7: The faint light under the night sky

The plane landed at Xianyang International Airport.

The moment the cabin door opened, a gust of dry air, mingled with the scent of loess and the frost of a thousand years of history, hit them like a physical force.

Lin Feng and Wang Dalong didn't waste a single second in the bustling city of Xian.

The two headed straight for a car rental agency and picked up a black, rugged off-road vehicle they had reserved in advance. Entrenching shovels, climbing ropes, high-precision GPS, compressed food, first-aid kits... all sorts of professional gear packed the trunk and back seats to the brim.

"Vroom—"

With the low roar of the engine, the off-road vehicle accelerated, kicking up a cloud of dust as it shot like an arrow toward Zhouzhi County at the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains.

"Hey, fam! Everyone, look here!"

After entering the mountains, Wang Dalong immediately launched the drone. While skillfully controlling the camera movements, he shouted excitedly into the microphone on his chest, "See that? The majestic Great Qinling Mountains! We've already entered the mountains! Look at these mountains, so green! Look at this sky, so blue! I feel like my soul is being cleansed! Hit the like button on the left for Fat Brother, and keep those small gifts coming on the right! Let's go!"

Under the drone's lens, the Qinling mountain range looked like a dark green dragon that had been dormant for ages. The peaks overlapped, and the dragon's back rose and fell, stretching boundlessly into the distance.

The live stream's chat section exploded instantly.

"Holy crap! These visuals are top-tier! It's like a National Geographic documentary!"

"Fat Brother is the GOAT! This is real outdoor adventure! It's ten thousand times better than those streamers pretending to camp in scenic areas!"

Lin Feng had zero interest in the breathtakingly magnificent scenery on the screen.

His eyes were fixed on the military-grade map spread across his lap, and he glanced occasionally at the jolting GPS locator beside him. His pupils reflected the constantly changing terrain contours as his brain worked rapidly, comparing the actual mountain trends with the vague descriptions in ancient texts.

"Fatty, focus on driving." He didn't look up, his voice steady. "Turn left at the fork ahead and follow that dirt road until it ends."

The off-road vehicle bumped along the mountain road filled with gravel and potholes, the dust kicked up by the wheels blotting out the sun. Finally, it came to an unwilling halt at the end of a dirt road completely blocked by waist-high bushes and fallen trees.

"Alright, this is as far as we go. Get out, we're hiking from here."

Lin Feng was the first to push open the car door and jump out, his movements crisp and efficient. He dragged a heavy-duty hiking pack, nearly as large as his upper body, from the back seat and swung it easily onto his back, his expression as stern as a block of granite.

It wasn't until they actually stepped into this primeval forest that Wang Dalong personally experienced the terrifying weight behind Su Shi's airy phrase, "Returning to the mountains and marshes."

This damn place didn't have a path at all!

Bushes taller than a man grew wildly, and vines were as intertwined as snakes, completely sealing off any possible path. With every step forward, they had to use trekking poles to forcefully push aside the branches and leaves, then squeeze through sideways. Their cheeks and arms were soon covered in fine, bloody scratches.

Beneath their feet were invisible tree roots and slippery moss. The streams in the valley looked crystal clear, but the stones underwater were covered in a sickeningly slimy green moss. After walking for less than an hour, Wang Dalong had already taken two hard falls on his backside, leaving him soaked and in a sorry state.

"Damn... Brother Feng, are you a freaking donkey? Wait for me!" Wang Dalong rested his hands on his knees, his chest heaving violently as he panted like a broken bellows. "This... this godforsaken place, how did people two thousand years ago transport a hundred and seventy tons of gold in here? Did they... did they fly it in? Or did Wang Mang know magic?"

The viewers in the live stream watched the two on screen, especially Wang Dalong's "about to die on the spot" look, and the chat scrolled rapidly.

"Hahaha, I feel bad for Fat Brother for three seconds. He looks completely drained, his face is so pale."

"This is hardcore exploration! It looks exhausting; my legs feel weak just watching through the screen!"

"Brother Feng is too beastly, isn't he? Carrying such a huge pack and not even out of breath, it's like he's strolling in his own backyard."

"To be honest, can they really find it? Isn't this just looking for a needle in a haystack? I feel like the chances are slim."

The "Beginner Treasure Detection" ability within Lin Feng seemed to have completely failed.

For the entire day, the system gave no prompts.

His field of vision was so clean that there wasn't even a hint of a halo.

He could only rely on himself. He relied on the only possible route he had painstakingly devised before setting out, based on those ancient geography books and high-precision topographic maps—following the main riverbed of Heishui Valley upstream.

After a full day, they had barely advanced ten kilometers in a straight line on the map. Yet their physical strength had been completely drained by this unreasonable primeval forest.

As night fell, the temperature in the forest plummeted, as if it had switched from midsummer to late autumn in an instant. They found a relatively flat and dry clearing by a babbling brook and began to set up camp.

