Lao Xiao kept giving Tashi Danba a lesson: "The Malan Mountain Glacier develops on the flat tops of high mountains, with the glacier covering the top like a white hat. It's called an ice dome or plateau glacier. Its characteristic is that it has no terminal moraine and no exposed peaks or cliffs above the ice surface. The upper layer of the glacier is granular snow, and the lower layer is glacial ice. Due to global warming, the glacier has been in a constant state of melting, which has resulted in many spectacular formations inside."
Hu Yang observed the tire tracks on the side: "It seems like Kirk and the others are chasing hard. These poachers are panicking. Be careful! Don't get stuck!"
They drove for almost another hour in the glacier valley. The radio finally had a signal, and Hu Yang called out, "Kirk, can you hear me? Kirk!"
A man's voice responded, "You guys finally made it. I'm to the north. I see your vehicles."
Hu Yang asked, "What about the poachers?"
Kirk replied, "They're desperate, they've gone into an ice cave. I'm guarding the entrance."
He paused and added, "Cheng Qu and the others went on patrol to see if there's another exit, but so far, they haven't found one."
Hu Yang asked, "What's the situation?"
Kirk replied, "Three to four of them, two rifles, and a self-modified semi-automatic assault rifle. They still want to fight with us. I wasn't polite, I gave them a burst."
Halfway up the mountain, the poachers had left behind a broken vehicle, and according to Kirk's report, the vehicle was empty. His vehicle was on the side slope of the glacier, and they saw Kirk's red ribbon marker when they turned right.
It seemed close, but the off-road vehicles were moving slower and slower. As they neared Kirk's vehicle, it felt as though they couldn't get any closer. The second vehicle's front wheels got stuck in an ice pit, and no matter how hard they tried, the wheels slipped and they couldn't get out. In a fit of anger, Hu Yang grabbed his rifle, jumped out of the vehicle, and Tashi Danba followed behind him. Lin Xusheng and Zhang Li also came.
Tashi Danba wanted to see which hole the poachers had crawled into. He hurried a few steps ahead, but Hu Yang grabbed him and scolded, "Are you trying to die?! Don't look at the ground while walking!"
Tashi Danba, confused, said, "The ground? There's nothing there."
Without saying anything, Hu Yang suddenly walked a few steps to the west, took the rifle stock, and forcefully jabbed it at a seemingly flat area. The ground collapsed with a "crash," and they heard rocks rolling into a hole, continuing to fall until the sound faded. Tashi Danba exclaimed, "This—"
Lao Xiao caught up from behind and said, "There are invisible ice pits all over here, weak spots in the ice caves. No one knows how deep they are. Once you step on them, you'll slide down and never come back up."
Only then did Tashi Danba carefully follow Hu Yang. They reached the entrance of the ice cave, and the first vehicle came up. Two off-road vehicles were parked side by side at the entrance, and the third vehicle was pulling the second one up the slope. There were seven people in total, two rifles, a double-barreled shotgun, and the 9mm suppressed submachine gun that Kirk had, making a total of four guns, all prepared to deal with aggressive animals and poachers.
Hu Yang carefully walked to the entrance, looked around, and shouted into the cave. Kirk replied, "It's no use. I've shouted a few times, but there's been no response."
Hu Yang said, "From the path they took, it seems they are familiar with the terrain here. They must have been gold prospectors before, trying to monopolize a gold vein by going deep under the unmanned glacier cover."
Tashi Danba asked Lao Xiao, "Gold prospectors?"
Lao Xiao replied, "Yes, the Malan Mountain stretches eastward for several hundred kilometers from here. Gold veins were discovered there in the past, and in the 1980s, a large number of gold prospectors flooded in. Many people died fighting over the gold. Some desperate people would stop at nothing for gold. They sometimes risked their lives, traveling hundreds of kilometers of unmanned roads, coming to the ice cover to see if they were lucky. However, according to the survey results, there doesn't seem to be any gold mines under the ice cover. After that, no one came back."
