Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness

"Appreciation of five thousand six hundred yuan, welcome to visit us again!"

In the supermarket, the sweet-voiced clerk smiled at Bi Fang, who was bagging his items. Bi Fang nodded before hurrying out with two large bags in hand.

He was running short of specialized surveillance equipment and needed to craft some himself, leading him to the supermarket to purchase large quantities of milk, vinegar, and some snacks.

Something seemed off, didn’t it?

If Bi Fang were live streaming at that moment, many viewers would probably be commenting, for a simple reason: The goods he bought seemed just too ordinary.

Are you sure you’re not here to shop for daily necessities?

Apart from the excessive amount of milk, which looked impossible to finish during a trip, the rest— a bottle of vinegar, hmm, maybe Old Fang has a taste for sourness, and then the chips, soda, biscuits, jelly…

Anyone who saw these items wouldn’t think they could be used to make anything special; they were just the essentials for a homebody’s survival.

Behind the image of a rugged outdoorsman was actually a happy home dweller!?

Of course not.

Bi Fang dumped all of his purchases on the hotel sofa, took out a small basin, opened the milk carton, and poured all the milk into it.

The real reason for his supermarket visit boiled down to just two items: milk and vinegar.

Cameras are everywhere—one must always assume that their actions are being recorded.

The other snacks were merely a decoy to mask the presence of these two items, to avoid drawing suspicion with an overly obvious purpose.

Of course, to most people, milk and vinegar wouldn’t suggest anything out of the ordinary, but for someone like Bi Fang, these items were perfect for creating concealment tools.

A white froth formed on the surface as Bi Fang poured about a liter of milk into the container.

He tapped the chopstick along the rim to dissipate the foam, then placed the basin in the microwave of his hotel room, checked the power settings, and set the timer for five minutes to start heating.

Fancier hotel suites come fully-equipped with furniture and appliances, some even include a private kitchen.

After five minutes, Bi Fang took out the hot but not yet boiling milk, now topped with a thin layer of "milk skin."

Opening the bottle of vinegar, Bi Fang used a stainless steel soup spoon to add eight spoonfuls of vinegar into the container of milk, piercing the milk skin and stirring continuously.

Once mixed, a mass of flocculent sediment entwined around the spoon handle.

Fishing out the sediment and holding it level with his eyes, Bi Fang pinched the flocculent substance, which was sticky but intact.

Good.

That was precisely what Bi Fang wanted.

To hide valuable data, keys, or surveillance gadgets like cameras and microphones, one only needs two common kitchen ingredients: milk and vinegar.

Heated and filtered, the casein in the milk coagulates into a gel-like, plastic-like substance. Molding this substance allows it to take any shape and dry to a clay-like consistency.

This versatile material can be shaped, colored, and made to mimic the appearance of rocks, bricks, logs, or any object, making it an ideal drop point for intelligence and perfect for concealing valuable items or surveillance devices in specific environments.

The only thing to be mindful of is not to let the milk boil during heating, or else the result would be a flocculent substance instead of a silky one.

Separating DNA proteins in high school biology essentially uses the same method.

Bi Fang took out a spare T-shirt, draped it beneath the container, and poured its contents into the sink, filtering out the stringy mixture.

In practice, five hundred grams of milk could produce a "milk plastic ball" the size of an egg, enough to conceal a miniature camera.

Having the disguises wasn’t enough, they also needed cameras and microphones.

These were no challenge for Bi Fang either.

During the initial execution of the mission, he had considered that they might not be able to bring too much equipment, so he had Richard and the others purchase a considerable number of baby monitors.

Any computer city or large supermarket would have them, they just needed to be simply modified to become hidden cameras.

Bi Fang needed only the components inside, discarding the bulky casings entirely.

He removed the components—transmitters, battery packs, and camera lenses—but did not cut the wires connecting the components.

Then he inserted a toothpick into the camera lens and glued the newly acquired "special plastic" to the lens, molding the surrounding "plastic" into the shape of a rock.

When the time came, he just needed to pull out the toothpick, which would leave an inconspicuous pinhole in its place, allowing the camera to conduct surveillance through the tiny opening.

