If this were some other time, they would likely hunt those goats down, but at this point, nobody had the desire to. Everyone continued marching forward.
“No birds in the sky, no beasts on the ground, vast nothingness in all directions. If one wishes to know where they are, seek the sun to differentiate East and West, bones of men that mark the path.” The path Faxian — a monk of the Jin dynasty — described was precisely the path the Elite Platoon were currently walking on. Between the heavens and earth, the snowy mountains lay high. Walking beneath the mountains, all life seems like a speck of dust.
“Old Luo was here.” After walking past weathered rocks, Xia Jinyuan spotted four stones that were placed orderly together; the smallest rock pointed towards the ice mountain that was over 6000 meters above sea level.
Their guide was someone very reliable. During the civil war, Old Luo first brought his eldest son as he fled to China; the path he took was this ice mountain.
Then he went back to retrieve his wife and three kids, and he also climbed the icy mountains. When he fled to China, he took the ice mountains again, two round-trips, a total of four times, he was the person most familiar with that route.
The party of seven-headed towards the ice mountain acting like illegal immigrants. The deeper they went, the deeper the snow sunk. When they reached the point where the mountain slopes down, the party of seven tied up their skis under their feet and skied their way down the mountain.
Ye Jian’s speed was the slowest at the start. She relaxed her upper body, pushed her center of gravity forward, and pushed her body downwards. Bending her knees… staring ahead of her, her ski poles pointing behind her flanks…, without even needing Xia Jinyuan’s advice, she started swinging her poles as she gained speed.
From top to bottom, Ye Jian was after all not a master of skiing, so under Xia Jinyuan’s escort, they were a few minutes slower than the rest of the team who had reached the bottom. Before they reached the bottom, he suddenly saw several horses arching their legs… horses? Why are there horses here!
Xia Jinyuan cocked his brows; he took the lead after staying back the whole time and zoomed past her. Then with a quick spin, he stopped beside a nomad.
This was their guide, Old Luo. Old Luo is one of the Tajiks, the moment he noticed Xia Jinyuan, he immediately spread his arms passionately, instead of an elder, he acted more like a brother.
Without too much chitchat, Old Luo looked at Ye Jian, then pointed at the seven horses that he had brought along, “If you have told me earlier, I would’ve prepared one more horse.”
“No need, this is already great!” He even brought along horses that could trot along the ice mountain, that itself was more than enough to surprise Xia Jinyuan. Having one less horse was not a problem at all.
Pigeon had already made his way up a horse: “While the sun’s up, let’s hurry up and depart.” They definitely must march through the night, but traveling the extra mile during the day was better than traveling the extra mile during the night.
Crossing the ice mountain over 6000 meters sea level, it was another country already. The Wakhan corridor was still sunny with clear skies at the end of October, and the bad weather has yet to arrive. From sunup to sundown, they treaded on the light of the snow, bracing against the chilly winds that scrape and hurt their faces like blades and endured everything until they entered the mission area.
The endurance of Special Forces soldiers towards bad weather was not something normal soldiers could imagine. They could spend years if not months in the ice mountains and become like the locals.
At night, the horses couldn’t walk like how they did in the morning. Stepping on grey stones that have yet to be covered by snow, their two feet were numb from the cold, when their blood reached their chests, a trace of coldness was looming inside them.
Since the people couldn’t rest, neither were the horses allowed rest. Being able to ride horses during the day, they managed to shrink down a full day’s journey to less than 20 hours.
Ye Jian was in the middle of the formation since the start, and at 4 a.m., she was still walking in the middle. She wore fur boots prepared by Old Luo and strapped it down. She pulled one foot out of the snow and went forward, then pulled the other foot and went forward, walking like that, the total time they rested was less than half an hour.
