Chapter 70: Chapter 70: The Old Principal Carrying Manure
Lu Xingye looked at the message on his phone and tapped open the map. Reed Town, Hongya County. The name was so familiar.
"Isn’t this Jiang Li’s hometown?"
Ning Sinian appeared behind him with his arms crossed.
Lu Xingye jumped, startled. He turned and glared at him. "Tell me something I don’t know."
Ning Sinian started to walk away, but in the next second, his eyes caught the location on the screen. "Wait. Lu Xingye, send this location to me."
Lu Xingye quickly sent it to him.
Looking at the surrounding place names, Ning Sinian suddenly recalled something Ning Rou had said years ago.
"I don’t need you looking after me, big brother! When I’m an adult, I’m going to go here. I heard there’s an Inverted Guanyin and a Coffin Cave..."
Ning Sinian remembered Ning Rou describing it in great detail, saying it was in a huge valley in the middle of Yellow Field Village.
But he’d checked everything back then. Surveillance showed Ning Rou had just run off, completely unprepared. And in all these years, there had never been any spending on her supplementary card...
"I’m going with you." Ning Sinian put away his phone. ’Whether Ning Rou is there or not, I have to go check. Just in case...’
"Captain Zhou said Jiang Li’s phone signal only appeared for a moment before disappearing. I want to get over there as fast as possible."
Ning Sinian nodded. "I’ll go request leave from my superior."
Lu Xingye looked at the cautionary message from Zhou Tiancheng, exchanged a few quick words with Huo Qing, and packed his things. While waiting, he glanced at the plane tickets.
The plane could only take them to the neighboring city. From there, they had to take a bus, then another to Hongya County, and finally a minivan or motorcycle to get to the town. Once in town, the road ended.
’Looks like we’ll have to ask the local villagers once we get there.’
After getting his leave approved, Ning Sinian went straight to find Lu Xingye. Some time had already been wasted, so there was no need to pack.
"Let’s go."
The two of them took a taxi to the airport. After a three-hour flight, a four-hour bus ride, a one-hour minivan ride, and a ninety-minute motorcycle ride, they finally arrived in Reed Town.
After getting off, Lu Xingye stared at the spinning loading circle for his phone’s network signal.
"Let’s rest for a bit. My ass is killing me." Ning Sinian was retching violently at the side. He’d never imagined he could get motion sick.
"Alright." Lu Xingye nodded. In the end, they found a small inn in the little town to stay the night.
...
「In the mountains.」
When Jiang Li woke up, she realized something had been stuffed in her mouth. By the faint light, she could make out Yu Huannian and Ning Rou across from her.
Yu Huannian made a "shushing" gesture at her.
"Search carefully, all of you! They can’t have gone far."
"Liu Wang, did you ask the driver? Did he pick up three suspicious people?"
"No. He said he hasn’t picked anyone up in the last two days. He did see an old man and a young girl heading this way on a tractor, carrying some things. Looked like they were with that shaman, so he didn’t dare make a move."
The one-eyed man, holding a weapon, scanned the area. "That just means they’re still nearby. If they think they can just walk out of here on foot, hah! In their dreams!"
Listening to the voices outside, Jiang Li frowned. ’Could it be that what happened with Liu Quan Gui has been discovered?’
’It shouldn’t have been that fast.’
The three of them stared at one another, at a loss for words.
Yu Huannian came forward and pulled the gag from her mouth, untying the ropes as well.
Jiang Li pulled out her phone and glanced at it. Still no signal.
She typed a message for Yu Huannian to see. *Can I contact Ning Rou’s brother?*
Yu Huannian nodded at her.
Jiang Li cautiously got to her feet and moved toward the mouth of the cave. The signal flickered on and off. The voices outside continued.
She checked to make sure her phone was on silent, then squatted down carefully and began sending message after message.
’If just one message gets through, we’ll be saved.’
Jiang Li thought of Yu Shuzhen, and her nose tingled. ’I wonder how Aunt Yu is doing now.’
That night, when Yu Shuzhen heard Liu Deceng’s bloodcurdling scream, she knew he and his men had probably found her home and fallen into her son’s trap.
As for Yu Huannian, she wasn’t worried.
For years, she had taken him up into the mountains, pointing out the way countless times. She had even prepared an escape route long ago. He should be able to get out safely.
’Unfortunately, my plan will have to be delayed again. I have to wait... wait for all these animals to come back.’
Yu Shuzhen looked at the frenzied, agitated bees, then pulled a corpse from the side, hacked it in half, and tossed it to them.
Jiang Li stared at the endless string of messages marked with red exclamation points, her brow tightly furrowed.
"There’s plenty of food here. It’s fine to wait a few more days. Once they believe we’ve already left, it won’t be too late to go out," Yu Huannian reminded her.
Only then did Jiang Li notice the hidden food supplies. "Okay."
She leaned back against the wall to rest, her mind a tangled mess. In the blink of an eye, the night had passed.
Meanwhile, Lu Xingye was trying to contact Jiang Li while staring at the map. With no precise route, only a general direction, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
After a night’s rest, Ning Sinian finally felt like he was alive again.
"This location is close to Yellow Field Village. We can go there and ask around," Ning Sinian said, getting up to face Lu Xingye.
"I think Jiang Li’s middle school is here. I’ll go check it out; maybe we can find some information."
Ning Sinian nodded. The two left the inn and went to Reed Town Middle School. Lu Xingye looked at the school in front of him; it was even smaller than his elementary school.
’So this is where Jiang Li used to go to school.’ The paint on the surrounding walls was almost completely peeled off, and the large characters that once spelled out the school’s name were gone.
"Hello, we’re looking for the principal here."
Lu Xingye walked toward a middle-aged woman wearing a headscarf. The woman spoke in a thick local dialect that Lu Xingye couldn’t understand, but he saw her point in a certain direction.
The two of them headed toward a building with a colored steel roof not far away. "Hello, is the principal here?"
"I’m the principal. What do you want?"
From the latrine next to them, Cheng Gangshan, a man in his fifties, emerged carrying a manure bucket. Seeing the two outsiders, his brow furrowed instantly.
’Why would outsiders show up here for no reason?’
"Hello, we’re..."
"Hello, Principal. We’re Jiang Li’s university classmates. She came back a while ago, but we haven’t been able to contact her. We knew she was from around here, so we came to look for her," Ning Sinian said, pushing past Lu Xingye with a smile.
Cheng Gangshan paused when he heard Jiang Li’s name. ’That kid... she really got into university?’
"Jiang Li, ah, yes, I know her. That child was so hardworking from a young age, so obedient and sensible. I remember her very clearly."
Back then, it was thanks to Jiang Li that the school slowly became what it is today. She studied so hard and always got good grades.
But the educational resources here could never compare to those outside. He had thought it would be great if Jiang Li could just get into high school; he never expected she’d actually make it to university.
Lu Xingye’s eyes lit up. "Then, Principal, do you know where she lives?"
Cheng Gangshan frowned. "I can’t quite recall. Wait here, I’ll go have a look."
Cheng Gangshan put down the manure bucket and walked toward the school building.
Lu Xingye and Ning Sinian followed close behind.
Cheng Gangshan rummaged through a pile of old record books, pulled out the one that was most densely filled, and handed it over. "Here."
The two of them looked. Written on the cover were the two words: Zhaozi Village.
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