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

As night deepened, the jungle was filled with the damp, humus-like scent.

Twelve fully armed mercenaries, in standard tactical formation, silently infiltrated the area. They wore the latest quad-eye night vision goggles and carried AR rifles equipped with thermal imaging scopes. Their communicators only carried concise instructions from their leader, "Ghost."

"Ghost," whose real name is Mike, is a former SAS (Special Air Service) member who has hunted down countless targets in the mountains of Afghanistan and Iraq. To him, this mission was as simple as an armed outing.

"The target is a student, with a girl, carrying a heavy load; they can't have gone far," he said coldly in the team channel. "Thermal imaging shows two heat sources 300 meters ahead, no weapon activity. Units, form a fan-shaped encirclement. I want them alive."

They are top-notch hunters, well-equipped and highly experienced.

But in Su Ming's eyes, they were just a group of prey who had intruded into his "domain".

"At the three o'clock position, a person with a stride of 75 centimeters, weighing about 90 kilograms, right-handed, and habitually shifting their weight to their right foot."

"At the twelve o'clock position, two people are taking turns providing cover. Their breathing rates are inconsistent. One of them is a smoker and has the smell of nicotine residue on him."

Su Ming lurked in the canopy of a giant banyan tree, perfectly camouflaging himself with soil and leaves, making him undetectable even by thermal imaging. His senses were heightened to their limit; the sound of the wind, the chirping of insects, the trajectory of falling leaves, the subtle changes in the soil underfoot… all this information converged in his mind into a dynamic three-dimensional map.

This is the oldest and deadliest form of reconnaissance that his grandfather taught him—to become one with nature.

One of the soldiers leading the way suddenly stopped.

In front of his military boots lay a trampled leaf, seemingly unremarkable. But as a veteran, he instinctively felt something was amiss. He lifted his foot, intending to walk around it.

late.

Just as he lifted his foot, the ground beneath his feet suddenly gave way!

A trap perfectly disguised by leaves was triggered, and a bamboo spear, sharpened to an extreme point and coated with some kind of hallucinogenic plant sap, shot out from the bottom of the pit!

"Pfft!"

The bamboo spear pierced precisely through the gap in his military boot, penetrating his ankle! The excruciating pain and rapidly spreading numbness caused him to let out an uncontrollable scream.

"Enemy attack!"

"Medic!"

The formation was instantly thrown into chaos.

"Ghost" Mike's face darkened. "Damn it! It's a 'tripping pit' and a 'launching spear'! Those are things those Vietnamese monkeys came up with decades ago! Everyone watch your step!"

Before he could finish speaking, on the other side, two mercenaries who were trying to rescue the wounded accidentally stepped on a taut vine.

That wasn't the fuse for a landmine.

"Buzz—"

With a muffled whooshing sound, a massive log, weighing over a hundred pounds and suspended in mid-air, was pulled by vines and swept across like a battering ram!

"Be careful!"

"Bang!"

After the loud bang, the two mercenaries were thrown back by the force of the impact, their ribs shattered, and their fate unknown.

Primitive, yet deadly.

"He's here! He's playing us!" Mike roared, taking off his night vision goggles and scanning his surroundings with experience and intuition.

At this moment, high-tech equipment becomes a burden. Night vision devices magnify light and shadow, and thermal imaging is interfered with by the heat sources of countless animals in the forest.

Su Ming is part of this jungle.

"Coo...coo coo..."

A strange bird call came from all directions, sometimes near, sometimes far, sounding particularly eerie in the quiet night.

This is Su Ming imitating the call of a local owl, a harbinger of death. He is attacking the most vulnerable nerves of these modern soldiers in the most primal way.

"Shut up! All of you shut up!" A young mercenary's mental defenses began to crumble, and he picked up his gun and fired wildly in the direction of the sound.

"Da da da!"

The gunshots echoed through the woods, but only startled a flock of birds into flight; nothing was hit.

"Idiot! Stay calm!" Mike slapped him on the head, but his eyes grew increasingly serious.

He realized that they were not dealing with students at all.

He was a master of jungle warfare, a true ghost.

Mike forced himself to calm down. He abandoned the main force and, relying on his top-notch tracking skills, found a very faint set of footprints in the chaos.

The footprints were faint, leading to a small stream.

"It's a waterway." Mike immediately discerned the other party's intentions, a smirk playing on his lips. "Trying to wash away the traces with a stream? Too naive."

He made a gesture, and led two of his most elite team members, breaking away from the main group, and went upstream along the stream.

The stream babbles, its surface shimmering in the moonlight.

Mike waded in the stream, his gaze sweeping across every part of the riverbank, his eyes cold and sharp. He was certain that his target was hiding nearby.

He walked to the middle of the stream, where the water was knee-deep. Suddenly, he felt a barely perceptible pull on his ankle.

He suddenly lowered his head.

A very thin thread, the same color as seaweed, was wrapped around his ankle. It was a high-strength kite string left by his grandfather.

trap!

Mike's alarm bells rang in his mind, and he was about to speak up to warn others.

"Splash!"

A massive net, woven from countless thorny vines, suddenly appeared from underwater! The other end of the net, connected to a heavy object, tightened instantly!

Mike and his two teammates were caught off guard and caught in the net. The sharp thorns on the vines dug deep into their combat uniforms and flesh. The intense pain caused them to lose their balance and fall into the stream.

Just then, a figure emerged from the water beside them like a ghost.

Su Ming had a hollow reed between his teeth, which he used to breathe underwater. He was covered in mud, looking like a water ghost crawled out of hell.

Under the moonlight, the sharp edge of the boning knife in his hand reflected a chilling light.

He walked up to Mike, who was trapped in the net and struggling frantically, and looked at him calmly.

"You are 'Ghost'?"

Su Ming's voice rang out over the silent stream, colder than the water itself.

"Bad luck."

"This jungle is already haunted."