The Captivity of the End-Tailed Serpent

In 2032, the Noyon Ula International Special Zone on the Chinese-Russian-Mongolian border had long since gone from a celebrated cross-border industrial jewel to a death zone completely sealed off by military cordons.

The shadow of a bioweapons leak, a fight to the death between two PMC factions, and the jungle laws of gangs and scavengers had turned it into a gold rush for desperados, a chessboard for intelligence agencies' secret battles, and a hell where the strong prey on the weak.

Lin Mo, a former maintenance technician at a Beigong Union machine plant, had broken into this forbidden zone 17 times in three years. He wasn't after the gold and secrets that could make anyone rich overnight. He was searching for his younger sister, Lin Xi, an assistant researcher on Pansheng Biotech's