The Back Mountain

Ant Ridge. Lu Zhao walked along the mountain path as usual, accompanied by his little sidekick and laborer, Liu Qiang. "I'm planning to head over to the back mountain." "What are you going to the back mountain for?" Liu Qiang paused, puzzled by Lu Zhao's decision. "Our station hasn't swept the back mountain of Ant Ridge in two years. Going in there means running into demon beasts for sure, maybe even large ones." By routine, the border defense station used helicopters each year to conduct low-altitude reconnaissance and sweep the back mountain area of Ant Ridge. But starting two years ago, that had dwindled to a helicopter simply going through the motions on a single flyby before returning. "I'm a bit strapped for cash lately," Lu Zhao said. His reason for entering the back mountain was straightforward: kill a demon beast to solve his pressing financial trouble. The border defense station offered extra bounties for killing demon beasts, with rewards scaled by size and species. Furthermore, demon beast flesh and blood could be used to manufacture life supplements, so the authorities supported hunting them—especially in areas like Ant Ridge, where their numbers were small yet could not be left unattended. Normally, Lu Zhao wasn't short on money and had no need to take such risks. But right now, he was flat broke. Lu Zhao had to drink two and a half bottles of low-grade life supplement a day, and Lang Tequ cost five hundred yuan a bottle. On top of that, his mother was sickly and frail; even after deducting government subsidies, her hospital stays still cost tens of thousands of yuan each year. Lu Zhao also had to shoulder his niece's school expenses, which included the costs of life-force development. Even with martyr subsidies, that still required around a hundred thousand yuan extra each year. These were all unavoidable expenses for Lu Zhao. His education and divine power had been secured through the sacrifices of his father and elder brother. There was no way he could borrow all of that from Zhang Like, and letting compound interest pile up on loans was completely out of the question. "You don't have to come in with me. Just don't report it to the station. I'd rather not deal with the hassle of writing an explanatory report when we get back." Lu Zhao could see Liu Qiang's fear, which was only natural. Liu Qiang hesitated at his words. "Brother Lu, going in alone is way too dangerous. And what if you run into trouble while hauling the carcass out by yourself?" "If you're brave enough to come with me, all you have to do is haul the carcass, and I'll give you thirty percent." With Lu Zhao offering a cut, Liu Qiang gritted his teeth and agreed. It wasn't entirely for the money; personal loyalty played a part as well. What if Lu Zhao really got ambushed while carrying a carcass? Hunting demon beasts was part of border defense duties, but unless orders came from above, nobody was eager to risk their life for ten thousand yuan or so. In the entire border defense station, only Lu Zhao possessed the skill and nerve to pull it off; the rest wished they never had to go out on patrol at all. At noon, the two reached the ridge's peak, then followed a faint path into the dense forest of the back mountain. The towering tree canopies blotted out the sky. Rotting leaves and decaying wood covered the ground, crisscrossed by countless streams and hidden gullies. Who knew how many pairs of eyes watched them from the shadows. Lu Zhao extended his psychic power outward. While it couldn't replace sight, it allowed him to instantly detect any major disturbance within a thousand meters, the rustle of grass within a hundred meters, and even the sound of breathing within fifty meters. *Bang!* Gunfire echoed through the mountain forest. A mountain leopard with horns sprouting from its head collapsed into the underbrush. Beside him, Liu Qiang gasped in amazement. "Brother Lu, your marksmanship is getting sharper and sharper." Lu Zhao looked at him in surprise. "You can tell?" Liu Qiang nodded. "In the past, you rarely took shots at targets over eight hundred meters away, Brother Lu. Today, the moment you spotted it, you raised your gun and fired." Lu Zhao had many quirks—such as only sleeping on a hard plank bed, keeping his room almost bare of extra belongings, frequent insomnia, and severe obsessive-compulsive habits. He had formulaic movements for targets at different distances; having shadowed him for a year, Liu Qiang could naturally detect subtle variations. "With observation skills like that, you could go work in public security in the city." Lu Zhao used his binoculars to observe the distance, confirming that the demon beast had breathed its last before leading Liu Qiang closer. Ten paces away, he fired a follow-up shot just to be entirely sure. Although his marksmanship was accurate enough to shatter vital organs in a single shot, there was no telling whether the target