Chapter 141: Silhouette in the Rain 3
The Mingzhu Music Festival lasted for three days in total, from Friday to Sunday. This day was the final day.
At 6:00 AM, it was that limbo period where the night session had ended but the morning session hadn’t begun, so the vast majority of the forest park was very quiet. The sky had only just brightened a tiny bit. Because there had been no news of Pei Zheng for so long, the people searching for him were no longer limited to friends, family, and the police; a well-known local search and rescue team from Jincheng had also joined. At this moment, they were gearing up. The area near the office was noisy, a mix of human voices, dog barks, and engine sounds, while a dozen people nearby were urgently calibrating drones.
Put-put-put—
In this chaotic environment, an illegally modified red electric tricycle suddenly swaggered over from the end of the small path. A striking advertisement for “X-ray Vision Mahjong Tables” was plastered on the vehicle’s body, violating everything from traffic laws to advertising laws, and arguably touching upon criminal law—a truly lawless vehicle. The simple tin rain shelter fixed with iron wire rattled loudly in the wind. The vehicle itself, due to its overly high center of gravity and overly light weight, bumped along like a lone boat on the sea. Everyone turned their heads at the sound, wondering where this dimwit came from. Driving this kind of vehicle on smooth cobblestone roads, didn’t his butt hurt?
Zhuang Ningyu inside the vehicle: It hurts a little, but not as much as my head.
Yi Ke’s intentions were good. He didn’t want his wife, whose knees were uncomfortable, to walk in the rain, so he specifically borrowed this precious vehicle from the old man watching the dormitory. However, he overlooked that illegal tricycles possess a unique driving logic of their own, belonging to a completely different school from standard cars. With just a slight carelessness while turning, the tires instantly slipped and lost control, charging straight into the crowd by the roadside. The search and rescue team members immediately shouted and rushed to stabilize the tilting vehicle body with all hands on deck.
Feeling the center of gravity shift, Zhuang Ningyu was also startled. Instinctively, he grabbed the handle. Perhaps he used a bit too much force, because the next moment, under the shocked gaze of everyone present, he stumbled out carrying half a car door, running uncontrollably all the way down the slope into the office building below.
Everyone: “Hey, hey, hey!”
Yi Ke was initially frightened too, his first reaction being to chase after him. But he quickly realized that only his wife’s first few steps were involuntary; the subsequent sprint was entirely of his own volition. So Yi Ke immediately braked hard on the spot, turned around to stop others who were also trying to run down the slope to help, and politely stated, “Thank you, it’s fine. So sorry about just now. I won’t waste everyone’s time, please continue with your work!”
The office was brightly lit. Lin Daguan had rested early last night, so he arrived early. Currently, he looked at Zhuang Ningyu, who walked in carrying a door, stunned for a moment before asking, “Where did you find that?”
Zhuang Ningyu banished the socially dead scene from his mind and keenly caught the key point: “Find?”
Five minutes later, several people gathered around Lin Daguan’s computer, watching the footage from the surveillance video together. A blond, fair-skinned foreign man walked out of the parking lot, got into this red tricycle printed with illegal mahjong table advertisements, and put-put-put drove out of the frame.
“Because the parking lot is still some distance from the music festival entrance, plus walking in the rain is inconvenient and the official shuttle buses aren’t always available, business for these ‘fire tricycles’ is quite good,” Lin Daguan said. “I stumbled upon him while checking Pei Zheng’s disappearance route. Roman, nationality J, member of the Invisible Giant. He reportedly runs two human trafficking organizations in Southeast Asia, and his name is still on the international wanted list.”
The missing Pei Zheng, the suddenly appearing Qin Ya, and this Roman—although the three seemingly had no connection on the surface, when abnormal situations occurred in the same timeframe and involved the Invisible Giant, it inevitably sounded like a conspiracy.
Lin Daguan pulled up a clear photo of Roman on the website: blond hair, fair skin, high nose, and deep-set eyes. The policewoman commented, “Whoa, so handsome. Does he scam people using his looks?”
Lin Daguan nodded. “That counts as one of his methods.”
Yi Ke looked at the man on the screen, his brow furrowing. “I saw him last night.”
“You saw him last night?” Zhuang Ningyu turned to ask. “Where?”
“Parking lot. A performance had just ended then. He was driving a blue Porsche 911 and picked up Xiao Tian.”
Downtown.
Tian Luxin was awakened from her sleep by the ringtone. Groggily, she reached for her phone, intending to hang up directly. But seeing the caller ID, she instantly lifted her finger, swiping from red to green, and sat up abruptly. “Team Leader Zhuang.”
