Chapter 2: A Landslide Foretold; the Whole Team Saved

Lu Chen pulled open the car door as rainwater streamed down his temple and soaked his collar. Fatty Zhao was propped up with his legs crossed, gnawing on a pig's trotter, his greasy fingers slathered in sauce. Seeing Lu Chen covered in sweat and pale as a ghost, Fatty Zhao was so startled he nearly jammed the bone straight down his throat, breaking into a fit of violent coughing.

Fatty Zhao wiped his mouth, tossed the bone into the trash bag by his feet, and muttered, "Chen-ge, what's the big rush? Director Lin's got his eyes on us right now. Running around like this is just asking for a major disaster."

Lu Chen didn't answer. His fingers flew across the center console, his fingertips practically digging into the chilling screen. Following a flurry of rapid taps, the holographic projection automatically expanded, spitting out a string of coordinates.

Lu Chen stared at the screen, his eyeballs shot with red, his voice terrifyingly low: "Sector 7 Fault, 32 degrees north latitude, 117 degrees east longitude. Move out now."

Fatty Zhao froze for a second, looked at that string of red coordinates, then cursed up a storm as he grabbed the keys and kicked the door open.

Fatty Zhao muttered, "Fine, a madman's a madman. At least it's your own life on the line."

The convoy roared into the wilderness, tires grinding over gravel with a harsh screech. The trees on either side of the road flashed past the windows, blurring into shadowy streaks as if desperate to shake off this suffocating, heavy atmosphere.

Lu Chen's gaze was locked dead onto the deduction scope. That bright red warning line cut across the shadows of the mountain ahead like a pulsing vein, swaying slightly with the vehicle's jolts, every single pulse feeling like a countdown.

Catching sight of Lu Chen's pale face in the rearview mirror, Fatty Zhao felt a creepy shiver run down his spine, rubbing the goosebumps on his arms involuntarily.

Fatty Zhao probed cautiously, "Chen-ge, that ghost town doesn't even have a road, it's all landslide zones. Are we heading out there to get ourselves killed?"

Lu Chen's voice was hoarse, as if his mouth were full of gravel: "Eight minutes left."

Fatty Zhao swallowed hard, his initial hesitation hardening into resolve. He slammed his foot all the way down on the accelerator. The engine's roar drowned out the howling wind, and the vehicle shook violently like a beast charging through the mountain forest.

When they arrived at the site, the sky was a terrifying, oppressive slate grey. Heavy clouds pressed down, and the rain fell in sheets.

A geological survey team had been trapped by the sudden downpour in a low-lying valley. The mud churned like a living creature, black and viscous, frantically swallowing up tires and scaffolding with bone-grinding crunches of rupture.

Fatty Zhao rolled down his window, looking at the wretched crowd in the distance with utter disgust as the rain instantly soaked half his body.

Fatty Zhao complained, "I said from the start those bumpkins were useless. Not only do they drag us down, but they ruin the big picture. Who the hell dares to do field work in this kind of weather? Pure suicide."

Lu Chen leaped out of the car, the muddy water instantly splashing up his trouser legs with a bone-chilling cold. Without a moment's hesitation, he strode straight toward the trapped team, every step landing solid and powerful.

Shen Wanqiu stood on a slightly higher outcrop, watching the scene with cold detachment. Rain dripped from the ends of her hair as she pushed up her glasses, her gaze as sharp as a knife, sizing up this audacious man.

Shen Wanqiu said indifferently, "Mr. Lu, your data model cannot self-justify in real-world terrain. The soil saturation here is already at its limit; any movement is just suicide."

Lu Chen didn't look back, his eyes half-closed. Under his perspective vision, the cracks deep within the rock strata were expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye. Streams of data refreshed frantically in his mind, and the red warning tier kept climbing.

Lu Chen let out a cold laugh, his voice cutting through the rain: "Your model is too idealized, Professor Shen. Mother Nature never plays by the textbook."

Shen Wanqiu frowned tightly, clearly provoked by his retort, though a flicker of unreadable shock flashed deep in her eyes as she gripped her clipboard even harder.

Lu Chen opened his eyes. Data streams scrolled wildly across his pupils before finally locking onto the simulation map.

He calculated that the mudslide would completely erupt within three minutes, swallowing the entire camp.

He forcibly seized command of the site, his voice piercing the rain—cold, resolute, and carrying an unquestionable majesty.

Lu Chen barked, "Everyone, abandon the left-hand tents immediately and fall back to the exposed rock shelf on the right! Form up within thirty seconds!"

A wave of dissent instantly peaked. Old Captain's face was battered by wind and rain, mud caked on his eyebrows, his eyes filled with disbelief. The surrounding crew members also stopped what they were doing, panic written across their faces.

Old Captain stammered, "Mr. Lu, that's a sheer cliff on the right! One step down and it's an abyss! What the hell are you talking about?"

Lu Chen's gaze was sharp and absolute: "Trust me. It's the only way out."

Without waiting for more pushback, he turned and sprinted toward a few crew members who had gone limp from panic. Rain lashed against his face, but he seemed entirely numb to the cold.

One young crew member rolled his eyes and passed out cold, his body slumping limply into the mud.

Without a second word, Lu Chen squatted down, hoisted the man onto his back, and plunged forward through the muck, one heavy, exhausting step after another, requiring sheer brute force just to pull his boots free.

Fatty Zhao jumped up and down in agitation nearby, cursing a blue streak as mud splattered his face.

Fatty Zhao roared, "You're out of your mind! You aren't going to make it carrying him!"

Gritting his teeth, Lu Chen tensed the muscles in his back, sweat mixing with the rainwater streaming down and dripping off his chin.

Lu Chen rasped, "Shut up and help me steady his head!"