possessed some special ability. Lu Zhao preferred headshots because heads were exceptionally difficult to modify through divine powers; at most, someone might coat their head in a layer of rock, like that fugitive a few days back. Liu Qiang dragged the black leopard's carcass onto level ground, visually estimating its size, which met the standard for a medium demon beast. "Brother Lu, that's ten thousand yuan in the bag." "That's enough for today. Let's pull back." One of the perks of being border police was the hunting rights to demon beasts, but there was no need to rush things. The two retraced their steps. The scent of blood soon drew another demon beast, which Lu Zhao casually put down with a single bullet. This one was a small feline beast, worth only about a thousand yuan. Suddenly, Lu Zhao spotted a beverage can half-buried in the undergrowth. Picking it up, he saw the production date was from six months ago. Lu Zhao and Liu Qiang exchanged a look, their expressions turning solemn. *** The back mountain was a restricted zone; approaching it was explicitly forbidden for anyone. Entering without authorization would be treated as attempted smuggling if caught, and if there was evidence of actual smuggling, handled as smuggling. Under the Federation's current economic conditions, there was virtually no need to live off the mountains. The Nanhai East Circuit region provided plenty of free labor to churn out cheap industrial goods for them; nobody had any reason to plunge into deep, old-growth forests for fun, especially in a border region. That left only one explanation: smuggling. Liu Qiang guessed, "Has someone been smuggling through here over the past six months, or sneaking across the border?" "Border-crossers wouldn't come through here. Cangwu City has a much more established and safer industry for that." Lu Zhao hacked through the brush. After a hundred meters, a faint path finally emerged, leading outside the mountains on one end and deeper inside on the other. Judging from the tracks on the ground and how compacted the dirt was, the trail had clearly been walked many times over an extended period. It could have been six months, a year, or perhaps even started three years ago. Smuggling had always defied prohibition, and with superhuman forces like divine powers involved, routine patrols were useless. A place like Ant Ridge had no Great Wall; dense forests and hidden gullies were everywhere, making entry easy for anyone determined enough. It had been the same during the Cataclysm, when tens of millions of refugees surged in from all directions and the Federation simply could not hold them back. Lu Zhao had read records of a smuggler with an earth-burrowing divine power who moved more than a dozen tons of narcotics across the border in a single year. Yet superhumans weren't a dime a dozen. The vast majority of smuggling relied on treacherous mountain terrain and slipped across under cover of night. The trail before them did not look like the work of superhumans, nor had it been used just once or twice. It might simply have been an oversight, but if someone reported it, the liability would be enormous. If a major smuggling case broke out in Ant Ridge, the primary responsible party would be the border defense station, and the primary person accountable would be Zhang Like. Lu Zhao immediately instructed, "Liu Qiang, once we get out of here, don't tell a soul about this trail." "Huh? That's not good, is it? A smuggling route is major criminal evidence. If we conceal it and don't report it, we'll face disciplinary action—or even prison time if it's serious." Liu Qiang shook his head repeatedly; he still had basic common sense. Lu Zhao reminded him, "If this blows open directly, your uncle is the primary person responsible. When the time comes, he could end up behind bars, or at least stripped of his post." Hearing that, Liu Qiang slowly processed the implications, his face draining of color. After weighing the stakes, he gritted his teeth. "Brother Lu, I'll do whatever you say." He had little initiative of his own; right after graduation, Zhang Like had arranged for him to enter the border defense station, where he had ended up following Lu Zhao. Even when it came to risking complicity in a cover-up, as timid as Liu Qiang was, he would still do it—because you had to stand with your own people. Lu Zhao comforted him, "Don't be nervous. That's just the worst-case scenario. And I definitely will report this place, but we need to coordinate with Old Zhang first and figure out a strategy before we do." He knew Zhang Like's character; the man would never collude with or tolerate smuggling. Furthermore, the border defense station's long-standing failure to monitor the back mountain hadn't been Zhang Like's order, but an established routine. Yet certain aspects of it were thought-provoking. Had the routine created the smuggling route, or had the smuggling created the routine?