In the afternoon, Nie Jiuluo waited for the car to pick her up but did not wait for the resolution of the rural scandal—things seemed to have taken another turn.
It was said that the husband, accompanied by others, had found the adulterer. After a brutal beating, the adulterer knelt and begged for mercy, revealing another twist: that night, they had agreed to meet in secret, but he waited in vain. When the woman didn’t show up and didn’t answer her phone, he didn’t think much of it, assuming she must have had something come up.
In summary, the scandal seemed to be transitioning into a missing persons case. As for what the missing persons case would evolve into, Nie Jiuluo didn’t follow up: she is only “moderately curious, and appropriately disengaged” with people and matters. If a compelling novel or an intriguing movie is presented to her, she would watch it. If she misses the ending halfway through, she doesn’t dwell on it too much.
The new driver, Mr. Qian, in his forties, repeatedly apologized on behalf of the travel agency on the way back.
Since this was a personal issue of Sun Zhou, Nie Jiuluo had no intention of taking it out on unrelated parties: “Have you been able to contact Sun Zhou?”
Mr. Qian awkwardly replied, “Not yet. The phone is on, but he isn’t answering.”
He mumbled that it was surprising how such a strong young man could be scared into such a state.
The so-called “zombies,” “monsters,” and “psychopaths” were just fanciful speculations; the likelihood was quite low. Considering it, the possibility of enemies seeking revenge or gambling debts being pressured seemed more plausible.
Nie Jiuluo asked, “Did he offend someone, or owe someone money or something?”
Mr. Qian answered cautiously, “It’s hard to say.”
Indeed, as ordinary colleagues, it’s not easy to know about each other’s private lives.
Originally, Sun Zhou was supposed to stay at the hotel with Nie Jiuluo, but Mr. Qian, a local driver sent by the travel agency, had to return to his place after dropping Nie Jiuluo off at the hotel. He said that if he couldn’t contact Sun Zhou by the evening, he would take over the rest of the itinerary.
With still some time left, Nie Jiuluo returned to her room, took out her pen and sketchbook, and quickly got to work.
Her next project was to sculpt a demoness. She had started several line drafts, but all were abandoned halfway through for one reason: they were beautiful but lacked the demonic quality.
This time was no different. As soon as the outline of the character’s face was roughly done, she was already dissatisfied. After scrutinizing it for a while, she threw the pen aside and leaned back in her chair, lost in thought.
Suddenly, she remembered something and quickly sat up, importing the photos she had taken of the dilapidated temple in Xingbazi Township into her computer, enlarging and examining them one by one.
She intended to use these references to inspire herself, but as she looked through the photos, she found herself drifting off.
In domestic temples, statues of deities or revered figures are usually solemn or benevolent. Occasionally, there are wrathful images used to drive away evil spirits—rarely are there statues dedicated to enchanting demons.
Moreover, the figures worshiped usually have a well-known background, like Taishang Laojun, the Nine Heavens Mysterious Woman, Lü Zu, or Erlang Shen. However, the statue in the dilapidated temple was unrecognizable even to her, despite her extensive knowledge. Was it a local mountain spirit or a demon?
While pondering, her phone rang with a new message.
Nie Jiuluo opened an “auto-destruct” app, where she found a new message styled like an envelope, sent by a sender with the nickname “That Side.”
She double-clicked the envelope, and the content appeared as “Seventh-day, safe.” At the same time, a ten-second countdown for the message to self-destruct began.
As the countdown hit zero, a burst of flames suddenly appeared, instantly consuming the text. After the text was erased, gray smoke slowly dispersed.
Today’s apps are truly sophisticated. Just as Nie Jiuluo was about to put down her phone, she stopped and, after a moment’s thought, sent a message with the license plate number of the white SUV, adding: “Check if the owner has any criminal record, such as gambling or debt collection. Just send the information to my email.”
If Sun Zhou couldn’t be found soon, the police would inevitably get involved and would come to question her. She had a hunch that the owner of the little yellow duck car might not be a prime suspect, but there was something odd about them.
