58: Lost River and Guidance from the Stars

Below Eagle Head Rock, a bonfire blazed, its orange-red flames dispelling the oppressive darkness and stretching everyone's shadows long, making them dance strangely on the massive rock face.

The atmosphere at dinner was somewhat heavy. The appearance of the jaguar and the uncertainty of venturing deep into the heart of the Rainforest weighed heavily on everyone's minds. The seven auxiliary staff members sat together, conversing quietly in the local dialect, their eyes occasionally shifting towards Lin Feng and Wang Dalong with hidden, unfathomable emotions.

Wang Dalong had little appetite; he just poked the bonfire with a branch, sending sparks flying. He looked at the pitch-black Rainforest nearby, which, in his eyes, had transformed into a man-eating behemoth waiting for them to walk into its trap.

"Brother Feng, are we really going in?" he whispered. "This place is seriously creepy. I have a bad feeling about it."

Lin Feng was studying the replicated Explorer's Notebook carefully by the firelight. His fingertips traced the yellowed pages, which contained a sketch of Eagle Head Rock and a simple, hand-drawn map.

The starting point of the map was exactly Eagle Head Rock. A winding line extended inland, marked with simple topographical features: swamps, scree slopes, and giant forests. After about a day's travel, the map clearly showed a river that needed to be crossed.

"The notebook says that once we cross this river, we won't be far from El Dorado," Lin Feng said plainly, as if stating a foregone conclusion.

Juan walked over, squatted by the fire, took a piece of roasted meat from Carlos, and asked, "Which direction are we heading tomorrow?"

Lin Feng handed over the notebook, pointing to the route on the map.

Juan examined it carefully by the firelight, then looked up at the surrounding terrain, and shook his head. He pointed to the river on the map and spoke in broken Spanish, which Carlos translated for Lin Feng.

"There is no river here," Juan stated definitively. "I've hunted in this area since I was a child. Heading east from Eagle Head Rock, for at least three days, it's all dry land and hills. There's no river of this size at all."

Upon hearing this, a chill went straight to Wang Dalong's heart. "What? No river? Did they draw the wrong thing in the notebook? Or... is this thing fake?"

An absurd yet unavoidable thought surfaced. If this notebook, which they had spent so much effort on, was a hoax from the beginning, then their Amazon journey would be a colossal joke.

Lin Feng's brows furrowed. He trusted his judgment; the content of this notebook, especially the part about the Golden Mural, matched his "memory" perfectly. It couldn't be fake.

So where was the problem?

He took the notebook and examined the map again. It was drawn over a hundred years ago. A century is not a long time for geological changes, but in a region like the Amazon, with its extensive water system and drastic topographical shifts, it was entirely possible for a tributary to change course, dry up, or be covered by new alluvial plains.

"The river might have changed its course," Lin Feng stated his guess.

"Then how do we determine the direction?" Carlos posed the core problem. "Without the river as a guide, this map is useless. One wrong step in the Rainforest, and we might never get out."

Everyone fell silent. Juan, the guide, also frowned; a wrong directional judgment in the Rainforest was fatal.

Wang Dalong looked dejected, his eyes filled with helplessness as he looked at Lin Feng: "Brother Feng, what... what do we do? Is our great Amazon adventure going to end on the very first day, forcing us to pack up and go home?"

Lin Feng didn't answer. He closed his eyes, and his brain began to race.

The river was gone, but an explorer couldn't rely on just one reference point to determine a route. There must be another method, a detail he had overlooked.

He suddenly opened his eyes and took a document out of his backpack. It was a waterproof file bag containing various papers and literature he had printed before leaving. One of them was a scan he had purchased for a high price from a private collector, claimed to be the Explorer's Notebook of another early 20th-century adventurer, Reginald Phillips.

This Phillips also claimed to have found the route to El Dorado, but he and his team ultimately didn't return; only a portion of the notebook was discovered by later search and rescue teams.

Lin Feng had studied this notebook before and thought its value was inferior to the one he held, because Phillips's records were vague in crucial parts and even somewhat nonsensical. But now, it might offer a different perspective.

