"Woof! Woof!"
A sharp, urgent bark pierced the quiet mountains.
Jiang Hai and the others immediately jerked the steering wheel and accelerated toward the sound. Branches scraped the sides of the vehicles as they rushed through the rough terrain.
Soon, a collapsed cave came into view.
"This is it!"
Hua Lisi–Shelley excitedly raised the GPS in her hand, pointing at the blinking coordinates. "The signal matches. This is the place!"
The others couldn't help but smile.
This was already the third full day since they had entered the wilderness. If they didn't count the first night they'd slept, today was technically the fourth day.
After days of searching, they had only been able to narrow the target down to a ten-kilometer radius—more than 300 square kilometers of land.
Finding one abandoned mine in that vast area was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Even with modern tech, drones, and satellite positioning—Hua Lisi had even hacked into satellite feeds—it had still taken three days.
And in the end…
It was Jiang Hai's two dogs that found it first.
As the vehicles stopped, Xiao Huang and Xiao Bai appeared at the cave entrance, barking anxiously.
Their posture immediately put Jiang Hai on alert.
Something was inside.
He gestured for silence. Everyone grabbed their weapons and stepped out carefully.
Jiang Hai approached the cave first.
What he saw surprised him.
It wasn't an enemy.
It was a bear cub.
Small, fluffy, and clearly less than a year old, it looked almost round, sitting there trembling. Honestly… it was pretty cute.
Jiang Hai stared at it thoughtfully.
His first instinct wasn't "how adorable."
It was: Would this be enough for a meal?
"This is a North American grizzly cub. A protected animal," Qi Jie said dryly, shooting him a look. "Have some decency."
Jiang Hai coughed awkwardly.
Grizzlies were technically brown bears with grayish fur. In the Sierra Nevada, they weren't rare—second only to black bears, at least according to official statistics.
Though along the way, this was the first one they'd actually seen.
"I wonder why it's alone," Qi Jie muttered. "A cub this size should be with its mother…"
Before she finished—
ROAR!
A deep, furious bear roar echoed from the distance.
Everyone turned.
An adult grizzly stood far away on a slope, howling anxiously. Clearly the mother.
She didn't charge.
Perhaps she had encountered humans before and knew better. Facing so many armed people, she only paced nervously, roaring.
The cub cried back.
Mother and child calling to each other.
Seeing this, Jiang Hai sighed.
He wasn't in the mood to kill unnecessarily.
He motioned for Xiao Huang and Xiao Bai to move aside and cleared a path.
The cub hesitated for a moment… then dashed out of the cave.
No one stopped it.
It sprinted straight toward its mother.
After confirming her cub was safe, the mother bear glanced warily at Jiang Hai's group before quickly retreating with the little one.
They understood.
These humans had spared them.
They shouldn't linger.
Watching them disappear, Jiang Hai and the others lowered their guns.
"Bring the cars over and block the entrance," Jiang Hai said calmly. "You stay outside. Belyak, Relis, and I will go in and check."
The women nodded.
Hua Lisi–Shelley and Qi Jie repositioned the vehicles to cover the cave entrance.
Meanwhile, Jiang Hai's team geared up—rifles, headlamps, masks, tools—and entered the cave.
The cave wasn't deep at first.
After five or six meters, they hit a wall of rubble.
Time to work.
Stone might weather, but it doesn't grow back.
Jiang Hai grabbed a pickaxe and quickly cleared the debris. Before long, a narrow opening appeared—just big enough for one person.
It had once been sealed with wooden planks.
Now they were rotten.
He ripped them down violently.
Pitch darkness waited inside.
Jiang Hai lit a flare and tossed it in.
Red light flooded the passage.
An abandoned mine.
Instantly, insects scattered everywhere. Walls, floor, ceiling—spiders, beetles, centipedes.
Spiderwebs hung thick like curtains.
"This isn't the movies," Jiang Hai muttered. "Poisonous insects and snakes kill more people than lions or tigers."
Relis understood immediately.
She stepped forward, pulled out a small cylindrical launcher, loaded a round, and fired.
Bang!
A ball exploded midair, releasing thick yellow powder that filled the passage.
Insect repellent gas.
Everyone already wore masks. Safety came first.
The insects panicked and rushed for the exit—only to be stopped by the flames Jiang Hai had set at the entrance.
After several minutes, the movement finally died down.
"Let's go."
Headlamp on. Rifle ready.
They moved forward carefully.
Twenty meters later, the tunnel opened into a large underground hall.
Relis and Belyak threw more flares.
Light spread.
What they saw made everyone fall silent.
Old wooden support beams. Rusted carts. Broken tools. A long-dead motor.
And bodies.
No—
Skeletons.
Clothes rotted to rags. Equipment scattered. Pickaxes still embedded in ribs.
These people hadn't died naturally.
They'd been killed.
Likely overseers or supervisors from decades ago.
Suddenly—
A huge centipede, nearly thirty centimeters long, crawled out of a skull's eye socket and slithered away.
"…Again," Jiang Hai said calmly.
Another repellent round.
Another purge.
Only when the insects were mostly gone did they step inside.
Beyond the hall was a proper mining shaft—wider and sloping downward.
The real entrance to the depths.
Jiang Hai took a slow breath.
"Stay sharp."
He stepped down first.
Relis followed, preparing equipment.
Belyak guarded the rear.
They descended carefully, step by step into the darkness.
Meanwhile—
On the distant plains outside—
Four off-road SUVs sped toward their location.
Azalina, who had been watching the perimeter, suddenly narrowed her eyes.
"Something's wrong."
She instantly recognized the threat.
"Vehicles incoming. Fast. Not ours."
"No hesitation—fall back into the cave!"
She and Aler-Sara rushed to the cars, pulled the keys, grabbed their prepared bags—guns, ammo, food—then sprinted inside.
The ambush was coming.
(To be continued.)