the two-faced Adopted Girl Who Melted CEO's Ice-Cold Heart-Chapter 1035: Trapped in the Remote Mountains
Crystal thought about how Uncle Hao mentioned that the southern Yunnan area had been unstable recently, and she couldn’t help but knit her brows. She had come to southern Yunnan for field research on one hand and to meet Richard Shaw on the other. He hadn’t returned home in over a year, and although he often video-called the elderly lady, it was no match for seeing him in person.
Seeing how much the elderly lady missed her grandson, Crystal decided to sponsor this field expedition. She planned to use the expedition as an excuse, claiming to be stranded in the mountains, so Richard Shaw would come to her rescue. Once she saw him, she intended to drag him back to the Imperial City, even if it meant tying him up.
"Professor Thorne, where should we set up camp?" Crystal asked, carrying her outdoor backpack and using a trekking pole to conserve energy. She noticed it was getting late and knew they had to choose a good camping spot.
"We’re almost there. I’ve set up camp in a small valley up ahead on previous expeditions. It’s very safe, just twenty more minutes," Professor Thorne said with a cheerful smile. Lucas Thorne was an unabashed plant research enthusiast.
When the group reached the camping spot, Crystal saw that the terrain was wide with a stream nearby, and it indeed was an excellent location on the exposed rock layer.
The five of them quickly took out tents, fetched water to boil, prepared dinner, and then rested in preparation for the next day’s field plant specimen collection.
To save space in their backpacks, they only brought two tents. Crystal shared a tent with Catherine Webb, while Professor Thorne slept in a larger tent with the two male students.
Crystal could tell Catherine had some resistance towards her, but she didn’t mind, and the night passed without incident.
Once most of the nearby plant specimens were collected, Lucas led the four students further in. As they ventured deeper into the mountains, the vegetation grew denser, with many plants displaying vibrant patterns. Seeing some plants he had never encountered before, Lucas was ecstatic and shouted in excitement, "Quick, collect the specimens."
The two men went up to help collect specimens, while Catherine explored the nearby terrain.
Crystal wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she felt the mountain was unusually silent, so quiet that there wasn’t even the sound of insects or birds.
Instinctively, she took out her compass. Her beautiful almond-shaped eyes suddenly narrowed, and her expression changed slightly as she also took out her GPS and transmitted her location.
Seeing Professor Thorne engrossed in his work, Crystal tapped a tree trunk with her trekking pole and said to Catherine, "Can your compass still work?"
Catherine originally didn’t want to interact with her, but seeing Crystal’s somewhat cold expression, she reluctantly took out her own compass, and then her expression changed too. "The compass has malfunctioned," she said.
Lucas and the others also heard the commotion and checked their compasses, discovering that they all had malfunctioned. Moreover, all the electronic devices had stopped working. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
"Professor, do you remember the way we came? Let’s head back," Jagger Lloyd said anxiously.
It was Lucas’s first encounter with such a situation, and he didn’t remember the way, saying, "Let’s explore the surroundings and not get separated. We’ll use the changes in vegetation along the way to find our path."
However, half an hour later, the group had to admit that they were trapped in the deep, dense mountains.
Professor Thorne took out the map, studying the route in surprise, muttering, "It’s the same route as last time, how did we get off track?"
Seeing him mark circles and points on the map, Crystal took out a pen and drew a circle-shaped area on the map, saying, "We are within this range."