Bi Fang poured out some vinegar, mixed in a suitable amount of milk and stirred, quickly turning the mixture into a brownish-gray color—his "paint" for dyeing.

He painted the rock a neutral color or created special textures mimicking the exterior of the target location, placed the transmitter and battery pack into a waterproof ziplock bag, and then connected it to the "rock."

At that time, this part could be buried in the ground, not too deep as that would lead to signal transmission failure, and finally, position the camera to capture the desired footage.

To ensure the camera’s "view" was at the correct angle, Bi Fang didn’t remove the toothpick until the very last moment, using the angle of the toothpick to measure the field of view.

A lens like this had a very small chance of being discovered.

Even if discovered and dismantled, and the exposed wires were seen, in the eyes of ordinary people, it was nothing more than a piece of junk that had been blown by the wind and buried by the sun.

During installation, additional camouflage could be added by spraying glue on the rock lens and covering it with soil collected from the scene, almost ensuring infallibility.

Moreover, a microphone was needed.

It was relatively simple to secretly install a voice-activated recording device in the target’s room or vehicle, but without amplification equipment, it was unlikely to gather effective intelligence.

A complete surveillance system needed to amplify the sound through a microphone.

Lacking specialized tools, one could also transform a cellphone, an audio jack, and headphones into an effective listening device.

The difference between the two was incredibly simple as their functions were the exact opposite.

Bi Fang disassembled a pair of cheap headphones from a variety store, revealing two conspicuous wires, a red positive wire and a black negative one.

By reversing the polarity of the two wires, one could change the device’s function.

Microphones and speakers were essentially the same instrument; any speaker—from the earbuds on headphones to the stereo systems in televisions—could be turned into a microphone within a few minutes.

Speakers convert electronic signals into sound, while microphones convert sound into processable and amplified electronic signals.

Bi Fang cut the output end of the speaker’s wire, connected it to an audio jack, and plugged the audio port into the camera equipment he had just prepared.

All small recording devices could essentially be used this way, but phones set to silent mode and configured to auto-answer had two extra advantages.

They could intercept information in real-time without risking a return to the target location to retrieve the devices.

This eavesdropping device installation technique was highly adaptable.

Unfortunately, Bi Fang didn’t have that many phones.

He had also taught this trick to Richard and others, advising them to install one in their own cars as well so as not to be caught off guard by someone sneaking in.

One only needed to disable any rear speaker in the vehicle, plug its wires into a recorder or phone, and assemble a vehicle surveillance device.

In public places, earbuds that can dangle from one’s jacket pocket can serve as a covert intelligence-gathering station.

The sound, image, and camouflage were all set; in just one short hour, Bi Fang had once again produced a batch of surveillance equipment ready to use.

He hoisted the backpack onto his back; there was still work to be done today.

Night.

Bi Fang, along with Mandy and Keke, returned to Dolphin Bay once more.

Despite switching hotels as instructed by Bi Fang, tracking them down was still no challenge for him; in fact, it was even simpler, because this hotel had balconies instead of floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Right under the watchful eyes of the guards, Bi Fang led the two out with him.

Perhaps because the dolphin season was drawing near, there were noticeably more people at Dolphin Bay tonight.

Large piles of firewood had accumulated on the beach, suggesting a grand bonfire party was being prepared for the following evening.

The mission period was much longer than Bi Fang had anticipated—surveying the terrain, formulating a plan, and patiently observing,

"Just now, two groups of people headed to the tunnel. Did you see them?" Bi Fang turned his head to ask Mandy and Keke.

The two nodded, indicating that they had also seen them, and that it was a very bad sign.

As soon as the two groups descended the mountain, they ran back up, their flashlights swinging hurriedly—actions marked by swiftness.

They were eager to get moving and start work.

Richard had told Bi Fang that the first time they came to Japan, they also encountered these people who would carefully inspect broken branches.

Usually, they would only climb the mountain to check when there were dolphins in Dolphin Bay, and the purpose was to see if anyone was tracking and filming.

Bi Fang had already encountered dolphins the previous night, and everything signaled the inevitable.