Lao Xiao turned around and asked, "Old Hu, what should we do? This is probably a melting ice cave, and we have no idea what the situation inside is like. The underground cracks are usually interconnected, so it's going to be hard to find them if they hide."
Hu Yang replied, "We can't let them get away. Get some strong ones, and come with me into the cave!" He turned around, grabbed a rifle, and shoved it into Tashi Danba's hands. "You're coming with us."
Tashi Danba took the gun but didn't know where to hold it. He fumbled with it, trying to find the right grip, and said anxiously, "I… I don't know how!" He had practiced with pistols at the shooting range, but it was his first time holding such a long rifle.
Hu Yang was generous and said, "It doesn't matter if you don't know how. Just use it as a club when the time comes."
Zhang Li, standing by, said, "I'll go too. The poachers have guns, I can help."
Hu Yang looked at Zhang Li's bandaged hands and said, "But your hands…"
Zhang Li replied, "It's fine now, it doesn't hurt anymore."
Seeing the sincerity on Zhang Li's face, Hu Yang thought for a moment and made arrangements: "Lin Xusheng, bring the safety rope. The cave entrance is a slippery ice slope, so be careful. Kirk, Zhang Li, take your guns, and we'll go in. Lao Xiao, there's an automatic rifle in the vehicle. You two guard the entrance. We'll contact you before we come out. If anything else happens, you shoot them."
Lao Xiao muttered, "Tough guy."
One end of the safety rope was tied to an off-road vehicle. Zhang Li carried a bundle of spare ropes and steel pegs in a bag and strapped it on. Hu Yang then handed over two large mountaineering backpacks, giving the larger one to Kirk and the extra-large one to Tashi Danba. Tashi Danba put the heavy backpack on and asked, "What's inside? It's pretty heavy."
Hu Yang glared at him and said, "Don't tell me you don't have the strength! You're the strongest among us. What's inside could save your life, so don't lose it!" He took a step forward, then turned back and added, "Even if you lose yourself, you can't lose the bag!"
Lao Xiao grabbed Tashi Danba from behind, his face serious. "Stay close to Old Hu. He might want to check something out. This time, going into the ice cave like this is a bit reckless, but we don't have a choice—Old Hu is like this. Sigh. Even Old Hu and I, we've only been in ice caves twice. Inside, every step is dangerous. It's easy to get in, but it's almost impossible to get out. You've never had this kind of experience, so you must listen to Old Hu, or things could get extremely dangerous, even deadly."
Tashi Danba nodded, "Got it."
At this point, Hu Yang had already grabbed the safety rope and carefully entered the cave. He held the rope with one hand and balanced himself with the other, sliding into the cave with a "whoosh."
Tashi Danba, following behind, tried to copy Hu Yang, but with the heavy backpack on his back and the rifle in his hands, his grip on the safety rope slipped as soon as he entered, and he fell, sliding along the ice.
Luckily, Tashi Danba was tall, so even though he slid down the ice, Hu Yang grabbed his clothes and stopped him. Looking out from the cave, the ice cave's exit was a sloped surface about ten meters long, with a slope of about 5 to 10 degrees. Without the safety rope, it would be quite difficult to climb back up. The spot Tashi Danba ended up in was a slightly flatter patch of ice with two paths leading off. Beyond that, everything was pitch black, and nothing could be seen. If Hu Yang hadn't caught him, it was hard to say where he would have ended up.
Kirk and Zhang Li also slowly slid down. Zhang Li asked, "Which path do we take?"
Hu Yang said, "Flashlight." Zhang Li distributed high-power flashlights to everyone. These flashlights had long handles, were rechargeable, and could emit 100,000 volts of electricity at the tail end for self-defense. The power was strong, and the bright light suddenly emitted, a bit blinding.
Hu Yang carefully looked at the ground and said, "They must have fallen in a hurry and couldn't have stopped on this flat surface. They must have slid all the way down. Let's go straight."
