted.
Unimportant, none of it mattered. What mattered was that now they were both here!
Han Ling had prepared a lot of tools. Having made sufficient preparations long ago, her entire body was filled with the four big characters “impatient to wait.” “Can we go into the mountain this afternoon?!”
Of course! “No.”
Chen Zui flatly refused, “The earliest is tomorrow morning. This afternoon we need to survey the route again and make two sets of plans.”
“No problem! Leave it to me!” Han Ling’s eyes shone brightly, “I feel like this time will be an unforgettable journey.”
Chen Zui smiled noncommittally. She used her phone to hail a cab straight to the foot of the mountain. Since it had been developed into a tourist attraction, many guesthouse signs were placed around the periphery. Chen Zui picked a nearby one and requested two single rooms.
“Chen, which city are you in after returning to China?” Han Ling was ethnic Chinese. Because of her parents in business, she was taken abroad to live at an early age. Life was going swimmingly, and the family business was even larger. Traditional Chinese thinking also gave Han Ling’s parents the idea of having a daughter inherit the family business, but alas, Han Ling was unmanageable. From childhood, she was like a monkey king, going as high as climbing trees and roofs, and as low as jumping into rivers and caves—she simply couldn’t look into those three pages of books.
If that book had written how to conquer the highest mountain in the world, Han Ling would probably be able to compete with the top students of Tsinghua and Peking University.
Chen Zui hadn’t known her as long as she had known Li Li, let alone how familiar they were with each other, but she couldn’t stop the other person from having an unguarded mouth.
“Qingzhou,” Chen Zui looked down at her phone, replying absent-mindedly, “If there’s a chance, I’ll take you to play.”
“Really? Then once we come out of here, you’ll take me with you!” Anyway, she didn’t have to work. Aside from traveling around the world, Han Ling spent her days conquering the world, living quite freely.
Chen Zui was thinking about something else, vaguely hearing a few words, and randomly responded with “uh-huh-huh” to her.
What kind of perfunctory response was that.
Han Ling was dissatisfied: “Hey! You can’t talk to me so perfunctorily, I’m very serious!”
“I’m very serious too.”
“You’ve been looking at your phone the whole time,” Han Ling exposed her.
Fine.
Chen Zui sighed and sent two messages to the opposite side of her phone.
[Location]
[Missing for two days, treat Doctor Jiang to dinner when I get back?]
Then, she took a deep breath and turned off her phone.
Recently, it was always easy to hesitate and become indecisive.
Chen Zui snorted, put away her phone, and shouted: “Let’s go!”
Jiang Feiwan’s appointment slots for this week were completely full, and three of those days required her to make household visits after get off work.
When she saw this message from Chen Zui, it was already two o’clock in the morning the next day.
A location message, with coordinates spanning at least more than half of the domestic map from Qingzhou.
Jiang Feiwan didn’t understand what Chen Zui meant by “missing for two days.” She wanted to reply, but after glancing at the time, her fingertips moved away from the keyboard.
It was too late; it wasn’t a good time to reply to messages.
So it was pushed off, pushed all the way to six o’clock in the morning.
Jiang Feiwan didn’t sleep very peacefully this sleep, constantly dreaming. The dreams were very illusory, making her float on the water surface, unable to sink down, nor able to sit up. Wherever the wind blew, she drifted there.
She didn’t want to struggle, didn’t want to resist the dream.
Then, the dream let her go—three and a half hours of torment, it let her go.
Jiang Feiwan opened her eyes, and a trace of light seeped through the crack of the curtains.
It’s summer, after all; it gets bright early.
She gently closed and opened her eyes again, her eyelids slightly heavy, and slowly picked up her phone.
When the lock screen opened, it was still that unreplied chat interface.
Jiang Feiwan: [Sorry, I was too busy yesterday and didn’t have time to check messages.]
Jiang Feiwan: [Went traveling?]
Chen Zui replied quickly: [Good morning, Doctor Jiang, up so early!]
Chen Zui: [Not really traveling, came over for some work.]
Jiang Feiwan was surprised by the other party’s reply speed, turned on her side for a moment, propped herself up to sit, and typed.
[Hard work, Boss Chen.]
[(Sun.jpg)]
Chen Zui: [I won’t have signal once I go into the mountain later, and probably won’t be able to reply to messages. If Doctor Jiang sends a message and I don’t reply, it’s definitely not intentional ignoring, oh.]
Jiang Feiwan was inexplicably amused by her, curving the corners of her lips: [What if I forget to send a message?]
Chen Zui tossed over a voice message.
“Can I refuse this ‘what if’? It sounds a bit chilling to the heart.”
Jiang Feiwan pressed her lips together and played it again.
Perhaps due to the poor signal, the transmitted voice carried a trace of an old-style radio’s “hissing” sound. Jiang Feiwan didn’t suspect anything and replied with a couple of sentences. After that, the other party’s reply speed slowed down. Worried about delaying Chen Zui’s time, the chat came to an abrupt end.
Only she hadn’t expected that when Jiang Feiwan received news of Chen Zui again, it would actually be learned from Li Li’s mouth.
Li Li booked her Saturday afternoon once more. Not seeing Chen Zui’s figure, Jiang Feiwan casually asked about it as if nothing was wrong.
Li Li said, “She had a bit of an accident and is still over there in Yun City. Does Doctor Jiang know my friend?”