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

Eight hundred meters away, on the mountain ridge.

Hawkeye wiped the salt off his face, but his vision remained blurry and stinging.

damn it.

Salt?

A strong sense of humiliation welled up inside him. He, the ace sniper of the Snow Fox Squad, the top assassin known as the "Snowfield Ghost," had actually been "punished" on the battlefield with condiments?

If this gets out, he'll be out of a job as a mercenary; he might as well just go work in the kitchen.

There was a two-second silence in the channel, followed by Captain Snowfox's icy voice: "Hawkeye, if you want to retire and become a chef, I can grant your wish after you return home. Now, clear the line of sight and eliminate the target."

"Roger that." Hawkeye gritted his teeth, wiping the scope hard with his sleeve, his eyes bloodshot.

A faint "click" sound came from beneath him.

The sound was very soft, like ice cracking.

Hawkeye's battle-hardened nerves jolted, and his scalp tingled instantly. He was all too familiar with that sound, having spent years lying prone in the snow.

This is a sign of instability in the snow layer structure!

He looked down and his pupils suddenly contracted.

The snow-covered platform where he was lying in hiding was melting rapidly, the meltwater mixing with those damned salt grains to form a slippery, icy-water mixture. The heat from his body as he lay prone, combined with the salt's catalytic effect, completely disrupted the balance there.

"Fuck!"

Hawkeye only had time to utter a single curse word before his entire body, along with his gun, slipped and instantly lost all traction.

He was like a bar of oiled soap, uncontrollably sliding down the steep ice slope.

"ah--!"

The piercing screams echoed long through the valley before abruptly ceasing.

……

Passage through a narrow pass.

Li Changfeng held the binoculars, his mouth agape.

He could clearly see a black dot gliding down a distant ridge, disappearing from sight.

He put down the binoculars, turned his head, and looked at Su Ming with the eyes of someone looking at an alien.

"This...this actually works?"

Su Ming took back the down jacket with several holes in it, examined it carefully, then turned to look at Li Changfeng and reached out his hand.

"What?" Li Changfeng was taken aback.

Su Ming said expressionlessly, "My clothes are torn. It's a work injury. I'll reimburse you."

Li Changfeng's eye twitched: "We're in dire straits, and you're still thinking about reimbursement?"

Droma's voice trembled with excitement as she pointed to the snow pit where the sniper had disappeared: "I knew it! That's holy salt! That demon was full of sins; only holy salt could purify him! Look, the mountain god swallowed him!"

Li Changfeng turned to look at Zhuoma, his expression indescribable: "Big sister, that's physics. Salt changes the melting point of ice and lowers the coefficient of friction."

Zhuoma glared at him: "That's retribution!"

Li Changfeng rubbed his temples: "That's friction!"

Droma clasped her hands together, her face filled with piety: "That's divine power!"

Li Changfeng took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, and finally waved his hand weakly.

"...You're right."

He's gone mad debating scripture with believers?

Li Changfeng snapped back to reality, his military discipline instantly putting him into action. He pulled back the bolt, his eyes regaining their soldierly sternness: "Threat eliminated! We need to move immediately! Zhuoma, lead the way! Forget about mountain gods, find a path only you can squeeze through!"

Droma jolted awake and instinctively pointed to an almost vertical ice crevice less than half a meter wide to the side: "Over there! That's the 'Devil's Bane,' a place even the argali dares not tread; only there leads straight to the mountaintop!"

"Walk!"

Li Changfeng took the lead and squeezed into the ice crevice.

Su Ming followed behind, while Zhuoma brought up the rear.

The team moved swiftly through the treacherous ice walls, but Li Changfeng's mind was in complete turmoil.

Mirror, avalanche.

Salt, landslide.

He really didn't know how to write this report when he got back.

He estimated that once the report was submitted, the old general would personally tie him to a kite to see if he could also perform a "tactical airborne" maneuver.

Is this fucking reasonable?

That's completely unreasonable.

But it actually happened, damn it.