"It's time to learn stealth techniques." Jin Shu had woken Su Bing up in the middle of the night.
"...uh, what?" Su Bing asked groggily.
"Get up; it's time to learn." Jin Shu urged her.
"What time is it? Why are you waking me up so early?" Su Bing continued asking.
"It's a little past midnight; now is the best time to train your stealth abilities. If you can achieve stealth while still half asleep, you can do it perfectly while fully awake." Jin Shu explained his reasoning. This was in no way scientific; it was just his own opinion.
"Follow me." Jin Shu commanded her.
Su Bing stood up, unsteady on her feet due to still being half asleep.
Jin Shu stopped in the woods a short distance from where they made camp. He handed Su Bing a bowl of some suspicious-looking black substance with bits of what looked like crushed leaves. "Put this on your face." He said as he placed his hands in the bowl and rubbed the substance on his own face, it caused his face to become black with some hints of brown and green.
"Ugh... what is this?" Su Bing asked with a hint of disgust as she looked at the suspicious substance.
"It is part of your first stealth lesson, camouflage." Jin Shu answered.
Su Bing hesitated before placing her hand into the bowl. "...ew!" She recoiled when she felt the wet and sticky substance touch her fingers.
"Do I really have to put this on my face?" She asked suspiciously.
"Do you want to learn, or not?" Jin Shu countered.
"Uh, I want to learn, but do I need to put this icky stuff on my face to become stealthy? Can't I just wear my veil to cover my face?" Su Bing asked doubtfully.
"You could wear a mask or veil. However, this is part of the lesson." Jin Shu told her truthfully.
"Uuh... fine." Su Bing agreed after a long bout of hesitation.
"Ew! Ugh! What is this stuff? Why is it so sticky?" She asked as she reluctantly put the strange sticky substance on her face.
"It's a mixture of tree sap, dry leaves, fresh leaves, and mud. It serves as a surprisingly effective camouflage." Jin Shu specified each ingredient in the suspicious substance.
"Eww! Give me some water! I need to wash this off now! Ewewew!" Su Bing tried rubbing the muddy concoction off her face, but that only served to spread it more.
"Stop screwing around. I need to show you the next lesson in your training." Jin Shu ignored her panicking.
"Jin Shu, please give me some water to wash this muddy shit off my face!" Su Bing was so flustered trying to get the muddy substance off her face that she swore.
Jin Shu stood stock-still, frozen in shock after hearing Su Bing curse for the first time since he met her. "Uh... j- Just put up with it for tonight; just water won't wash it all off; you'll need a hot bath with some soap to wash it off." He stammered, still slightly shocked.
"Ugh! Are you serious!?" Su Bing asked frantically.
"Enough worrying about the face paint; we need to move on to the next part of the lesson before the sun rises." Jin Shu said offhandedly.
"Uuu! Okay, fine!" Su Bing said reluctantly.
"The next part of the lesson is: effectively using camouflage. To use camo to its fullest effect, you must match your camo to your surroundings. For example, the face paint I gave you was made up of ingredients found in this forest, so it mimics the surroundings perfectly. Another way to use camo effectively is to cover your entire body in a camo. Either by rubbing dirt on your clothes to dull their colors if they are too bright or dressing in clothes that match the color scheme of the environment." Jin Shu explained the concept of using camouflage to blend into the environment.
"Close your eyes for thirty seconds, then look around and try to find me." Jin Shu instructed Su Bing.
"...Okay." Su Bing said in a depressed tone, likely still upset about the mud currently stuck to her face.
---
Su Bing waited thirty seconds with her eyes closed before looking around. She couldn't find Jin Shu after a full minute, so she called out to him while thinking that he must have lied and gone further away than she could see. "Jin Shu! Where are you?"
"I'm right here." Came a reply from eight feet away. Jin Shu was hiding with his eyes closed, standing half way behind a tree and a bush.
"Eek!" Su Bing shrieked in surprise from hearing a voice suddenly sound from so close.
"This is how you use camo effectively, by using the environment and blending in with it." Jin Shu said as he walked back to Su Bing.
"Now you try to hide from me," Jin Shu said while closing his eyes and blocking his ears. He didn't tell Su Bing to block her ears earlier because he can move quietly, while she cannot.
---
Jin Shu opened his eyes after waiting sixty seconds; he waited longer to give Su Bing extra time to hide. He looked around for about ten seconds, which was actually a little longer than he thought it would take, than he pointed at a tree twenty feet away. "I can see your eyes and robes moving in the wind; also, I can hear your erratic breathing from all the way over here. Come back, and I'll explain more."
