Searching for someone in northern Myanmar, and you call that earning tuition fees?

In August, the cicadas chirped incessantly.

In Jiangcheng, in a basement room of less than ten square meters.

Su Ming looked at the red numbers flashing on his phone screen: 350.5 yuan.

This is all his possessions.

Beside him lay a crumpled university admission letter: Jiangnan University, Department of Finance. It was a ticket he had earned through scrimping and saving, even working three months as a construction worker. But along with it came a string of cold, hard numbers on the back of the letter: tuition and miscellaneous fees totaling 12,000 yuan.

Not to mention the younger brothers and sisters in the orphanage who are waiting to start school.

The old dean's health is deteriorating day by day, and as the eldest brother, he has to keep things running smoothly.

"Tsk, still more than 20,000 short."

Su Ming pursed his lips, his finger expertly swiping across the phone screen, and opened an app called "Zhongxun".

This is a non-governmental reward platform that specializes in posting various missing person and lost item requests, and even resolving certain "special disputes." The requests are incredibly diverse: looking for cats, searching for relatives, catching mistresses—you name it.

Because Su Ming has an extremely high reputation on the platform and a 100% order completion rate, his account level is now the highest, "Gold Hunter".

His phone vibrated.

A pinned commission marked as "Crimson" popped up, the zeros after the bounty amount making his eyes hurt.

[Urgent Request: Search and Rescue]

[Bounty: 50 RMB]

[Mission Description: My daughter was lured to a telecom fraud zone in K District, Aung La region (formerly northern Myanmar) while on vacation and has been missing for 48 hours. The kidnappers are demanding a ransom of one million, and official intervention requires procedures; time is of the essence. The reward will be paid immediately if my daughter can be rescued back to the border.]

[Attachment: Target photo, last location before disappearance.]

Su Ming stared at the "50" for a minute.

Five hundred thousand yuan is not only enough for his four years of tuition, but also enough to buy a decent water heater for the orphanage and a new school uniform for his younger schoolmates.

He clicked on the attachment; the girl in the photo was smiling brightly, her eyes revealing an innocent naiveté.

In a place like Angla, where people devour each other without spitting out the bones, this kind of simplicity is the most expensive commodity.

"Ding-dong."

A private message popped up from the client: "Are you 'Shusheng'? I've seen your records; you're the fastest and most reliable person on the platform to find people. Please save my daughter! I'm willing to add another 100,000 yuan if she comes back! Please!"

Instead of immediately typing on the keyboard, Su Ming opened the satellite map with the last known location.

Angla, K district.

It was a lawless zone, a place of warlord infighting and rampant telecom fraud. There, the law was a joke, and bullets were the only pass.

If it were any other prospective college student, they would probably have already turned off their phone and called the police.

But Su Ming is different.

He reached under the desk and touched a hidden compartment, taking out a faded military satchel. Inside were several strange items: a hand-polished folding boning knife, a worn compass, a seemingly ordinary roll of kite string, and several handwritten, yellowed notebooks.

The cover of the notebook reads: Reconnaissance, Traces, and Traditional Woodworking.

This is the only legacy left to him by his grandfather, who was a scout for thirty years and then worked as a carpenter for thirty years after retirement.

From a young age, while other children played in the mud, Su Ming, under his grandfather's guidance, would follow the tracks of wild rabbits in the deep mountains and forests, or observe the tiny deformations of a fallen leaf after it was trampled.

"Logic, details, and humanity." Grandpa often said, "If you master these three things, there's no one in this world you can't find, and no situation you can't escape."

Su Ming took a deep breath, his eyes darkening, the resolute chill completely at odds with his delicate and frail appearance.

He typed two words on the screen: "Order accepted".

The other end replied instantly: "Thank you! Thank you! What equipment or weapons do you need? I can figure something out..."

"No need." Su Ming typed calmly, "Prepare a train ticket for me to the border of Nanyun Province. Also, send me all the details of the girl's clothing brand, size, and even the scent of her perfume before she disappeared."

"What do you need these for?" The other person was clearly taken aback.

"Finding people isn't about guns, it's about brains."

Su Ming turned off the screen and quickly packed his bag. He changed into the most ordinary cheap sportswear, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and looked like a poor student traveling during his summer vacation.

Half an hour later, he walked out of the basement and into the scorching sunlight.

Meanwhile, in the background of the "Zhongxun" APP, the status of this dark red order has changed to "in progress".

The platform administrators were alerted, and several well-known "veteran hunters" in the community left messages:

"Holy crap, someone actually took the order in Angla K District? That's like going to their death!"

"The 'scholar' took it? That mysterious big shot who never shows his face and only takes jobs locating people within the country?"

"This is insane. There's a war going on in Sector K right now. Even retired special forces soldiers wouldn't dare go there alone."

Nobody was optimistic about this deal.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in the computer room of the Criminal Investigation Corps of Jiangnan Province in China, a young technical police officer suddenly sat up straight.

"Boss, that 'Zhongxun' platform that we've been monitoring for a long time, that 50 yuan overseas missing person search task... has been claimed by someone else."

The middle-aged man, referred to as "the boss," came over and stared at the account with the code name "Scholar" on the screen, his brows furrowed.

"A 'scholar'? Based on his previous behavior patterns, this person is very likely in Jiangcheng. Have you found his real name information?"

"We can't find it; his encryption methods are very sophisticated."

The middle-aged man was silent for a moment, then ordered in a deep voice: "Notify the border defense department in Yunnan Province to closely monitor young men who have recently crossed the border, especially those who appear harmless."

"Why is it considered completely harmless?"

The middle-aged man pointed at the words "scholar" on the screen, his gaze profound: "A person who can build up a reputation on this kind of platform is definitely not a ruthless bandit; he must be the kind of ghost who can perfectly blend into the environment."

At this moment, Su Ming was sitting on a green train heading to the border.

He sat by the window, holding a half-eaten steamed bun in his hand, staring at the passenger opposite him.

The passenger looked nervous, his hands were constantly in his jacket pockets, his eyes darted around, and he checked his watch every five minutes.

In Su Ming's mind, it was as if countless lines were rapidly intertwining and reconstructing.

There were tiny, dried brown stains on the collar; they were blood, from about 36 hours ago.

The gait is biased to the right, and there is a foreign object on the right side of the waist. It is about 15 centimeters thick and is either a standard short knife or a homemade gunpowder weapon.

The loess stuck to the edge of the shoe sole is not from the south, but is typical clay from the Loess Plateau in northern China.

Su Ming withdrew his gaze and slowly chewed the last bite of the steamed bun.

His summer job officially began at this moment.