Putting down her phone, she returned to her work. It wasn’t until she was so hungry that she could no longer ignore it that she remembered to order takeout. The timing was risky: she placed the order at 9:25, and in five minutes, the store would close.
Around ten o’clock, the delivery arrived—one large box of stone potfish and a portion of handmade noodles. Nie Jiuluo cleared a spot on the table and was about to dig in when she suddenly felt guilty: noodles are fattening, and stone pot fish are heavy and spicy. Eating such greasy food so late was a mistake.
She poured a glass of water to keep by her side, dipping each bite of food into the water to remove some of the oil. This, of course, ruined the original flavor of the food, making it less enjoyable, but she felt a sense of accomplishment: good health was more important than the taste of the food.
After eating until she was seven-tenths full, Nie Jiuluo stopped and cleared her chopsticks. Although the soup box was large and the soup was plentiful, she had fished out most of what she wanted. The meal wasn’t a waste. Just as she was about to clean up, there was a sudden thud from the wall in front of her.
The sound was quite solid, indicating that the neighbor had made quite a forceful impact.
As she considered this, Nie Jiuluo realized: that the neighboring room was the last one, where Sun Zhou was staying. The rooms were booked for the entire itinerary, and the payment had been made in advance. The hotel couldn’t have rented the room to another guest.
So… did Sun Zhou come back?
Had he returned like this without even saying a word to her? The travel agency, if they managed to contact Sun Zhou, should have called her to explain the situation.
Despite their promise of excellent customer service, they had been so dismissive after she had already expressed her frustration. It seemed they didn’t realize this customer was persistent.
The takeout had a strong smell. After packing it up and putting it outside her door, Nie Jiuluo, hesitating a bit, went over and knocked on the door of the neighboring room.
Since Sun Zhou was injured and covered in blood, it was both polite and considerate for her to check on him.
After a while, the door finally opened.
It was indeed Sun Zhou, wearing the hotel’s bathrobe and cloth slippers. His head, face, shoulders, and arms were wrapped in several bandages. Perhaps because of his injuries, he looked listless and his gaze was vacant. He stared at Nie Jiuluo for a while before saying, “Oh, Miss Nie.”
His expression was as if he had just remembered she existed.
“Miss Nie, how did you get back? Did you take a taxi?”
From the way he asked, it seemed he hadn’t contacted the travel agency, and he even showed concern for how she got back—truly “touching.”
“Did you not receive any calls from the travel agency?”
Sun Zhou’s eyes bulged like dead fish eyes. After thinking for a few seconds, he said, “The phone was left in the car; I forgot to bring it up.”
“Then hurry up and get it. The travel agency has been trying to reach you and might have contacted your family. If you continue to be out of touch, they might report you as missing.”
Sun Zhou thought about it again, seeming to grasp the seriousness of the situation only then: “Yes, I’ll get it as soon as possible.”
He said “as soon as possible,” but his tone was slow and lethargic, with a delay in his reaction, like the sloth from the movie Zootopia: where others respond immediately, he needed two to three seconds.
Sun Zhou wasn’t like this before. Could he have developed PTSD from being scared?
Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but ask a few more questions: “What exactly happened? How did you get these injuries? Where did you go after?”
Sun Zhou said, “The injuries…”
He continued to speak slowly, reaching to touch the bandage on his forehead. His movements were so slow that Nie Jiuluo almost wanted to help him: she wasn’t typically impatient, but Sun Zhou’s sluggish pace was incredibly frustrating.
“Wild dogs bit me… they bit and scratched… I went to the hospital to get treated, then… I was too tired, so I slept in the car.”
Nie Jiuluo was speechless. Listening to him was draining all her patience. Moreover, he had “slept in the car”—did he completely forget that he had lost a passenger and nearly run them over?
She concluded the conversation: “Then please contact your family as soon as possible and get some rest.”
Back in her room, Nie Jiuluo sat back at her desk, continuing in silence.
She had an instinct that Sun Zhou was acting oddly, but she wasn’t particularly concerned about this oddity: after all, it was just a temporary and loose employment relationship. As long as he returned, what had happened and what follow-up reactions might occur were up to those around him to investigate.