Hearing her obviously sleepy, hoarse voice, Zhuang Ningyu asked, “Where are you?”
“At home.” Tian Luxin jumped out of bed and poured herself a glass of hot water. “Did you find that handsome little guy?”
“Not yet,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “If you’re free today, could you come over and help? There are some matters regarding fan clubs we want to ask you about on-site.”
“No problem.” Tian Luxin put down the empty cup and agreed immediately. “There shouldn’t be traffic right now. Taking a taxi will take about an hour and a half.”
“No rush. I’ll arrange for someone to pick you up,” Zhuang Ningyu’s voice was gentle. “There happens to be a car near your home.”
Hanging up the phone, Lin Daguan asked, “Is she the girl who performed well in the Silver Bar Rule Zone?”
“That’s her. She’s already passed the exam for our department, just waiting for the physical examination,” Zhuang Ningyu said.
Tian Luxin being with Roman presented only two possibilities: first, she was Roman’s target; second, she was Roman’s accomplice. Although based on past experience, the probability of the second was minimal, as long as it wasn’t 100% ruled out, they had to be on guard.
The search and rescue team members had already set out, and the search range expanded from the forest park to the nearby hills. There were no roads in the primeval forest; cars couldn’t enter, so they could only walk. Drones skimmed over the treetops, flying deep into the dense forest.
Yi Ke stared intently at the screen. In this season, the mountain forest was half green and half yellow, and the soil was dark brown. Apart from that, it was difficult to see other colors. So when a large patch of vibrant colors intruded into the lens, it appeared particularly striking.
Yi Ke’s brow twitched. Was that… the rain ponchos distributed by the music festival? Colorful and bright, like the “flower field” Zhuang Ningyu had mistaken them for last night, but with some differences.
As the drone gradually descended, the withered yellow leaves were blown up with a rustle, and the image on the screen gradually became clear. The search and rescue team members beside him leaned in to look, but upon seeing clearly what it was, they all cried out in alarm!
“Call the police, and sync the footage to Team Leader Zhuang.” Yi Ke noted the drone’s coordinates, shoved the remote control to the person next to him, asked for a compass, and strode rapidly toward the crime scene.
“Hello, this is the 110 alarm service desk. Please speak.”
“I am Wang Shan, a member of the Ping’an Search and Rescue Team. I am currently located in Mingzhu Mountain Forest Park.” The team member looked at the screenshot and read out the coordinates. Even though he was a veteran in this field and had experienced several situations where missing persons were found as corpses, his voice still trembled almost out of tune. “In the process of searching for a lost child, we inadvertently discovered at least ten bodies.”
The footage was also transmitted to Zhuang Ningyu in real-time. Hearing the team member’s report in his earpiece, his heart instantly went cold. He glanced at Pei Yuan sitting at the opposite workstation, took his phone, and walked out of the office. “Send me the clearest possible view of the scene.”
The search and rescue team’s drone footage was high-precision. After lowering to the minimum altitude, every deceased person’s face was clearly visible. They were all young people. A rough look didn’t show Pei Zheng among them, but three of the bodies were lying face down in the mud, making identification difficult.
Just then, someone in Dong Feifan’s fan group finally reacted to the missing person notice Tian Luxin had posted—
“This handsome guy, I saw him. Around 11:00 or 12:00 yesterday noon, he got on a minibus at Fengyue Road.”
Fengyue Road was the two-lane highway accessible after taking the shortcut through the garden path.
Xinxin: Are you sure?
LoveRex: Sure. He’s quite handsome, and his clothes happened to be the same style as my boyfriend’s, so I took a few extra looks.
Zhuang Ningyu was also lurking in this group with a secondary account. He immediately asked: What kind of minibus?
The other party replied: Grey Wolf Bus. Over a dozen people got on the bus together. I didn’t see anything else clearly.
One of the partners for this music festival was Grey Wolf Transportation Company, responsible for all vehicle usage within the event and for returning the audience to various distribution points after the show. During the music festival, to disperse the crowd and improve commuting efficiency, many road sections were temporarily closed. Private cars couldn’t enter; only official vehicles could pass unimpeded.
“How is it on your end?” Zhuang Ningyu asked over the phone.
Yi Ke’s panting came from the receiver. “I’ve arrived at the scene. Xiao Pei is not among the deceased.”
With such a major case occurring in the mountains, the music festival naturally couldn’t continue. The audience was orderly evacuated, and police cordons were quickly set up.
At the crime scene, Yi Ke looked up. Above was a cliff about twenty meters high. According to the police’s preliminary judgment on site, the deceased had fallen from the cliff simultaneously, hand in hand.
