The Real Climb Begins

"Fine, fine, go ahead and explore then!" Zhang Can felt Su Xue was being utterly absurd, wondering what on earth had gotten into her. Why couldn't she mind her own business instead of meddling in his?

The fish-belly white at the edge of the sky grew denser. Zhang Can advised, "Aren't you cold? Let's go back. It's freezing out here. Warm up by the fire and sleep a bit longer; you'll have more energy to hit the road once daylight breaks."

Su Xue hummed and said, "Since when did you learn to care about people and be so considerate?"

What kind of talk was that? Seeing that Su Xue showed not the slightest intention of getting up and returning, Zhang Can dropped the subject. He looked at the surrounding scenery, though before dawn, nothing was clearly visible—just endless white snow everywhere, broken occasionally by patches of dark forests. Wherever there were woods, shadows loomed black.

Suddenly, Zhang Can pointed at those dark, brooding forests and asked, "Do you think there might be wildmen or monsters hiding in these snow-capped mountain woods?"

"Pfft!" Su Xue burst out laughing, scolding playfully, "Have you been reading too much? Watching too many sci-fi movies? Wildmen and monsters—who has ever actually seen one?"

Zhang Can smiled and said, "When you're all alone in a place devoid of human presence, your mind tends to wander, hehe..." He gave a small, sheepish chuckle, then turned back to Su Xue. "Su Xue, you're a soldier, and you look like you've had martial arts training. You must be quite familiar with secret organizations, right? I want to ask you, have you ever seen a national supernatural organization? Something like the State Security Special Unit with extraordinary abilities, akin to the 'Chinese Dragon Team'?"

"..." Su Xue's mouth dropped open in astonishment. She froze for a few seconds before suddenly bursting into a clear, tinkling cascade of laughter. She laughed so hard she couldn't straighten her back, unable to stop for the longest time, pointing a finger at Zhang Can as she giggled incessantly.

Yet Zhang Can maintained a deadpan, utterly serious expression, showing not the slightest hint of joking. Su Xue seemed to have laughed until her stomach hurt; she clutched her abdomen and bit her lip, a smile still plastered across her face. It took her quite a while to regain her composure before she gasped out, "You... you're hilarious. Looking at that deadpan face of yours, I swear you could go on the Spring Festival Gala and perform a comedy sketch. I guarantee you'd be a massive hit!"

"The Chinese Dragon Team? Why didn't you just mention aliens?" Seeing that Zhang Can still wore no trace of a smile and retained his solemn expression, Su Xue chuckled again, "Leave it to you to come up with that. I was right—you've definitely watched way too many sci-fi movies. I've always had this strange feeling about you, and now I know it's because you spend your time pondering stuff like this. Alright then, let's go capture a wildman on this snowy mountain for our trip back!"

Sensing that Su Xue was merely making fun of him, Zhang Can finally offered a faint, non-committal smile and twitched his lips. Using his X-ray vision, he peered into those dark patches of woods. Through the透视 glance, he actually spotted some moving creatures within the trees, but they were all small—looking either like squirrels or other tiny animals, a far cry from any wildman. Even the desert wolves they had encountered at the foot of the mountain were entirely absent, God knows where they had gone.

Naturally, Su Xue took Zhang Can's words as mere banter and didn't take them seriously in the least. In her wildest dreams, she would never have guessed that Zhang Can was probing her to find out if she knew of the existence of such organizations. Because he possessed supernatural abilities himself, those were the things occupying his thoughts. He really had seen a lot of that stuff in movies, and in truth, many of his apprehensions were based on hypothetical scenarios from sci-fi plots—imagining how he might be treated if his powers were ever exposed. To be honest, these were thoughts that crossed his mind from time to time; better safe than sorry.

"Forget it, let's head back. Hanging out here is dull," Su Xue sighed as she finally stood up. At the moment, bringing up matters of romance with Zhang Can was clearly inappropriate. Besides, blurting out such words right now simply wasn't her style. They could talk if another opportunity arose.

Knowing that the higher they climbed, the more useful the leather pads would be, Zhang Can picked up the leather mats lying in the snow and followed closely behind Su Xue. The footprints from their ascent were still there; the accumulated snow had neither melted nor increased.

The campfire was burning fiercely now, and nearly everyone else was already up. They were still boiling beef soup in pots, planning to consume the hot broth to replenish their energy before setting off.

A pale streak had appeared along the horizon. It looked like it would be another overcast day with no sun breaking through the sky full of clouds, though it probably wouldn't snow either, making for acceptable weather.

Wang Qian pulled a few packets of instant coffee from his pack, handed one to Zhang Can, and smiled, "Brother, have one of these!"

Zhang Can didn't refuse. He accepted it, took a small aluminum tea mug out of his backpack, ladled half a mug of boiling water from the pot, stirred in the coffee powder, gave it a shake, blew on it, and took a tiny sip of the scalding liquid. He couldn't help praising, "So fragrant!"

Zhu Senlin, with sleepy eyes, also drank a mug of coffee. Once that hot liquid hit his stomach and warmed him from within, his spirits instantly perked up, and he began chatting and laughing merrily.

Originally, Zhang Can had worried that Zhu Senlin wouldn't be able to handle the hardship, but he never expected Zhu Senlin to be completely fine. It was probably because he was well-padded with flesh; people with more fat tended to fear heat rather than cold. Moreover, Zhu Senlin had always eaten and drank well, giving him a solid physical foundation. Climbing this snowy mountain hadn't proven difficult for him at all.

It seemed the most likely person to break down under the strain was actually Wang Qian. Although Zhang Can possessed supernatural abilities—while lacking Su Xue's formidable combat foundation—his powers rendered him immune to extreme cold and heat, allowing his stamina to recover rapidly after exertion. This already put him ahead of most people. Wang Qian, on the other hand, had neither martial training nor any prior experience with this kind of suffering, making him the most fragile of the group.