Cursing all the while, Fatty Zhao lunged forward anyway, clumsily supporting the back of the crew member's head to keep him from getting banged around by the jolts, scrambling toward the right-hand rock wall alongside Lu Chen.

The very second they scrambled up onto the edge of the rock shelf, a deafening roar tore across the sky.

The once-calm valley collapsed in an instant. Black mud surged outward like a roaring flood, swallowing the former campsite in the blink of an eye. Tents, instruments, vehicles—everything vanished in a fraction of a second.

The sheer destructive force made even the air feel frozen. The mud threw up waves a full two meters high, slamming into the rocks with a dull, heavy thud.

Fatty Zhao slumped down onto a rock, staring at the patch of ground that had been a camp mere moments ago, shaking all over with chattering teeth.

Fatty Zhao stammered, "If... if we hadn't run just now, we'd all be buried in that."

Lu Chen set down the crew member on his back, panting heavily with his chest heaving. He didn't look back, merely staring in silence at the dead, muddy sea, his eyes hollow and profound.

The survivors, still shaken to their core, knelt on the slick rock face and looked up at Lu Chen.

Their expressions transitioned from contempt and confusion to a deep, profound awe and terror—as if looking at the Grim Reaper himself, yet one who had just pulled them back from the jaws of death.

Shedding her habitual haughtiness, Shen Wanqiu hurried over to Lu Chen with a grim expression as rainwater streamed down her cheeks.

Shen Wanqiu lowered her voice: "Lu Chen, the error rate on this predictive system is less than one in a thousand. Tell me, where's the data coming from?"

Lu Chen wiped the mud from his face, his gaze calm as he looked out toward the heavy, distant storm clouds.

Lu Chen answered briefly: "Intuition. Just remember the outcome."

Shen Wanqiu froze, the corners of her twitching slightly as if dissatisfied yet helpless before that answer, casting one long, deep look at him.

Fatty Zhao rubbed his hands together, his gaze turning eager as a calculating, ingratiating grin spread across his slick face.

He inched closer to Lu Chen, dropping his voice with an oily, fawning tone—even carrying a hint of sycophancy.

Fatty Zhao coaxed, "Chen-ge, from here on out, we're brothers who've stared death in the face. If you ever need funds to get things done, I’ve got channels. Grey money, whatever you need, no questions asked. I’ll make sure you never run dry."

Lu Chen shot him a look and gave a slight nod, a flicker of hard-won trust crossing his eyes.

Lu Chen said quietly, "Remember: only save the ones worth saving."

Fatty Zhao broke into a wide grin revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, then turned to calm the still-trembling crew members, muttering about money-making ventures as his voice faded into the distance.

Deep within the distant forest, a pair of aged eyes watched the whole scene unfold through a high-powered scope.

It was a figure in a grey windbreaker, standing amidst the mottled shadows of the trees. His notebook flipped rapidly as he recorded everything that had just transpired, the scratch of pen on paper ringing unusually clear through the rain.

Chen铁军's voice drifted on the wind, hoarse and deep.

Chen Tiejun muttered to himself, "Full-domain deduction... Interesting. Even faster than I anticipated."

He snapped his notebook shut, his figure vanishing into the woods like a ghost, leaving behind only a few withered, yellow leaves that drifted down to merge with the mud.

The rain eased up a fraction, and the valley fell back into a dead silence, broken only by the occasional plip of dripping water.

Soaked to the bone, Old Captain scrambled up onto the rock shelf, trembling as he approached Lu Chen, rainwater carving tiny rivulets down his frame.

He stared at Lu Chen's back, his voice trembling from fear and sheer shock, as if he had just witnessed some supernatural force.

Old Captain asked with a quiver, "Xiao Lu... Have you been to this terrain before?"

Lost in thought, Lu Chen gazed out into the deep mountains without answering. The distant peaks loomed hazily through the mist, looking both mysterious and perilous.

The mountain wind howled, whipping at the mud-splattered hem of his coat as if whispering secrets from the unfathomable depths below.

Without turning back, Lu Chen traced his fingertips along the chilling rim of the deduction scope, its pale blue aura spinning in the gathering dusk. He suddenly lowered his voice, pointing toward the deceptively solid layer of black rock below the shelf: "Don't trust your eyes. Thirty seconds from now, the groundwater's going to blow out the right fault line. The whole slope is going to slip."

The team had barely relaxed when an ear-splitting *crack* burst from beneath their boots.

The ground buckled like dough kneaded by a giant fist, letting out a dull, subterranean groan. Old Captain's pupils shrank to pinpricks. "Get down!" he roared.

Everyone hit the dirt. The exact spot they'd been standing on a second before collapsed, shards of rock raining down like hail as the earth churned to reveal a bottomless black maw. Had they hesitated for even one more second, they'd have been pulverized without a trace.

Lu Chen stood up, brushing the dust off his pants with the same deadpan expression, as if predicting a catastrophic landslide were nothing more than casually sweeping a piece off a game board. He pulled a yellowed piece of sheepskin from his pack and slowly smoothed it out over the wet stone. The topographic contours drawn on it matched the collapsed terrain around them down to the millimeter.

"This isn't a place I've been to," Lu Chen said softly, yet his words carried with bone-chilling clarity through the silent canyon. "It's the path *it* chose."

Old Captain stared at the map, his hand trembling as he pointed a finger toward the bronze badge pinned to Lu Chen's chest. Engraved on the back of the badge was an ancient seal script identical to the map's markings, casting an eerie, reddish glow in the sunlight.

"Captain Lu," Old Captain's throat bobbed, the wrinkles around his eyes bunching up as his voice cracked with despair, "how... how did this map end up on you?"

The wind picked up, snapping the parchment violently. One corner curled back, exposing a blood-red cinnabar seal on the reverse side—staring at every single one of them like an open eye.