She opened her email, and a new message appeared.
It was from “That Side,” presumably containing the information about the owner of the white SUV. Since Sun Zhou had been bitten by wild dogs, the suspicion against that man was cleared.
Nie Jiuluo opened it casually.
The photo matched, and it was indeed him. His name was Yan Tuo, from Xi’an, born in 1993, unmarried, law-abiding, and without any criminal record. He owned several properties, including an entire row of shops in a bustling area.
Nie Jiuluo thought to herself, if he started from scratch, he must have some skills.
Further down, it turned out that he had a good father: Yan Tuo’s father was Yan Haishan, who had gone into business in the early 1990s. He had owned coal mines, worked as a contractor, traded stocks when the market opened, and bought properties when they were cheap. A typical winner of life, except for dying too early—he passed away before he was forty.
Yan Tuo’s mother was Lin Xirou, who had an accident at Yan Haishan’s construction site in the late 1990s, being crushed by a falling concrete slab, resulting in paralysis and severe brain injury. She had been bedridden with no cognitive functions since then.
Nie Jiuluo felt a pang of sympathy as she reviewed the timeline. Yan Tuo effectively “lost” his mother in his childhood and then lost his father a few years later. At such a young age, he was left with a coveted family business. It was hard to imagine how he managed to endure all this, and no wonder he looked serious—there’s a saying that lucky people are healed by their childhood, while the unlucky are healed from their childhood throughout their lives.
However, she decided to leave the matters of others as they were.
Nie Jiuluo closed her email and tried the sketch again. This time, whether it was due to being well-fed or inspired by the photos, the process went remarkably smoothly. The lines and details gradually took shape.
Just as she was getting into the groove, there was another heavy thud against the wall by her desk. This time, it wasn’t caused by someone bumping into it: Nie Jiuluo sensed it was the sound of a heavy object crashing, accompanied by the faint sound of glass shattering.
Distracted, she let her hand slip, causing the graceful neckline of the demoness to turn into a stiff, diagonal line.
What was happening? Was Sun Zhou tearing down the room?
Nie Jiuluo sat for a while, feeling increasingly uneasy. She stood up and walked towards the door. Perhaps driven by some premonition, her steps grew slower and more cautious. By the time she reached the door, her hand was about to touch the doorknob but then hesitated. Carefully, she peered through the peephole to check the situation outside.
Compared to a normal view, the peephole image was slightly distorted, but it was quite quiet outside, with bright lights.
Nie Jiuluo let out a breath of relief and was about to shift her gaze when a person entered the peephole’s field of view.
The person was a man in his twenties or thirties, with a buzz cut, short and very stocky, carrying a heavy canvas bag. He seemed very alert, looking around constantly as he walked. For a brief moment, his face was directly facing Nie Jiuluo.
It was hard to describe his appearance in detail—he was unattractive, but not in a regular way, more of an inherently flawed type of unattractive.
He walked quickly and disappeared from the peephole’s view in less than two seconds.
Nie Jiuluo’s heartbeat quickened: this person had come from the left side, which was the end room. The room across from her hadn’t been opened, so the person must have come from Sun Zhou’s room.
Given the recent thuds and glass shattering, Nie Jiuluo didn’t think this person was Sun Zhou’s friend.
Estimating that the person had probably left by now, Nie Jiuluo cautiously opened the door.
The hallway was empty, and there was a “beep beep” sound from the next door, indicating the door wasn’t closed properly.
Nie Jiuluo quickly walked over and, out of courtesy, knocked on the door: “Sun Zhou? I’m coming in.”
There was no response.
Nie Jiuluo pushed the door open.
As she had guessed, the room was in disarray. The coffee table was tipped against the wall, glass shattered everywhere, and a hotel slipper lay on the floor.
Sun Zhou was nowhere to be found; neither the bedroom nor the bathroom had him.
In a flash, her mind went back to the heavy canvas bag the buzz-cut man was carrying.
Thank you for reading!
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