Among the four entering the cave, Tashi Danba was undoubtedly the tallest. Next was Kirk, who was about 1.78 meters tall, with a red face that seemed waxed, wearing a wool felt hat that covered his ears, looking just like a winter herder from Inner Mongolia. As for the team leader, Hu Yang, he was a few centimeters shorter than Zhang Li, but his fierce appearance and intimidating aura made him quite imposing. When he scolded people, even Tashi Danba didn't dare to retort.
The ice tunnel was about 50 meters long, just the right distance for the safety rope. Below them was frozen earth and stone, at least making the ground less slippery. The last person, Kirk, carefully secured the safety rope and shone his flashlight on the walls. All the cave's rock walls were covered with thick ice. When the flashlight beam hit, the lava inside the ice seemed bizarre, resembling countless monster heads, gazing back at them through the ice. The vaulted ceiling above them was about 4 to 5 meters high, though they still didn't know how thick the ice was. It felt like they were walking inside a tunnel made of ice.
Since entering the ice cave, the ground had been sloping downward. The deeper they went, the colder it felt. Tashi Danba felt even colder in his heart, thinking of how the poachers had used bare bloodshed to tear apart the picturesque beauty by the Holy Water Lake, much like these ice walls pushing cold air into his body.
Hu Yang took off his gloves and felt the ground with his fingers. "The ground is dry. From the size of the ice erosion on the tunnel, this cave might have been melting for seven or eight years. The tunnel slopes downward, and we still don't know how deep it goes."
Kirk found a thread hanging from his clothes and said, "They slid all the way here. Now we don't know where they've hidden."
Hu Yang said, "Let's move, but be careful. Keep a distance that's within arm's reach, so if there are cracks or holes, the person next to you can help."
They walked a couple of steps when Tashi Danba raised a question, "Wait, it's a flashlight? Shouldn't we use a torch or something to detect the oxygen levels?"
"Heh," Hu Yang laughed. "I can tell you're a rookie with little outdoor experience. Don't you feel it?"
"What?" Tashi Danba didn't understand.
"It's the wind," Kirk explained. "This is an ice cave, not a subterranean or limestone cave. Those caves have enclosed environments, and the deeper you go, the more likely you are to run out of oxygen. An ice cave, on the other hand, is like a beehive, with erosion openings connected to the outside. Wind rushes through the maze of tunnels, bringing enough oxygen into every part of the cave. So we don't need to use open flames to measure oxygen levels. Also…" Kirk smiled and added, "Using a torch to measure oxygen is an outdated method that unprepared travelers used in the past. While simple, it isn't very effective. In some swampy caves, where the air contains large amounts of chlorine, ammonia, hydrocarbons, and other mixed gases, the torch might light, but it's lethal to the human body. We're all equipped with modern air detectors, which can sense even a single cubic micron of oxygen in a cubic meter of space. If the environment isn't suitable for humans, the detectors will sound an alarm." He patted his waist, and Tashi Danba saw a device that resembled a walkie-talkie with a green light flashing.
Tashi Danba carefully followed behind Hu Yang, one hand on the ice wall, the other holding the climbing bag's strap, walking cautiously. He asked again, "But if there are openings everywhere, wouldn't the poachers be able to escape easily?"
Hu Yang said, "That's right, the ice cave is like a beehive, full of holes, but there aren't many large openings like the one we came through. Most are fist-sized traps. Also, you need to understand the origins of these ice-eroded caves… Let me think. Okay, here's how it works: these caves were formed through the interaction of ice and water over millions of years. You know water has a tendency to flow downward, so all the caves here have one thing in common: they slope inward from the entrance toward the mountain's heart. The tunnel we came through is just like that, an inclined ice passage. If the poachers didn't have tools like ice picks, they couldn't have gone up. Judging by their escape route, they were probably chased too closely, their vehicle got stuck in an ice pit, and in their panic, they abandoned the car and fled into the ice cave. They may have planned to stall Kirk and the others in the cave, but with more of us arriving, they probably heard the vehicle noise and fled deeper into the cave."