After finishing the beef meal, everyone's physical strength was restored to a relatively good state. Zheng Dabao instructed them to pack up their luggage and gear and prepare for departure.

The time was 7:40 AM. They proceeded forward along scattered patches of grass and shrubs. Zheng Dabao believed that wherever there was vegetation, water sources were likely to be found; and wherever there were water sources, rare and exotic flora tended to thrive—especially in places where snow-mountain hot springs existed. The more secluded and inaccessible a place was, the more likely it was to harbor rare medicinal herbs.

However, whether he could actually find the place his father had visited before was another question. Even his father had mentioned back then that if he were to go back, he might not be able to find it again. Furthermore, the glaciers of the Tianshan Mountains were constantly shifting, compounded by avalanches, blizzards, and other hazards that would alter the original terrain. On top of that, the location was exceptionally perilous; his father had barely escaped with his life and was terrified just recalling it. Naturally, his father had never been able to return there for the rest of his life.

Yet reality turned out differently than Zheng Dabao had estimated. After marching for a stretch along the sparse vegetation, the plants vanished completely amidst the vast, pristine snow, and the terrain began to grow treacherous. Zheng Dabao took out an altimeter, checked the reading, and announced, "Our current altitude is 3,432 meters. We still have a long way to go. Although the destination we are heading to is hard to find, its altitude should remain unchanged—it's over 5,000 meters, nearly 6,000 meters high. We still need to climb more than 2,000 meters higher up the snowy mountain. Heh, down in the lowlands, a distance of over 2,000 meters is just a little over two kilometers; even walking it would only take ten or twenty minutes at most—quite a slow stroll. But here on a 6,000-meter snowy mountain, traversing these two thousand-plus meters is far more difficult than walking two thousand kilometers on flat ground. Because walking two thousand kilometers will only make you tired and sore, it won't kill you. But on a snowy mountain, this two-thousand-meter stretch represents death, hardship, danger, and incomparable toil!"

Zhang Can looked up at the distant, rolling snow-capped mountains that seemed truly endless, their white peaks merging seamlessly with the sky so that it was impossible to tell where the heavens ended and the mountains began.

On a snowy mountain like this, in such a grueling environment, could any miraculous medicinal herbs genuinely grow here? Like the legendary thousand-year-old ginseng, lingzhi, or immortal grass—did such things actually exist?

The path grew increasingly difficult to traverse. Accumulated snow covered the entire mountain body to a depth of several feet, causing every footstep to sink deeply into the drifts. Across this boundless snowy wilderness, there were no paths whatsoever to follow. Zheng Dabao and his five subordinates relied entirely on experience to gauge their route forward. The person walking at the front had to be especially cautious; the higher they went, the deeper the snow became, running the risk of stepping into a hidden crevasse or glacial sinkhole, where falling in meant either freezing to death or perishing from the impact.

After marching for another stretch—starting from nearly 8:00 AM until around 2:00 PM, taking nearly six hours to cover less than 500 meters—the slope began to steepen significantly. Zheng Dabao ordered a halt and divided the seventeen people into four groups. He formed one group with Wang Qian and two bodyguards; Zhang Can, Su Xue, one bodyguard, and one of his subordinates made up the second group; and his remaining four subordinates were split into two groups, each leading two of Wang Qian's bodyguards, making three in one group and two in the other. Zhu Senlin was placed in the group of three because of his heavy build—if something went wrong, having an extra person might help stabilize the situation. From this point onward, they had to start using mountaineering equipment and safety ropes. In this regard, Zheng Dabao's five subordinates were far more competent and experienced than Wang Qian's soldier-bodyguards. While their raw combat skills might not match the soldiers', their snow-climbing experience gave them a distinct advantage.

As soon as Zheng Dabao finished giving his orders, he and his subordinates produced safety ropes. Every member of each group was tethered to the same rope. The person walking at the front had to be the most experienced, as they bore the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the entire group, fixing the safety rope securely with every step. If they or anyone behind them slipped and tumbled, safety depended entirely on those anchors.

Zhang Can began to feel nervous. In the past, he had only ever seen situations like this in movies. To be honest, he suffered from acrophobia. When he used to watch Sylvester Stallone's movie *Cliffhanger* and saw those insane mountain climbs, his head would start spinning. A drop of thousands of feet—even watching it on screen and knowing it was fake still filled him with terror. But now he was actually facing such a scenario; how could he not be afraid?

Su Xue had far more experience than Zhang Can and possessed much stronger nerves, so she took the position directly in front of him, letting Zhang Can follow right behind her. Two of Zheng Dabao's subordinates were far ahead, nearly ten meters away from her and Zhang Can.

Clueless about mountaineering, Zhang Can watched as Su Xue checked his safety harness several times to ensure everything was correct before letting him follow. Looking ahead, the slope had tilted to an angle scarcely better than ninety degrees; in some places, it even exceeded ninety degrees. Seeing the people climbing ahead of him made his eyes swim with dizziness. If they climbed up like this, wouldn't they have to endure this terrifying ordeal all over again on the way back?

Su Xue comforted him in a low voice so others wouldn't hear, still trying to protect Zhang Can's pride: "Don't be afraid. The people in front have already secured the safety ropes; there's no danger. Just follow right behind me!"

She herself showed not a shred of stage fright; the more perilous the scenery, the more it seemed to ignite her excitement.

Zhang Can glanced over at Zhu Senlin in the other group. That plump fellow was positioned third in his line and was actually handling it better than Zhang Can, his steps somewhat clumsy but entirely devoid of panic.