In the afternoon, Nie Jiuluo waited for her pickup car but didn’t get to see the conclusion of the rural romance scandal—the situation had taken another unexpected turn.
When the husband found the adulterer, he and his companions beat him up. The man fell to his knees begging for mercy and revealed another twist: that night, they had indeed arranged to meet, but he waited and waited without seeing the woman. She wouldn’t answer his calls either. He hadn’t thought much of it, assuming she had family matters and changed plans at the last minute.
In short, the adultery case showed signs of evolving into a missing persons case.
As for where the missing person case would lead, Nie Jiuluo didn’t follow up—she maintained “moderate curiosity and appropriate restraint” toward both people and events. Like an entertaining novel or good movie, if it was presented to her she would watch, but if it stopped halfway through, she wouldn’t dwell on it much.
The newly assigned driver was called Old Qian, around forty years old. On the way back, he repeatedly apologized on behalf of the travel agency.
Since this was Sun Zhou’s behavior, Nie Jiuluo had no intention of taking it out on uninvolved parties. “Has anyone gotten in touch with Sun Zhou?”
Old Qian replied awkwardly, “No, his phone’s working, but he’s not answering.”
He muttered that it was strange how such a strong young man could be scared into such cowardice.
The talk of “zombies,” “monsters,” and “psychopathic killers” were all speculative jokes—the chances were quite low. Thinking it through, revenge seekers or gambling debt collectors seemed more likely.
Nie Jiuluo asked, “Did he offend someone, or maybe owe people money?”
Old Qian answered cautiously, “That’s hard to say.”
Fair enough—they were just regular coworkers, how would they know about each other’s private lives?
Originally, Sun Zhou had been staying at the hotel with Nie Jiuluo, but Old Qian was “locally” dispatched by the travel agency. Being a resident with a place in the county, he dropped Nie Jiuluo off at the hotel and went home, saying that if they still couldn’t contact Sun Zhou by evening, he would take over the remaining itinerary.
It was still early when Nie Jiuluo returned to her room. She took out her pen and sketchbook and quickly immersed herself in work.
For her next piece, she planned to sculpt a witch. She had already started several sketches but abandoned them all for one reason: while beautiful, they lacked a demonic quality.
This time was no different. She was already dissatisfied when the face had barely taken shape. After studying it repeatedly, she tossed the pen aside and leaned back in her chair, lost in thought.
The next moment, suddenly remembering something, she sat up quickly and imported the photos she had taken at the abandoned temple in Xingbazi Township into her computer, enlarging and examining them one by one.
She intended to draw inspiration from others’ work, but as she looked, her mind began to wander.
In Chinese temples and halls, the statues in the main or honored positions usually had dignified or benevolent expressions. Occasionally there were wrathful faces, meant to represent vajra deities driving away evil spirits—it was extremely rare to find enshrined figures with bewitching expressions.
Moreover, enshrined figures needed proper origins, like Taishang Laojun, Jiutian Xuannü, Lü Dongbin, or Erlang. But despite her extensive knowledge, she couldn’t identify the statue from the abandoned temple. Could it be some local mountain or wild spirit?
While she was pondering this, her phone rang with a new message.
Nie Jiuluo opened a “burn after reading” app, where there was a new envelope-style message from a sender nicknamed “That Side.”
Double-tapping the envelope revealed the content: “Day Seven, Safe.” Simultaneously, a ten-second countdown for the message’s self-destruction appeared at the end of the line.
When the ten seconds elapsed, flames suddenly erupted, instantly consuming the text. After the characters disappeared, a gray mist slowly dispersed.
Apps these days are quite ingenious. Nie Jiuluo was about to put down her phone but stopped. After a pause, she sent over the white SUV’s license plate number, adding “Check if this owner has any prior records, like gambling or loan sharking, just send the information to my email.”
If Sun Zhou still couldn’t be found, the police would eventually get involved and would certainly question her. Her intuition told her that while the little duck car’s owner might not be highly suspicious, there was something odd about him.
Putting down her phone, she returned to her work until hunger became unbearable. She finally remembered to order takeout, cutting it very close—she placed the order at 9:25, just five minutes before the restaurant would stop taking orders.
Around ten o’clock, the delivery arrived: a large container of stone potfish plus a serving of handmade noodles. Nie Jiuluo cleared a space on the desk and was about to start eating when she suddenly felt guilty: noodles were fattening, and the stone pot fish was extremely oily and spicy. How could she eat something so greasy this late?
She poured a glass of water nearby and dipped each bite of food in it to remove excess oil. This destroyed the original flavor, naturally making it less enjoyable, but she felt accomplished: compared to maintaining a good figure, these were minor sacrifices.
When she was seventy percent full, Nie Jiuluo stopped eating. Though the container was large, it was mostly soup, and she had fished out most of the solid ingredients. The meal wasn’t wasteful. Just as she was about to clean up, there was a heavy thud on the wall in front of her.
The sound was quite solid, indicating the guest next door had hit the wall quite hard.
As this thought crossed her mind, Nie Jiuluo realized something: the room next door was the end unit, Sun Zhou’s room. During the trip, all rooms had been booked and paid for in advance—the hotel wouldn’t have resold it to other guests.
Had… Sun Zhou returned?
He just came back like this? Without even saying hello to her? And the travel agency—if they’d contacted Sun Zhou, shouldn’t they at least call her with an explanation?
So much for the customer first. She had already lost her temper once, yet they were still being this negligent. They didn’t know this customer had an indomitable spirit.
The takeout had a strong smell, so after cleaning up, Nie Jiuluo tied the bag tightly and placed it outside the door. As she turned back to enter her room, she glanced at the neighboring door, hesitated, then went over to knock.
After all, Sun Zhou had been injured, bleeding badly. It was only right to show concern.
After quite a while, the door opened.
It was indeed Sun Zhou, wearing the hotel’s bathrobe and slippers. His head, face, shoulders, and arms were bandaged in several places. Perhaps due to his injuries, he appeared mentally exhausted, his eyes vacant. He stared at Nie Jiuluo for a while before saying, “Oh, Miss Nie.”
His expression suggested he had just remembered she existed.
“Miss Nie, how did you get back? Did you call a Didi?”
From this question, he hadn’t contacted the travel agency. And surprisingly, he showed some concern about how she got back—how “touching.”
“Haven’t you received any calls from the travel agency?”
Sun Zhou’s eyes bulged like a dead fish’s, and after thinking for a second or two, he said, “Left my phone in the car, forgot to bring it up.”
“Then hurry and get it. The travel agency has been trying to reach you, they might have contacted your family. If you stay out of touch like this, they might call the police.”
Sun Zhou thought again as if just realizing the seriousness of the situation: “Yes, I’ll get it right away.”
Though he said “right away,” his speech wasn’t quick at all. He was slow and sluggish, his reactions delayed, somewhat dull, like the frustratingly slow sloth from “Zootopia”: while others could react immediately, he needed two or three seconds.
Sun Zhou wasn’t like this before—had he developed PTSD from the fright?
Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but ask a few more questions: “What exactly happened? How did you get these injuries? Where did you drive to afterward?”
Sun Zhou said: “The injuries…”