Chapter 604: Technical Geek to the Rescue! |
"The wind's picked up."
Xiao He reached out his hand and felt the damp, biting air, "Most likely it's already starting to snow up on the mountain."
That meant rescue could no longer be delayed.
If the snowfall intensified, their tracks would quickly be buried, and the rescue team would have a much harder time finding them.
Fortunately, the drones operated at high speed.
Almost the moment Xiao He finished speaking, the laptop in his hands sent back feedback.
"They're here."
Xiao He immediately began connecting to the drones' live feed.
At the same time, more people arrived at the hot spring area.
They had rushed over as soon as they received the alert, and their speed was genuinely impressive.
"How many people in total?"
The rescue team leader asked for details first.
"Judging from the footprints, it looks like about four people."
The hotel manager roughly explained the situation to the rescue leader.
"Two people have already been found. They're trapped on the northern slope, next to a protruding boulder."
Xiao He walked over as well and showed the rescuers the images on his laptop, unable to help a rueful comment: "I don't even know how they climbed up there."
If they wanted rescue, perhaps having them butt-slide down might have been more efficient, cough cough—
The rescue leader, anxious about the trapped people, didn't even look up. He went straight to view the live feed on the laptop and didn't realize the person speaking to him was a fairly famous celebrity.
After studying the footage, his focus locked on Xiao He's live view: "Why are they in that position? Luckily we have a drone. They're backed against a big rock, sheltered on that side. If we search from below in our direction, we might not even spot them."
The main issue was that these people were actively hiding from them and had no idea how dangerous their situation was!
The rescue leader was genuinely irritated that while the team was trying to find people, these fools were playing hide-and-seek on a snow-covered mountain—there was nothing more infuriating.
Finally he summed up, surprised: "Bro, your drone's amazing! How long did it take you to find them? And the night vision quality is so clear—what brand is it?"
He had been on-site a long time, and this was the first time he'd seen equipment this good.
Xiao He only smiled and didn't answer that question. He said instead, "I've already called one drone back. It will lead you there and automatically generate a relatively safe rescue route to follow. As for the other drone, it's still searching ahead for the remaining two people."
The rescue leader didn't fuss over the details. After confirming coordinates once more, he immediately set off with his team.
No sooner had they entered the pine forest than a drone appeared overhead.
The drone intelligently avoided the branches, dropped a bit lower, then suddenly turned its light on.
The beam lit the path ahead as bright as day and guided them along the correct route, prompting the entire rescue team to exclaim in shock.
"What kind of drone is this? I didn't see anyone manually flying it! How does it smartly dodge the branches? Its night avoidance is so responsive—so badass!"
"Local yokel, these drones have existed for a while. We just never got to use one!"
"The last time I went out on a rescue on the neighboring route, I met an expert using thermal imaging plus AI recognition. His drone was incredible. It found the person in an hour and a half and even helped plan the rescue path."
"Wow! Must be a big city thing. I never saw one myself."
"But that guy's drone was cutting-edge tech with very low production. This one looks unfamiliar, different somehow—no idea whose product it is."
"Bro, next time let's get a set of that gear."
"If we had equipment like this for mountain rescues, we'd never worry again!"
The group couldn't help chattering excitedly.
"Quiet, everyone! Save the people first!"
The leader's command hushed them all.
Yet his gaze kept flicking upward from time to time...
Though a drone had guided them, it still took the rescue team more than forty minutes to bring back the two girls.
Both girls had been crying until their eyes were swollen and red; they looked pale and shaken. Even more unpleasant to see than their expressions was Wu Chuyi, who came back with them.
The cameraman who went with Wu Chuyi was carrying his camera and had stopped recording.
There was no choice—the weather was so cold the batteries drained fast. The cameraman had done his best; whatever footage he managed to capture was all he could give.
When Hu Pei saw the expressions on everyone's faces, he immediately knew something had happened during the rescue and pulled the cameraman aside to ask privately.
The cameraman sighed, helpless: "Those two girls were well-known stalker fans of Teacher Wu, a little off in the head. Teacher Wu originally wanted to help, but he didn't expect them to be those two. He tried to leave, but they saw him and insisted on him hugging them for encouragement before going down the mountain."
Hu Pei: ?
Hu Pei wore an expression that said there were no words.
To put it bluntly, few celebrities in the circle actually like stalker fans. That group is particularly strange. Even when the celebrity is waving and trading insults from a distance, the stalkers can film a video and post it online, saying things like, "Compared to Brother's resentment, the first thing to greet me is the scent on his hands; this hatred is better left unseen in life."
Yeah...
In short, you couldn't use ordinary logic to understand these people.
So at the time Wu Chuyi's face had turned green, but in front of everyone he couldn't break character. He forced himself up the slope to drag the two girls down.
As a result, uninformed rescue staff scolded him, saying his pulling was too rough and might have injured them.
Wu Chuyi: Why did I have to be so performative and show off on the mountain?
Everyone saw Wu Chuyi return, barely pausing, without even the energy to greet the production team. He immediately went back up to his hotel room and refused to mention returning to the mountain to rescue the remaining two.
Hu Pei, now fully understanding the situation, muttered: ...Fine, let's pretend we didn't know. That's already miserable enough.
"They probably don't know where the other two went. Most likely they dropped off those two and ran. Luckily nothing worse happened..."
The rescue leader said this as he walked up to Xiao He, and only then did he notice that the guy with the drone was actually a celebrity.
"Hey hey hey, you look kinda familiar—are you Xiao He?"
Xiao He glanced up and nodded, "That's me."
He then closed his laptop: "Based on the drone's traces, those two should have made it back. I suggest informing the park. If they're already back inside the resort, the park's screening can handle it quickly."
Sure enough, before long the park's front gate staff reported they had spotted two suspicious tourists trying to ride a cable car down on the out-of-service line.
After verification, those two turned out to be the runaway paparazzi.
Wow, Xiao He had to admire these two.
If you say they'd risk their lives for money, they truly brought two girls across a snowy mountain to secretly film.
If you call them idiots, they really did make the return trip themselves, fully intact, and were about to board the cable car down.
That was absurd!
With accurate information in hand, the rescuers finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Bringing people down from the mountain unharmed, with no injuries and no loss of life, was cause for genuine happiness to this team, who lived around snow-covered peaks and always respected nature and death.
Still, the rescue leader couldn't help asking more about Xiao He's drones.
Xiao He's two drones had played a major role in this rescue.
It was the leader's first time working with such advanced equipment. He had encountered drone-using volunteers before, but none had matched Xiao He's speed.
Xiao He, unusually, shared some of his approach: "My AI algorithms might be different from others."
Mainstream algorithms use area-coverage sweeps: broad searches over large areas until a person is detected, then recognition and reporting.
Xiao He's approach used trace analysis plus behavior projection: by capturing subtle traces, inferring the missing person's route, and combining mountain terrain, weather, and human physiology, the algorithm predicts their most likely next position.
The difference is that the former is passive recognition—large-scale trial-and-error exclusion—while the latter is active tracking, thinking like human searchers to find where a person might be.
These people hadn't gone far and left many traces, so Xiao He's algorithm was the quickest, most convenient countermeasure.
The rescue leader listened in awe.
He stared at Xiao He a moment, then nodded and said, "I think your tech would be amazing for catching criminals."
With such field-tracking capabilities, criminals would have nowhere to hide if this were deployed.
Xiao He's flow of words paused slightly.
He then offered the rescue leader an embarrassed but polite smile: "Haha, it's just a prototype. Catching criminals? That's an exaggeration."
What was this?
Taken from crime-fighting and used against criminals?