Light Paint

Some cases are like bones rotten in the mud. You think they are buried deep enough, but a heavy rain can wash them out, leaving them white and piercing your eyes. My name is Lu Yuhang, from the Crime Squad, but the things I face are often heavier than corpses. It starts with the "great god" named Zhou Tong. He is a legend in the "backpacker" circle. He traveled alone through Aotai and Langta, and survived alone in the hinterland of Lop Nur's no-man's land for thirty-two days. He has millions of fans on the Internet, and every photo reveals his desire to conquer nature and his unabashed disdain for those "hothouse flowers". He famously said: "The fear of the weak is the mud on the soles of my shoes." In October 2019, Zhou Tong announced his ultimate challenge: to travel alone through the "Death Valley" deep in the Hengduan Mountains, a place that no one has ever set foot on, without any modern positioning equipment and only a hand-drawn map. He broadcast the whole process live, but on the third day after entering the core area, the signal was interrupted. He disappeared. The search and rescue team only found the tent he left behind, intact, with his costumes neatly arranged inside. It seems as if the owner just went out for a walk and will come back at any time. But the strange thing is that there are no footsteps walking outside the tent, only barefoot footprints walking around the tent in circles and circles, and finally disappear in front of the rock wall a hundred meters away. The rock wall is as smooth as a mirror and is as high as ten thousand feet.