"You didn't tell me how to hide." She complained when she arrived in front of Jin Shu.
"I demonstrated for you." He said matter-of-factly.
"Uh... I was busy screaming," she whispered.
"Let's go over the mistakes you made when you tried to hide. The first mistake was that you tried to hide too far away, so you rushed, thinking you only had thirty seconds. The second was keeping your eyes open when facing in the direction of the moon; this caused your eyes to become highly visible due to the moonlight shining on them. You should close your eyes when hiding, even if you aren't facing the moon, as the eyes are hard to camouflage. The last mistake was hiding in the open with the wind blowing; although you were hiding behind a tree, you didn't account for your robe blowing in the wind. You should always be mindful of the environment you find yourself in and to yourself and how you interact with that environment. With that said, you did alright for your first time hiding." Jin Shu made it clear how she made her mistakes and how to avoid doing the same in the future.
"You can practice your camouflage skills later; for now, let's move on to the next lesson. Moving silently. The first thing to know about moving silently is that it is impossible to move completely silently. At least as far as I know, I've heard there are movement techniques in this world that may be able to allow you to become silent when moving; however, I do not know any type of movement technique, so I'll be teaching you how to move quietly through your environment." Jin Shu started the next lesson.
"To move quietly through the environment depends heavily on what that environment consists of; for example, here in the woods there are sticks and dry leaves, among other random bits of nature, like tree roots, bushes, and low hanging branches. To move quietly through the woods, or really any location, you must be constantly aware of your surroundings. You also have to know how to step lightly; to do so, you need to start by lowering your center of gravity, pick your feet up with the toes pointed downwards, and lightly place your foot back down toes first. Lastly, you need to be patient; to move quietly, you need to move slowly while being aware of your surroundings. Every movement you take should be followed by a chance to assess the environment; you can also use sounds present in the environment to mask the sounds of your movements." Jin Shu explained and demonstrated how to move properly.
"This is how you should move through the woods efficiently." Jin Shu moved through the forest as if he were floating, appearing for a moment briefly and disappearing in the next.
"Did you understand all of that?" Jin Shu's voice came from behind Su Bing, causing her to spin around sharply, looking behind herself in surprise.
"How are you here? I swear I can still see you over there." Su Bing pointed to a tree in the distance that looked like it had a figure standing next to it.
"That is the next lesson. Using decoys and distractions. What you see over there is a decoy I created using a spare robe that I hung on a stick. Using decoys and distractions isn't difficult to do; however, it can be hard to master. Let's break this into multiple parts so it's easier to understand. We'll start off with decoys; they are used to draw the enemy's attention away from you or your allies. There are a few different methods when it comes to deploying decoys effectively. The first is physical decoys, like that robe I hung up; they can be simple or complex; it all depends on the enemy and your environment. The second method is behavioral decoys; these decoys are based on causing the enemy to doubt themselves or misleading them to another place. Okay, let's pose here for a moment. Did you understand that?" Jin Shu launched into a long explanation of the use of decoys.
"I think I understood most of that, but what is an example of behavioral decoys?" Su Bing asked curiously.
"A behavioral decoy could be something like using an enemy's communications network to cause them to believe that they were called to another area. Or it could be something as simple as leaving evidence behind that suggests that you are someone else, thus causing the enemy to focus on that other person. For example, you could infiltrate an enemy's base and leave an item behind that makes it look like someone that wasn't you was there." Jin Shu clarified.
"Now let's move on to distractions. There are also two methods for this; they are sound-based distractions and environmental distractions. The first one is pretty self-explanatory; it is the use of sounds to mislead the enemy. The second method can be more complex; to use the environment to your advantage, you must understand what environment you find yourself in. Take these woods, for example. In the woods, you can usually find animals, which you could potentially use as a distraction. Like scaring a flock of birds to draw attention away from yourself. Did you get all of that?" Jin Shu finished his lesson on distractions.
"Yeah, I think I understand." Su Bing nodded with a slight hint of uncertainty.
"Well, that's about all I can teach you; in the end, stealth all boils down to patience, adaptability, timing, and tons of practice. Now what you need to do is practice. Practice blending into the surroundings, practice setting up various decoys, practice causing distractions, practice moving quietly through the environment, and above all else, practice patience. Patience and adaptability are the two most important factors in staying stealthy." Jin Shu ended his lesson on stealth techniques there.
