The deserted village was just one of the ambush points.
Juhua Mountain was to the east, and the deserted village to the west. Since they were coming from the east, I predicted they would fly over Juhua Mountain and look for a landing spot. East of Juhua Mountain, there was no suitable place to land; when Zheng Bingbing and I came to rescue Yaoyao, we had taken the rugged mountain path on that side.
Two helicopters could not fly too close to each other, or they would risk an accident. Therefore, it was predictable that as the first helicopter spotted the landing field in the deserted village and attempted to land, the second helicopter would still be circling in the airspace between the deserted village and Juhua Mountain.
Based on this assessment, I set up the second ambush point in the cabin of the tower crane at Han Yin Temple. I asked a top expert from headquarters to impersonate a crane operator and launch an attack on the second helicopter in the air at the same time the first helicopter was under attack. I estimated that at the moment of attack, the cabin of the tower crane would be no more than three hundred meters away from the second helicopter in three-dimensional space. With the level of Lin Chi and her two companions, they would certainly be able to hit it with a single shot.
I asked the three of them who had the best marksmanship. Huang Xie'er and Lan Yu'er both said Lin Chi. I then asked who had the best Qinggong (lightness skill). Huang Xie'er said it was herself, and neither Lin Chi nor Lan Yu'er disagreed. Perhaps this could be inferred from their physiques; Huang Xie'er was tall and thin, with long, slender legs like chopsticks that were full of spring, undoubtedly agile and good at jumping.
So, I assigned this task to Huang Xie'er. Sniping from a tower crane tens of meters high at such close range would not be difficult for accuracy. The challenge lay in evacuating the tower crane immediately after firing. What if they counterattacked? In a small, suspended cabin, there would be nowhere to hide.
Huang Xie'er found a worn-out camouflage uniform discarded by a worker in the temple, put on a yellow plastic hard hat, slung her gun over her shoulder, and began to climb the tower crane. She was faster than a monkey, darting up in a few moves.
"What about us then?" Lin Chi asked.
After I finished arranging things with Fucheng's Shabiya, I used the small-scale map they left me to sketch a diagram. I placed Lin Chi and Lan Yu'er at two points that divided the distance between the tower crane and the deserted village into thirds. I figured that if the helicopter was hit, the pilot would instinctively steer it away from the mountains towards flat ground to attempt a forced landing. The experts on board would not be foolish enough to crash with the helicopter. Most likely, they would jump out of the cabin as the helicopter approached the ground. After all, their Purple Qi masters wouldn't die so easily. Therefore, the jumping points should be along the line from the tower crane to the deserted village, which is why I had Lin Chi and Lan Yu'er, two top experts from the headquarters, ambushing there.
After the three members of the headquarters team were in position, I went to the adjacent main hall to find Sha Wuji. I discovered that the six members of the Shanhai Pass team were crowded around Sha Wuji's phone, watching with great interest.
"Big brother, what are you guys looking at?" I leaned in to see. On the phone screen were two blinking light spots, stuck together, with a map as the background. The two light spots were moving slowly to the left.
"Someone on the dark web has captured the GPS signals of two helicopters departing from Siping and is live-streaming it," Sha Wuji said, enlarging the map's scale to display the geographical coordinates below. The two helicopters were in Shengjing airspace. The uploader of this signal actually knew their destination was Jiuxian Cave and had marked the predicted route with a dotted line. The enemy had already covered nearly two-thirds of the journey.
"How did these demons know?" I asked, confused. The dark web was a network forum for the demon race, unrelated to humans. "Shouldn't this be top-secret intelligence from Shabiya?"
"These fellows might not be interested in the conflict between us and the Mohe. However, they are certainly wary of Longyue's movements. Therefore, as soon as the demon race discovers her appearance, they will immediately upload it to the dark web to warn their kin to avoid her. The last time Longyue's location information was captured was a year ago when she went to the Greater Khingan Range. It wasn't given enough attention, and as a result, overnight, the Mohe demons there suffered more than twenty casualties..."
"Are you saying that the big boss of the Mohe has also arrived!" I exclaimed in shock.