With a "thud," Wang Dalong dropped his hiking pack on the ground and sprawled out completely on the moisture-proof mat in a "star" shape, not wanting to move a single finger.

He said weakly, "Brother Feng... I mean... is there a possibility that... we're wrong?"

"It's been two thousand years; things change. Even if Wang Mang's confidant really left some mark, let alone a heavy rain, a strong wind would have blown it away, right? Searching like this, isn't it a bit... too idealistic?"

Lin Feng didn't say anything. He silently unscrewed his canteen and took a large gulp of ice-cold stream water, letting the chill rush from his throat to the top of his head to forcefully dispel his physical exhaustion. His gaze swept across the surroundings. The outlines of the mountains had already been swallowed by the thick night, leaving only menacing black silhouettes like ancient beasts lurking in the darkness.

He was wavering too.

The Qinling Mountains were too vast.

So vast that for the first time, he felt a strong doubt about the conclusions he had deduced from the piles of old historical documents.

What was the difference between searching aimlessly like this and a fool's dream?

After haphazardly munching on a few bites of cold compressed biscuits and rock-hard beef jerky, Wang Dalong crawled into the tent. Within three minutes, thunderous snoring echoed through the silent valley, even startling a few nocturnal birds in the woods.

Lin Feng, however, had no desire to sleep.

He sat cross-legged at the tent entrance, opened the ventilation window, and silently gazed at the pitch-black mountains outside and the scattered cold stars dotting them.

An unprecedented sense of frustration surged into his heart like a tide.

He even began to reflect on whether he had been blinded by the system's existence, becoming overconfident or even arrogant.

That PhD named Jiang Wanqing—her warning email, phrased officially yet with every word hitting home, echoed in his mind now.

"The Qinling mountain range has a complex ecology and varied geology..."

"There are many unopened and unexplored areas. Entering them rashly poses a significant risk to personal safety..."

Perhaps she was right. A professional with rigorous scientific training—her judgment was much more reliable than the deductions of a half-baked history enthusiast like himself.

Perhaps he should admit defeat tomorrow morning, wake up Fatty, and head back the way they came.

Just as the strength he was holding onto was about to give way completely, and he was sinking into the abyss of self-denial—

His pupils suddenly constricted!

At the edge of his vision, deep within that endless darkness, on the mountainside of a very distant valley—

An extremely faint, almost negligible golden point of light, like a candle in the wind, flickered gently!

Just once!

The light was so faint that it was almost indistinguishable from starlight. If he hadn't been staring fixedly in that direction, if he had blinked even slightly, he definitely would have thought it was an illusion caused by his extreme exhaustion.

But at that moment, Lin Feng's heart was seized by an invisible hand and began to beat frantically! Like a war drum!

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

It was the system!

It was the visual effect of Treasure Detection!

Although it was only a fleeting flash, so weak it seemed it might go out at any moment, he was absolutely certain. He would never mistake that unique golden halo, which contained a certain power of rules!

The target... was in that direction!

"Whew—"

Lin Feng took a sharp breath and grabbed the nearby GPS and military-grade night vision binoculars. His hands even trembled slightly from intense excitement.

He forced himself to close his eyes and took three deep breaths, commanding himself to calm down.

When he opened his eyes again, the wild joy had faded, leaving only wolf-like calmness and focus.

He raised the binoculars and, comparing the data on the GPS screen, carefully calculated the approximate bearing and straight-line distance where the light point had just appeared.

"Bearing, 35 degrees southeast. Straight-line distance, approximately five kilometers."

But those five kilometers on the map were separated by a bottomless canyon and two primeval forests where no human had ever set foot. The actual distance they would need to trek would be at least double that, if not more!

Lin Feng forcibly suppressed the urge to rush into the tent, kick Fatty awake, and set off immediately through the night.

He knew very well that the forest at night was a hunting ground for wild beasts and a kingdom of venomous snakes. Rashly crossing it without full preparation was equivalent to offering one's neck to the Grim Reaper's scythe.

He slowly lay back in his sleeping bag and closed his eyes, but his brain was working at an unprecedented speed. Over and over, he constructed a 3D topographic map in his mind, deducing tomorrow's route, planning every possible rest point, water supply point, and all potential risks.

The bone-deep exhaustion, the suffocating doubt, and the confusion that had almost swallowed him earlier were all completely dispelled and burned away by that fleeting shimmer!

He couldn't even help but let out a low chuckle in the darkness.

Wang Dalong seemed to be disturbed in his sleep; he rolled over, smacked his lips, and mumbled indistinctly, "Don't steal my chicken leg..."

Lin Feng stared at the pitch-black roof of the tent, his eyes shining startlingly bright in the darkness.

So the system hadn't failed.

It was just because the target was buried too deep and was too far away, causing the signal to attenuate to the extreme.

But now, he had captured this signal from two thousand years ago.

That earth-shattering secret, dormant for two thousand years, was in that dark valley far away, quietly... waiting for him to uncover it personally.