The focus of Dolphin Bay was on its right side, but Bi Fang and his companions had placed the equipment on the left side the previous night, which made it easier to enter the water and observe.

Today Bi Fang placed most of the equipment on trees with a clear view, the observation point higher, offering an unobstructed view from top to bottom.

Mandy wore an infrared camera on her head, also as a precaution against the sudden appearance of anyone.

Moreover, they also had professional underwater divers responsible for underwater inspection, conducting thorough searches of the seabed—Bi Fang didn’t want them to discover the equipment.

Underwater sonar, underwater cameras, underwater infrared devices—all were the results of their hard work from an all-nighter. Bi Fang and Richard needed to understand everything that happened here, to experience it in an all-encompassing, three-dimensional way.

They wanted to hear every sound the dolphins made as well as every word spoken by the fishermen. Bi Fang’s efforts were not solely for exposing the slaughter but to also document something that might change hearts.

Last weekend, the long and mournful cries of the humpback whale resounded across London’s Trafalgar Square; an overwhelming sadness burst forth like a cold, inundating flow of water that covered every person in the square.

Thousands of demonstrators demanded a halt to the hunting of whales.

In the 1960s, the IWC did nothing about the whale slaughter.

Until one man appeared—Roger Payne.

Not a character from an anime, but a real hero.

He initiated the whale rescue movement by revealing their songs to the world, an influence so profound and terrifying.

Anyone who had heard the cries of the whales could feel the tumultuous sorrow within, as explosive as a volcanic eruption.

Now, the protests had started again, and those involved were determined to change the status quo as the numbers of whale slaughter were on the rise again, and it was time for a new leader to take charge.

Roger Payne was already over seventy years old, and there were only a few like him.

This night was bound to be difficult to endure.

"Take this." Bi Fang handed each of them a slip of paper with a series of numbers on it.

"What’s this?"

"The phone number for the Huaxia Embassy. Keep it saved and the paper with you. If you run into danger, or get captured, apart from contacting me, the second option is to contact this number."

"Oh, no need, we have Ugly Country..."

"Trust me, take it. It’s more reliable, just in case. Remember to keep your phone in your sock, and, have you each prepared more than two phones as I told you?" Bi Fang folded the slip of paper and stuffed it into their collars.

All these precautions were taken to avoid unforeseen problems. If they were caught, they would certainly be searched. One phone was to be left in a conspicuous place, intended for their captors to "find".

The other was to be hidden on their person, so having more than two phones was essential.

Sometimes, mere hiding isn’t enough; the enemy must be made to believe their goal is achieved—that’s the real art of concealment.

Creating a diversion, luring the tiger away from the mountain, the same principle.

"Oh, alright, I hope I never have to use it." The two earnestly accepted the slips of paper.

Having finished this, the three of them turned and entered the forest, completely disregarding the no-entry signs.

Regrettably, Bi Fang’s learning was inadequate; he believed the yellow sign simply read,

"Welcome to Taiji Town."

...

In the early hours of the morning, the three evaded the searching villagers, but just as they thought to head down the mountain, suddenly, a flash of lightning blinded Keke’s eyes.

Fortunately, Bi Fang was quick to react, pulling Keke back and using a large tree to obscure their figures.

"Is someone there? Who’s there?"

Apparently detecting something amiss, the villager shouted.

Keke swallowed hard, his heart pounding, his temples throbbing intensely.

"It’s over, I didn’t see." Mandy said quietly, licking his lips.

Just as the villager ran out, Mandy happened to look away, and the infrared vision didn’t catch anything.

Bi Fang crouched down, picked up a rock from the ground, weighed it, and then hurled it powerfully to the other side.

The rock whistled through the air, making a noise and swiftly drawing the villager’s attention, with shouting voices, the flashlight quickly disappeared.

"Is he gone?"

Keke swallowed, his forehead already drenched with sweat, looking as if he had been fished out of water.

The patrolling villagers, each with a machete at their waist—one could imagine what would happen if they were caught.

After about five or six minutes, Bi Fang nodded, "He should be gone."

Just when the three thought it was all over and they reached the foot of the mountain,

The people in the hotel, including Richard, were facing a sudden attack.