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

The night wind, carrying grains of sand, howled as it swept across the desolate desert.

Zhao Gang looked at the two prisoners bound like dumplings on the ground, made a throat-slitting gesture to Su Ming, and lowered his voice.

"Mr. Su, keeping him around will only cause trouble."

His eyes held a soldier's ruthlessness. In a place like this, to be merciful to the enemy is to be cruel to oneself.

Gu Changfeng also came over, his face pale, but his tone was very firm.

"They want to kill us, we can't let them live!"

"Murder is illegal, Uncle Gu."

Su Ming didn't even look up. He tore strips of cloth off the prisoners and then picked up their water bottles, pouring all the water out onto the sand.

"We have legitimate part-time jobs, and we have to abide by the law."

The technician codenamed "Scorpion" was filled with fear, desperately sobbing and begging for mercy.

"Strip them naked, take their equipment. Tie them up here, and leave them a bag of compressed biscuits." Su Ming stood up, clapped his hands, and said, "After we leave, send the coordinates to Deputy Commander Ma and have him send someone to collect the 'gift'."

Zhao Gang was taken aback, but then he understood what Su Ming meant.

In this deathly desert, dehydration is more deadly than bullets. Leaving someone here is tantamount to a death sentence, but the executioner is this very desert.

This solves the problem without raising any legal issues.

That kid... he's fucking cold-hearted, and fucking meticulous!

Zhao Gang said no more and immediately ordered his bodyguards to take action.

"Let's go." Su Ming checked the direction and glanced at the notes in his hand.

"We're not far now; we must find the entrance before dawn."

The group set off again.

With a clear objective this time, everyone quickened their pace considerably.

Following the directions given by Scorpion and the hastily drawn map in Grandpa's notebook, they traversed a seemingly unremarkable sand dune.

Four in the morning, when it is darkest.

Su Ming stopped in front of a dried-up riverbed.

The river's course is completely opposite to the texture of the surrounding sand dunes, as if it had been forcibly twisted by a tremendous force.

"The veins are flowing backwards..." Zhao Gang murmured, looking at the notebook in Su Ming's hand, feeling a chill run down his spine. This tattered notebook from decades ago had actually accurately predicted the terrain here!

The group walked downstream along the river for about a kilometer until their path was blocked by a huge cliff that was thirty meters high.

The cliff face is as smooth as a mirror, which is out of place with the surrounding sandstone landform and does not look like it was formed naturally.

"The entrance...is it just behind here?" A bodyguard shone his tactical flashlight for a while, but all he saw were rocks, not even a crack. "Are we supposed to shout 'Open Sesame'?"

Zhao Gang stepped forward and touched it; the rock was cold and hard. He pushed it with all his might, but the cliff did not budge.

"Explosives!" Zhao Gang turned around.

"We don't have explosives, we can't get in!"

Gu Changfeng's heart sank. Had he found the place, only to be blocked by a wall?

While everyone else was at a loss, Su Ming walked around the cliff face, tapping the stone surface with his knuckles from time to time and listening carefully to the echo.

"Thump...thump...thump thump..."

The sound of striking became duller slightly to the left of the center of the cliff.

"This is it."

He turned around.

"Team Leader Zhao, axe, rope."

Zhao Gang was taken aback and quickly had someone bring the items over.

Su Ming took a fire axe, walked to the spot where he had been striking, and slammed the axe blade into an inconspicuous groove in the stone wall!

"Clang!"

Sparks flew everywhere, and the axe blade actually wedged firmly into the stone wall by half an inch!

"There's hope!" Zhao Gang's eyes lit up.

"Everyone, tie one end of that bundle of hemp rope to the axe handle!" Su Ming commanded.

Although the crowd was puzzled, they immediately did as instructed.

"Uncle Gu, you and your assistant stand further away."

"Team Leader Zhao, you five, come with me."

He had five strong men hold the rope, while he picked up another fire axe and used the end of the handle to wed the gap between the first axe head and the rock wall, creating a simple fulcrum.

"preparation!"

Su Ming gripped the handle with both hands and pressed his entire body weight downwards.

"one!"

"two!"

"Three! Pull—!"

At his command, Zhao Gang and his four men roared simultaneously, their veins bulging, and pulled back sharply!

Su Ming also used all his strength to press down hard on the axe handle in his hand!

"Crunch—Squeak—"

A teeth-grinding scraping sound came from inside the cliff face.

That huge stone wall really moved!

Instead of being pulled apart, it slowly rotated inward around the axe blade!

"Holy crap..." One of the bodyguards was dumbfounded.

How could they possibly pry open this huge stone gate with their limited strength?

"It wasn't us pulling," Su Ming said, panting, sweat beading on his forehead. "It was the mechanism inside that was activated."

With a deafening roar, the massive stone gate spun ninety degrees, revealing a dark passage more than two meters high.

A blast of cold air, mixed with the smell of dust and engine oil, rushed in from the cave entrance.

Zhao Gang and the others were still standing there, stunned.

"Let's go, Uncle Gu." Su Ming pulled out the axe, slung it over his shoulder, and glanced back at Gu Changfeng, who was still in a daze.

"Extra charges apply for exceeding the time limit."

He turned to step into the darkness.

A faint, extremely regular metallic knocking sound drifted from the depths of the passage.

"bite……"

"bite……"

"bite……"

The sound was like a craftsman slowly and deliberately hammering something.