Book 5 Chapter 12 – A Change of Leader

　　A quick search around the area yielded no results — You Fang had disappeared without leaving a single trace behind. After only a day in Lian Yun peak, the expedition team had already lost a member.

　　'What do you think of this?' After a fruitless search, the group returned to their campsite with severe countenances and sat down around the robots. Li Yiming sought for Bai Ze's opinion, since her quietness suggested that she knew what happened.

　　'…Bai Ze?' However, Li Yiming was concerned by Bai Ze's silence after calling her name three times. This was the first time something like this had happened, aside from when she had fallen into a coma.

　　Li Yiming's tried his best to focus and used his inner sight. The next instant, his entire body stiffened, and he looked around, unnerved; Bai Ze was gone.

　　"Li Yiming. I should apologize for earlier. I hope you can give me the details about what you saw earlier." Lin Lu said to Li Yiming while checking the bullets in her gun.

　　"Excuse me for a moment. Eyegla.s.ses, Liu Meng, come here." Li Yiming interrupted Lin Lu and walked away from the campsite. "It's not that I don't trust you enough, but I need to have a talk with them first."

　　"Is he giving up?" Lin Lu was slightly irritated. 'Well, I suppose that it shouldn't be surprising. After all, these people have either been bought into this or been forced to join this expedition.'

　　"No, he wants to go off on his own." Chen Quan looked at Li Yiming's back and smiled.

　　"On his own?" Shen Jianming looked at Chen Quan with amazement. Shen Jianming had been quite impressed by the latter's abilities, despite his disreputable profession.

　　"Well, he wants to… leave us here. How should I put it? The way he looks at Liu Meng and Eyegla.s.ses… He thinks that we're holding him back." Chen Quan spat on his palm and rubbed his hands together until they were dry. "I'd understand if it was only Liu Meng, since they're a couple, but what about that Eyegla.s.ses guy? Isn't he from your department?"

　　"Eyegla.s.ses is an external recruit. He's a hacker…" Lin Lu smiled bitterly. She remembered the speed with which Eyegla.s.ses jumped into the bush.

　　"Have you noticed?" Chen Quan squinted his eyes and looked at Lin Lu.

　　"What is it?"

　　"I haven't seen Eyegla.s.ses eat anything ever since we've entered the mountains."

　　Lin Lu stayed quiet. She had, in fact, noticed the oddity, but dismissed it as a symptom of not being used to living outdoors. She had thought that it would only be a matter of time before he would succ.u.mb to hunger. 'Am I the overconfident one for accepting this dangerous mission without even checking the backgrounds of my team properly?'

　　"There's something wrong…" Eyegla.s.ses was trying to find a signal on his tablet but to no avail.

　　"I think my guess was right after all." Li Yiming glanced at the two.

　　"You mean a domain? But…" Eyegla.s.ses started his retort.