The first forty-eight hours were almost up. Could a person even survive that long, or would we end up with a corpse?
Captain Song took his hat off and sighed deeply.
“Don’t lose hope, dad.” That was all one could muster to say like that. Despite saying those words, she still couldn’t help sighing when she saw the sun rising from the East.
They reached a crossroad soon after. The route to the West was broader and would be further split into different routes down the road. It would be more difficult to search that region.
Su Zhan offered, “I’ll take some men and take that route.”
Captain Song nodded before assigning extra men to Su Zhan. That didn’t discourage Su Zhan from walking down that route several times and exhausting himself. He later sat on a plank with his feet bare while water dripped down.
Zong Jinghao headed over when morning rolled by. He asked Su Zhan if the latter found any clues.
Su Zhan shook his head and braced himself for the worst. “Maybe…”
“No,” insisted Zong Jinghao, “We haven’t found his body yet, but that doesn’t mean that he drowned. Someone could have rescued him. When we pull the car out of the water, we saw that the window was intact, and the door was closed. As I’m sure you know, the pressure of the water would’ve kept the door closed. His corpse wasn’t in the car, so my guess is that he jumped out of the car before it fell into the water. I don’t think he ever sunk with the car in the first place.”
Zong Jinghao’s words made perfect sense, but there was still one question that was bugging Su Zhan. “If he had survived, why haven’t we found him despite the fact that we’ve expanded our search to this extent and covered so much ground?”
His question left Zong Jinghao speechless.
Su Zhan was right. If he had survived, why haven’t we found him?
Just then, the phone in Su Zhan’s pocket rang. He fished it out and saw that the call was from Qin Ya.
Su Zhan picked it up. “Hello, Ya.”
“Have you found him?” asked Qin Ya.
Su Zhan was in a hurry when he returned, so he never went to see how Qin Ya was. He simply called her to tell her about Shen Peichuan’s issue. She must be calling because she’s worried sick.
“Not yet,” replied Su Zhan.
“Maybe I should head over…”
“Don’t. You won’t be able to help, anyway. I’ll call you once I have any updates. Don’t worry. We’ll do everything we can,” said Su Zhan. She’d just end up worrying with the rest of us, anyway, so it’s better for her to keep her distance.
“Okay. Remember to call me as soon as you have any news,” said Qin Ya.
“I will,” promised Su Zhan, who later tilted his head down. “I probably won’t be able to visit you for the time being.”
“It’s fine. There’s no need to visit me. Just focus on the search.”
Su Zhan murmured a reply.
On the other end of the call, Qin Ya gripped her phone before adding, “I better hang up now so that I don’t disrupt anyone.”
With that, she ended the call as soon as she finished speaking.
Su Zhan put his phone back into his pocket. After that, he got up and walked to Zong Jinghao before asking, “This is going nowhere. We have to find another way.”
Just then, Zong Jinghao scanned the surroundings and saw a boat by the river. “What’s that boat for?”
Taking a look at where Zong Jinghao was looking, Su Zhan shook his head and replied, “I don’t know.”
Without another word, Zong Jinghao had the men pull the boat ashore. Meanwhile, Su Zhan followed closely behind and asked, “What’s on your mind?”
Zong Jinghao didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure if his guess was right.
He later had Su Zhan get into the boat with him before getting the other men to continue the search.
The boat floated down to a reclaimed farm. An elderly man was harvesting the vegetables on the farm when Zong Jinghao walked over.
The elderly man placed his harvest in his basket. When he stood up, he saw the two men walking over so he asked, “What are you two doing here?”
“I saw a boat by the river. May I know why it’s parked over there?” asked Zong Jinghao.
“Why are you asking?” asked the elderly man suspiciously.
Su Zhan lied, “We’re here to inspect the river and make necessary arrangements to prevent floods.”
Only then did the elderly man answered, “Old Man Li used to keep geese there. The authorities later banned him from doing so, and the boat had been abandoned since.”
“This boat was for keeping geese?” blurted Su Zhan.
The elderly man pointed at the blue net some distance ahead, then said, “Yeah. See those nets in the middle of the river over there? They are fixed in place. Old Man Li had to toss the geese’s food there, so he got a boat to do just that. However, the head of the village later said that it’d pollute the river and banned Old Man Li from raising geese. Everything was abandoned after that.”
“And no one has ever used this boat since?” asked Su Zhan again. At that point, he had more or less guessed what Zong Jinghao had in mind.
Shen Peichuan was nowhere to be found near the river. Could it be that he happened to get ahold of the boat and got on the land? Or maybe someone stumbled upon him and rescued him?
The elderly man sounded certain when he answered, “Nope. Didn’t you see the moss growing amuck on the boat? No one used it in a while. Hell, it’s been idling for so long that it can’t even stay still anymore. No one in their right mind would use a boat under these circumstances.”