The Order Maintenance Department also rushed to the scene to prevent the homicide from being manipulated into developing into a Rule Zone.
An hour later, Zhuang Ningyu retrieved all driving records for Grey Wolf Bus vehicles used in this music festival. The person in charge explained, sweating profusely, “Team Leader Zhuang, our vehicles have specific entry and exit times. Although that parking lot in the West Zone is a pick-up point, no buses were scheduled to depart at that time. Could the witness have seen wrong? Besides, we only stop at bus stops; we don’t pick people up randomly on the roadside.”
The company’s buses used an electronic check-in system, with entry and exit times accurate to the second. The earliest departure time for the afternoon shift was 1:15 PM. There were indeed no buses or departure records around 12:00 PM. However, in the temporary gate system set up for the music festival, there was a record of a bus with the license plate ending in 0192 raising the barrier. The entry time matched the fan’s sighting and Pei Zheng’s disappearance time. At 1:40 PM, this same vehicle entered the site again at the same location.
“It was cloned,” Lin Daguan said. “The first one to enter was a cloned vehicle; the second one was the real bus.”
Bus 0192 was currently still in the parking lot, along with the driver. Combining the dashcam footage, the driver’s statement, and the scenic area surveillance, the police discovered that the first 0192 to enter was indeed an illegal clone. Its paint job was identical to the real Grey Wolf Bus. The driver kept driving uphill, and the curtains were drawn tight during the journey, making it impossible to see how many people were inside.
Cloned vehicle 0192 only had an entry record, no exit record. Based on past experience, the police indeed found the abandoned vehicle near the cliff where the young people fell.
The timeline was now basically clear. Yesterday noon, this vehicle, disguised as a legitimate Grey Wolf Bus, picked up at least fifteen music festival attendees, drove into the mountains, and subsequently, fourteen of them fell to their deaths around 5:00 PM. Pei Zheng’s whereabouts were unknown.
“What are the identities of the fifteen deceased?”
“Ordinary office workers and college students. The most significant common point is that they are all fans of Dong Feifan.”
After performing yesterday afternoon, Dong Feifan went out drinking with friends to celebrate. When the police found him, he was still hungover. Opening his eyes to see big brothers in police uniforms, he instantly sobered up, crying, “Comrades, I really didn’t do drugs! You can’t stereotype me just because I sing rock. Which bastard reported me this time?”
Police: “No one reported you for drug use.”
Dong Feifan breathed a sigh of relief and sat back on the bed. “Then what do you want with me?” He cast a gaze at his manager, asking puzzledly, “Sister, why are you so pale? Haven’t we always been law-abiding?”
The manager’s legs went weak, and she simply fainted directly.
The starting point of the cloned 0192 vehicle was an abandoned repair shop in Jincheng. The glass of the driver’s cab had been specially modified for excellent anti-peeping performance; basically nothing could be seen from the outside. Lin Daguan could only pull all surveillance recordings along the route, piecing them back and forth repeatedly, trying to catch a useful silhouette from a possible fraction of a second.
“The time of death was around 5:00 PM yesterday. From 5:00 PM to when the bodies were found today is over ten hours. Didn’t any family or friends call the police because they couldn’t contact them?” Yi Ke asked.
“No.” Zhuang Ningyu poured him a glass of water. “These victims were not random; they were deliberately selected.”
“Not Narcissistic Personality Disorder again?” Having dealt with the Invisible Giant for a long time, this was Yi Ke’s first reaction.
Zhuang Ningyu nodded. “So they rarely contact their families. Not calling for a week is common for them.”
The police hadn’t finished retrieving the specific chat records of the deceased yet. Although this matter hadn’t been disclosed to the public and relevant departments were trying to keep it confidential, the temporary cancellation of the music festival and the police and Order Maintenance Department cars speeding into Mingzhu Mountain clearly indicated something major had happened.
At this time, someone remembered the missing person notice Tian Luxin had posted in the group last night. Immediately, countless @ mentions popped up, asking if she had found the person.
After five minutes without an answer, the fan group assumed the worst. Some people, watching the drama unfold, started typing “RIP,” lamenting that such a handsome young guy died so young. Others raised doubts: If it’s just because of this, they wouldn’t cancel the entire music festival, right? Not to sound cold-blooded, but that’s really unnecessary. Plus, the incident happened in the mountains, not at the festival itself.
Zhuang Ningyu looked at the messy chat logs, his head throbbing. Just then, a new message flashed across the constantly scrolling screen—
1: He is safe.
Zhuang Ningyu’s eyes twitched. He quickly clicked on this person’s avatar. There was very little information; it was a new account.