He quickly flipped through the scanned copy of Phillips's notebook; the handwriting was messy and frantic, full of strange symbols and exclamations.

Lin Feng's gaze fixed on one page.

There wasn't much text on that page, only a strange star chart. Several bright stars were connected by lines, forming an irregular quadrilateral, with some angle and bearing data marked nearby.

Below the star chart was a line of frantic annotation:

"The guidance of the day vanishes with the river, only the stars of the night remain eternal. orion's right foot, the brilliance of the Southern Cross, shall mark the initial three-day path for the lost."

orion! Southern Cross!

Lin Feng's heart jolted. This was the real landmark!

Rivers change course, and hills collapse, but the relative positions of the stars in the sky are nearly constant over a century. The explorer who left the core notebook used the ground river as a superficial distraction, while the true navigation information was hidden in another seemingly unrelated notebook—or perhaps both explorers possessed parts of the same core secret.

This was a double safeguard!

"I know how to proceed," Lin Feng looked up, his eyes shining astonishingly in the firelight.

He showed the star chart to everyone and explained, "We will follow the star chart. It marks the method for positioning and navigation using the Southern Hemisphere constellations. Based on the guidance of this star chart, we can determine our route for the next three days."

Juan and Carlos were both experienced jungle guides, and they immediately understood Lin Feng's meaning. Although they couldn't decipher the complex angle markings, they knew that in the days before GPS, celestial navigation was indeed the most reliable method for outdoor positioning.

"Can you be sure this is accurate?" Juan was still skeptical.

"I can't be sure," Lin Feng admitted frankly, "but it is our only option right now."

Juan scrutinized Lin Feng for a moment, finally nodding. He chose to trust this seemingly frail young man whose eyes shone with unwavering conviction.

With the problem solved, Wang Dalong immediately felt relieved, feeling like he could eat two more pieces of roasted meat. He leaned closer to Lin Feng and muttered, "Brother Feng, how does your brain even work? You brought a backup strategy guide for this trip?"

Lin Feng ignored him. He tidied up his documents and looked up at the night sky, fragmented by the tree canopy. There were few stars, but he could still see a few of the brightest ones. He knew that starting tomorrow, the real test would begin.

That subtle feeling of being watched grew clearer as they entered the jungle. He didn't even need to look back to feel that more than one pair of eyes was fixed on them from the darkness... Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, inside a brightly lit Command Center.

On a gigantic screen, the scene beside the bonfire beneath Eagle Head Rock was being broadcast in real-time. The perspective came directly from the pendant hanging on Juan's chest.

Lin Feng in the picture—studying the notebook with his head down, then looking up at the starry sky—every subtle expression was captured clearly by the high-definition camera.

A man in a black suit, his face hidden in shadow, was quietly watching the screen, holding a glass of red wine. Behind him stood a blonde, blue-eyed female assistant.

"Mr. Osiris, the target has resolved the navigation problem. They have switched to the backup plan, a star chart," the female assistant reported.

"Reginald's notebook... quite interesting," the man called Osiris said in a deep voice, imbued with an intoxicating charm. "I underestimated him. He is not merely a treasure Hunter; he is more like a puzzle solver. This is better; let him clear all the obstacles on the path for us."

"The Scorpion Squad is in position, less than five kilometers from the target. Should we intervene early?"

"No," Osiris shook his wine glass, the scarlet liquid tracing graceful arcs on the inner surface. "Let the prey run for a while; the game will be more interesting. Besides... the path to El Dorado isn't just populated by 'Hunters' like us. Let Lin Feng meet the Guardians. We only need to appear before him the moment he opens the gate and take what we desire."

He gazed at Lin Feng's young, determined face on the screen, a cruel curve appearing on his lips.

"Notify Scorpion to maintain distance and eliminate any 'flies' that might be following them. I don't want anyone else sharing my collection."

"Yes, sir."

Osiris put down his wine glass, his eyes growing profound. He didn't care about the gold; what he sought was the true secret hidden deep within El Dorado—the one capable of rewriting human history. And Lin Feng was the sharpest key in his hand, entirely unaware of his role.