Zong Jinghao shifted his gaze. He saw a small village at some distance ahead. Despite its small size, the houses there were mostly three to five-story buildings.
“Are there any strangers who dropped by your village lately?”
“Almost everyone is a stranger. Quite a few villagers rent their place out to foreign workers,” said the elderly man.
Zong Jinghao was disappointed to hear that. It seemed that Shen Peichuan wasn’t rescued.
However, what Zong Jinghao didn’t know was that his judgment and guesses were right. It was only that he found the wrong place.
It was true that Shen Peichuan had jumped out of the car before it crashed into the waters. He didn’t get dragged underwater with the car, but the water was running too quickly. He wanted to save Aunt Wang after he fell into the water, but the water pressure made it impossible for him to open the door. As he struggled, he accidentally slipped, and the running water washed him downstream.
After traveling for a long distance, he stopped when some weed tangled his feet. He drank and choked on the water a lot. In fact, he almost drowned at the bottom of the river, but fortunately, he broke free of the weeds before that happened. He was exhausted by then, and in his daze, he saw a boat. Although he didn’t know what the boat was for, he swam earnestly towards it as if his life depended on it. The man on the boat never noticed Shen Peichuan. Hence, when the man turned the boat around, he ended up knocking on Shen Peichuan’s head, and the latter fainted.
When Shen Peichuan came around again, he saw that he was in an unfamiliar room.
The small room was dark and humid.
He could hear others talking.
The one who spoke was the man who accidentally knocked into Shen Peichuan. The man was tall and a little plump. His skin was tanned, and his facial features showed that he was a rather crude man. He collected scrap metal and harvested clams for a living. Never in his life would he thought that he’d accidentally knock into someone else in that river. Thus, he was tempted to flee when he first knocked into Shen Peichuan, but he was worried that Shen Peichuan might die from that incident. And because he didn’t want anyone to find Shen Peichuan’s body and trace his death back, the man took Shen Peichuan home. The former was stupefied when he saw the blood on Shen Peichuan’s head.
The man later sat on the ground and hesitated for a long while before reaching out to check if Shen Peichuan was still breathing. After confirming that Shen Peichuan was alive, the man hurried to get a doctor over. He didn’t want Shen Peichuan to die because he didn’t want to be a murderer.
A doctor from the community clinic went over and examined Shen Peichuan. After a while, he suggested that they take Shen Peichuan to a proper hospital.
“I don’t have the money for that,” complained the man, who was unwilling to pay for the medical fees. He later asked, “Can he survive without going to the hospital?”
“I can’t say for sure. He hurt his head, so it’s best if he goes to a proper hospital and does an x-ray,” answered the doctor.
“It’s fine as long as he survives.”
The doctor couldn’t force the man to get Shen Peichuan to the hospital and could only leave after giving his medical advice. Still, when the doctor reached the door, he turned around and asked, “By the way, who is this guy?”
The man stiffened. He shifted his gaze away and lied, “He’s my cousin.”
The doctor nodded before turning around to leave.
At the same time, Shen Peichuan had a splitting headache, but he could still make out what the men said. He leaned against the wall and walked out of the room before asking, “Are you the one who knocked into me?”
Shen Peichuan remembered how he lost consciousness after a boat knocked into him.
“Y-you’re awake?” blurted the man as his eyes bulged with fear.
Shen Peichuan scanned the house. He saw countless pails of different sizes on the floor and several plastic bags all around. Water and mud were all over the floor, and there were a few pails filled with scrap metals.
“Do you have a phone?” asked Shen Peichuan. He needed to make a call, and his mobile phone was long gone.
“What are you trying to do? You can’t pin this on me. You’re the one who suddenly showed up in the water,” insisted the man nervously. He was worried about being held responsible, so he was quick to deny everything.
“I just want to make a call,” informed Shen Peichuan weakly and wearily.
“Hah, you can’t fool me!” said the man, who obviously didn’t think that Shen Peichuan was simply making a call. The man was certain that Shen Peichuan would call the authorities and complain.
Shen Peichuan could tell that there was no talking to the man, so the former decided to leave on his own. He needed to find someone else to help him because he needed to get back as soon as possible. He had to warn Zong Jinghao about how Gu Bei had escaped. Gu Bei intends to seek revenge by harming Zong Jinghao. I have to warn Zong Jinghao.
Unfortunately, Shen Peichuan had just reached the front door when he felt a sharp pain in his head. He turned around to see the man holding a wooden plank in his hand. The man was trembling at the time, but he forced himself to seem calm and glared over. “I know you’re trying to make a fool out of me. You’re leaving to complain to the authorities, aren’t you?”
