64. Heavy Rain Comes to Zhuang

Liang Mei ran away, leaving the rest of the people looking at each other in bewilderment.

Director Chen was the first to lose his composure. He rushed out, cursing as he ran: "Oh my god, if this person disappears again, I'm done for. This is such a hassle. How did such a huge accident happen while leading this tour..."

Fang Cheng stood silently in place, observing the chaotic scene.

He gazed at the mountain scenery outside the window, his eyes becoming increasingly clear and bright.

The rain had lessened, but it was still falling.

Fang Chengjin stood there for only an hour when Tang Tiantian from upstairs ran down and explained with a helpless expression, "Huo Xu is fine, but he still refuses to open the door to see us."

Ye Xiao sneered, sat on the sofa with his hands on his knees, and calmly curled the corners of his lips: "He's a rich kid, so naturally he wouldn't deign to be with us."

Tang Tiantian, who hadn't been smiling, suddenly broke into a smile, sat down close to Ye Xiao, and whispered in his ear with a beaming smile.

As for what was being said, no one else could hear it.

Ye Xiao's expression remained calm and unchanged.

The butler wailed at the front desk, crawling towards the sofa, pleading, "Please let me go, I'll go make everyone something to eat..."

His hands were tied behind his back, and he could not free himself.

A-K looked at Fang Chengjin and asked, "Professor Fang, do you think we should release this butler?"

Fang Chengjin remained silent for a few seconds, then shook his head. "Let's not release them yet. We should be close to getting out now."

The rain is getting lighter and lighter; it probably won't rain anymore.

However… Fang Chengjin thought of the fallen tree trunks they had encountered on their way down the mountain. If these things weren’t moved by machinery, it would be difficult for them to continue down the mountain unless there were other paths. But they didn’t know the way; the only one who knew the way was the butler.

While he was pondering this, Ah K volunteered to go to the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone.

At this moment, only Fang Chengjin, Ye Xiao, Tang Tiantian, and the bound butler remained in the hall.

Fang Cheng stood by the window for a while, and suddenly he smelled a bloody scent again, mixed with the smell of a sleeping drug.

He frowned, then turned around and saw that the only people close to him were the student couple, who were currently whispering sweet nothings to each other.

Fang Cheng stepped forward and sat down on the sofa near them, wanting to smell it more thoroughly, but unexpectedly, as soon as he sat down, he felt dizzy and his nose became blocked again.

He didn't know what was smeared on the blood-written words, but he felt as if something had overwhelmed his sense of smell.

After a moment of silence, Tang Tiantian suddenly leaned over and said, "Professor Fang, when I went upstairs just now, I opened the window in the corridor and saw a figure. It looked a lot like Sister Zhou. She was pacing back and forth outside the guesthouse, I don't know what she was doing. Why don't we go out and take a look?"

Fang Chengjin raised his head slightly, his pupils reflecting the sweet and lovely Tang Tiantian. Her eyes were curved in a smile, but her nose didn't seem straight, and even had a slightly fake translucent quality.

Fang Cheng pondered for a few seconds, then smiled and nodded, "Okay."

As they passed the front desk, Fang Chengjin deliberately walked behind the two of them, then casually picked up a small fruit knife from the table and put it in his pocket.

**

After being cooped up in the guesthouse for four days, Fang Chengjin went out for the first time and felt as if the fresh air outside had cleansed his nose. He could even smell a hint of lilies, a floral scent...

But Zhou Yun wasn't around.

Thinking of this, Fang Cheng gripped the umbrella handle tightly; he needed to see Zhou Yun.

The three of them kept walking towards the door, but Director Chen and Liang Mei, who had run out earlier, had disappeared.

Once outside the guesthouse, Fang Chengjin didn't stop; he followed the two people forward.

The rain dripped and pattered, and the entire mountain forest was shrouded in a misty haze. Although it wasn't as thick as yesterday, only the outlines of some tree trunks could be vaguely seen, and they weren't very clear.

After walking for a few minutes, they came to a place surrounded by broken branches and leaves, and Tang Tiantian and Ye Xiao suddenly stopped.

Fang Chengjin stopped three meters away from them, holding an umbrella in one hand and touching the handle of a knife in his pocket with the other.

Ye Xiao held up the umbrella with one hand, coldly looking at Fang Chengjin, his eyes revealing an unprecedented indifference.

Tang Tiantian threw away her umbrella and walked towards Fang Chengjin with a smile on her face.

"Professor Fang, let's end it all here."

Fang Chengjin did not back down. He stood still and said, "You have killed people."

Tang Tiantian was stunned, stopped in her tracks, and covered her mouth in surprise: "Professor Fang, what are you saying? What murder? I meant to say that the matter of the guesthouse should end here, and we should go down the mountain together."

Tang Tiantian smiled and continued forward.