---
Over the next week, Jin Shu and company stayed inside the mountain forest. Over the course of the last week, Jin Shu trained Su Bing in each aspect of stealth that he had taught her previously. Now they were doing an exercise. Su Bing was hiding in the forest from both Yin'er and Jin Shu; her objective was to infiltrate their camp and take a flag that was placed in the center unnoticed, and their objective was to find her in the woods before she could reach the camp.
"Yin'er, you go check the south of the camp; I'll stay in the north. She can't come from the west as there is a mountain wall blocking that side, so that leaves only the east. After you've checked the south side, make your way east, and we will meet up there, okay?" Jin Shu instructed Yin'er on their plan.
"Okay Daddy! Yin'er is the best at finding things; Yin'er has a very strong nose." Yin'er said while brimming with confidence as she flew to the south side of the camp.
Jin Shu began making his way into the dark forest; to give Su Bing an advantage, they set the exercise at the beginning of dusk. Su Bing has shown incredible progress in her training so far; she seems to have a natural talent for stealth. Even the best of the military took months to reach the level that she has achieved in a week.
Jin Shu was remaining vigilant while thinking; soon he noticed some footprints in the mud in front of him; he carefully checked them out. Hmm... looks like Su Bing left these footprints as a distraction; they are headed towards a dead end in the west, which means she's most likely in the east or hiding nearby, waiting for me to leave the area. Hm? What would be her best course of action? If I were her, I'd head south and wait there until Yin'er heads east, as Yin'er is easier to avoid than myself.
Jin Shu decided to head east to meet up with Yin'er and then head south from there.
---
As Jin Shu reached the eastern area of the forest, he smelled something strange; it smelled like roasted meat. He headed in the direction of the smell, and when he arrived at the location of the smell, he was flabbergasted to find Yin'er eating a roasted rabbit. "Yin'er, where did you get that rabbit?"
"Hm? Oh ifs, Daddy! Yin'ew... find it hewe." She said while still chewing on the roast rabbit.
"You found the roasted rabbit here? When did you get here?" Jin Shu asked, as by the looks of it, Yin'er had eaten most of the rabbit by now; she must have been here for a while.
"Yin'er came here when she smelled something yummy." Yin'er stopped chewing for a moment to answer.
"Did you check the south side of the camp at least?" Jin Shu was worried that Yin'er never checked the other side of the camp.
Yin'er went back to chewing the rabbit after silently shaking her head.
"Shoot! Su Bing must have tricked you here with that rabbit as she went south." Jin Shu guessed that Su Bing must be in the south infiltrating the camp, so he rushed south.
---
Jin Shu checked the camp on the way south and didn't find Su Bing, so she must still be on the south side of the forest. That was a brilliant idea to distract Yin'er's nose with a roast rabbit; that's one of Yin'er's favorite meals. I wonder when she roasted that rabbit. I didn't see her do it earlier today, and there wasn't enough time to catch and roast a rabbit since we started, so she must have caught the rabbit earlier in the day than roasted it shortly before we started the exercise.
Jin Shu soon made it to the south side and started to look around for signs of Su Bing. They had set a limit on how big the play area was for this exercise, at a one hundred-foot radius around the camp. Jin Shu quickly checked most of that area and found no sign of Su Bing at all. Damn! She must have doubled back and gone north when I went south. She may have gotten too good at this; even I'm having trouble now, but I should still have time to make it back to the camp, hopefully.
Jin Shu quickly turned back and headed north. Unfortunately, he was too late; when he reached the camp, he saw Su Bing sitting at a table in the middle of the camp with a pot of tea. "Damn, I was too late. You must have come from the north when I went south, right?"
"No, I came from the west." Su Bing said as she poured a cup of tea for Jin Shu.
"The west? That's impossible; the west of the camp is a mountain wall." Jin Shu said in disbelief.
Su Bing pointed at the mountain wall behind her; there was a rope made of vines hanging down from the top of the cliff face, about one hundred feet up the mountain.
"How did you do that? The mountain wall is a sheer cliff face without any hand holds." Jin Shu couldn't figure out why she did it.
"I started off in the east and roasted a rabbit there, to distract Yin'er's nose, then I went northwest, and when I reached the mountain wall, I used the Scorpion to shoot the wall, causing the stone to break and become brittle, then I used the expandable baton to smash those broken rocks to make hand holds and climbed up the wall, then I attached the rope I made to a boulder and scaled down the mountain into the camp." Su Bing explained how she had done these things as if it were a simple thing; however, that was something nearly impossible; the fact that she used the bullets to make improvised hand holds was by itself something only an insane person could ever even dream up, at least that's what Jin Shu thought.
I may have created a monster. Jin Shu thought while staring at Su Bing incredulously.