Tashi Danba was stunned. He hadn't expected that this seemingly hot-headed team leader could have such clear thinking and meticulous logic. Hu Yang chuckled, almost self-deprecatingly, and said, "What? You didn't think this big, rough guy could come up with such reasoning? Big guy, this scientific expedition isn't as simple as you see on TV. Driving, measuring wind, testing water, like a tourist trip. In fact, what we do requires very deep knowledge as the foundation for survival."
Zhang Li, walking at the back, said, "Ah, that sounds a lot like archaeology. I remember an archaeologist once said that when you open an ancient tomb, you have to first think about what might be inside, in order to find the things inside. Otherwise, they'll just be treated as rubbish."
Hu Yang retorted, "This is way harder than archaeology. In archaeology, if you can't think of what's inside, the most you lose is not finding it. But in our kind of environment, if you can't foresee what's going to happen, the only outcome is paying with your life."
The light from the flashlight illuminated one side of Hu Yang's face. His beard's shadow was cast against the ice wall. Due to the reflection and refraction of the ice layer, his face appeared like a terrifying prehistoric beast, which startled Zhang Li. When they came to another junction, Hu Yang carefully looked around and immediately judged, "Let's go left."
Tashi Danba saw Kirk, who was following behind, take something out of his bag and make a mark on the ice wall. He asked, "What's this?"
Kirk replied, "Making a marker. Otherwise, in this maze of paths inside the ice cave, how are you going to get out?"
Tashi Danba said, "But I can't see anything?"
Kirk smiled slightly and said, "It's a fluorescent marker, only visible with special ultraviolet equipment. Otherwise, it would mark the poachers too, and they could use it to escape or ambush us from behind our marks. This is something we've learned over years…"
Hu Yang called from ahead, "Hurry up, we're not here to explain these gadgets. I don't think they'll need these things later on."
The four of them moved slowly, and Hu Yang kept using his walkie-talkie to communicate with Lao Xiao outside. The signal weakened as they ventured deeper into the cave. The ice cave was full of forks, and the ice walls surrounding the cave were thick and thin in places. They felt like ants moving through an ant nest labyrinth. Hu Yang carefully followed the traces left by the poachers, leading them to an ice crevice. The ice walls at both ends of the cave suddenly thickened, resembling a giant ice block split in half by a giant axe, leaving a wedge-shaped passage just wide enough for one person to pass through.
The crevice ahead was noticeably narrower, and all four of them had to turn sideways to pass through. Ice stalactites hung from the ceiling, and the stone walls were rugged and uneven. Tashi Danba, carrying the large backpack, couldn't pass through easily. He had to hold the bag with both hands to move it. Many of the hanging ice stalactites broke off as they brushed against the backpack, and ice droplets fell onto Tashi Danba's collar. Even Kirk was affected, constantly advising, "Be careful, be careful. This stuff hurts more than falling into an ice pit."
Hu Yang smiled and said, "Be careful. These ice crystals are colder than normal ice. If they fall into your clothes, it feels like needles stabbing you. Be careful, or you might catch cold bones disease."
The passage ahead became even narrower, and Hu Yang had to suck in his stomach and hold his breath. Naturally, he cursed the poachers again.
Tashi Danba moved slowly and still couldn't resist asking curiously, "How big is this cave?"
Hu Yang, panting, replied, "Difficult… to say. If we're not careful, the entire Malan Mountain Glacier could be connected. Malan Mountain is the southern branch of the Kunlun Mountain range. The geology consists of complex metamorphic rocks heavily eroded in ancient times. The melting glacier creates glacial rivers, ice forests, and other erosional landforms. The upper part of the glacier is an erosional landform, and the lower part is sedimentary. We're in the glacier's upper-middle region. The forms here, according to our terminology, are roughly knife ridges, ice banks, ice basins, and ice grooves. The deposits are glacial moraine, serpentine hills, ice-water terraces, and ice-water fans. Whew, finally squeezed through. Come on, give me the bag, I'll pull you up. Be careful, the ground looks like a frozen layer, it's really slippery."
Tashi Danba finally squeezed through the narrow gap. Using the flashlight, he glanced around and couldn't help but shout, "Ah—" The echo rang through the vast cave, "Ah—" "Ah—" "Ah—"…