Fang Cheng frowned. He couldn't be mistaken. After leaving the guesthouse, he followed behind the two men, and his nose suddenly cleared. He smelled a strong stench of blood on them. There was no blood, but the smell was so strong that it could only mean that the two men had killed quite a few people.

Tang Tiantian and Ye Xiao tore off their fake smiles, their faces contorted with rage, and immediately chased after Fang Chengjin, knives in hand.

Fang Chengjin frowned and threw the umbrella at the two of them. Tang Tiantian reached out to block it, and the umbrella fell to the side. When she looked up again, Fang Chengjin had already turned around and run away.

Fang Chengjin had already spotted the path on the other side. When he came out to search earlier, he noticed that there were few tree trunks blocking the way, so he tried to run over here.

Fang Chengjin kept running, raindrops falling on his skin like icy thorns, extremely cold.

Soon, a small slope appeared ahead. Fang Chengjin instinctively stopped in his tracks. The muddy road was too slippery, and Fang Chengjin's foot slipped, causing him to slide and fall to his knees on the ground.

Footsteps approached from behind.

Without hesitation, Fang Cheng grabbed his head with both hands and slid down, crashing hard into a tree trunk. With a thud, his head spun completely.

Fang Chengjin braced himself with his hands on the ground and shook his head. Then he began to observe his surroundings. The road ahead was still a slippery slope, and if he slipped down, he could easily get injured.

Suddenly, he noticed a small hole in the upper left corner. He immediately took off his coat, threw it onto the landslide below, and then slowly climbed towards the hole.

It was called a cave entrance, but it was actually just a small, recessed hole with no way out. Fang Chengjin pulled some leaves and branches from the side, squeezed himself in, and barely made it into the cave entrance. He then piled some branches at the entrance to cover his body.

He gripped the branch tightly, holding his breath.

Just as he finished doing all this, a voice came from above.

Fang Cheng knew that those two people had caught up with them.

He dared not make a sound, but his head was inexplicably spinning, and if he couldn't hold on, he would be discovered.

"Where did he go?!"

"I don't know, I didn't see it."

"Is that his shirt underneath?"

"He slipped down? What do we do?"

A moment of silence.

"Let's go back first. It's raining now, and there are many forks in the road down there. Even if that kid doesn't die, he'll be injured. He won't be a problem for us. It's more important to get back to business."

The voices gradually faded away, and after a short while...

Fang Chengjin's hand holding the branch gradually weakened, and the branch fell to the ground. He looked at the rain-drenched forest in front of him and gradually closed his eyes.

**

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the rain continued to wash over the mountain forest. The raindrops were small but they kept falling, accompanied by howling winds.

The two helicopters were flying rather slowly in the sky.

Pilot Martk sighed, "Team Leader Zhou, the situation is not optimistic. We have been circling over these mountains for two hours. The fog is too thick here. If we continue to fly like this, it will be difficult to see clearly. If we still cannot find the target, according to the bureau's time regulations, we will have to return and continue to plan other rescue methods."

Zhou Yun's gaze was resolute: "Keep looking, keep looking. We can't go back. Even if we do, you have to drop me off in the mountains first. I can parachute, I'll go find you."

Mark sighed, gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands: "Captain Zhou, this is too dangerous. I need to report this to Inspector Lin."

Zhou Yun had already unbuckled her seatbelt when the plane suddenly lurched. She steadied herself by holding onto the seat and leaned out the window to look down.

"There's a hill over there. Let me down. I've brought a communicator, I'll be fine, don't worry. The rain is about to stop. You and Inspector Lin go up the hill this afternoon, I'll wait for you up there!"

Mark could only fly towards the mountaintop.

Soon, the helicopter circled the mountain and slowly descended. Zhou Yun seized the opportunity, jumped down, opened her parachute, and landed slowly like a flying eagle.

After landing, Zhou Yun felt increasingly heavy-hearted.

Fang Chengjin, how are you now?

**

Time passed slowly, and it was now exactly two o'clock in the afternoon. The clock in the lobby of the guesthouse struck again. But this time, there was no one in the lobby. Only a sobbing sound came from the storage room in the corner, and then it disappeared.

On the staircase at the corner, there were mottled bloodstains, dripping upwards little by little until they came to an abrupt end on the third-floor steps.

Outside the guesthouse, the raindrops gradually subsided, and the wind also died down.

Fang Chengjin woke up groggily, awakened by the raindrops. He swallowed hard and slowly got up from the ground.

He climbed up the slope, using both his hands and feet, and after a while, he reached the top. Following the path he had come from, he staggered back to the guesthouse.

Feeling dizzy as he walked, Fang Chengjin hid behind a large tree trunk when he was still some distance from the entrance of the guesthouse.

He was no match for those two, so he could only try to warn the others in the guesthouse, but...

Fang Cheng peered out from the tree trunk and saw that there was no one in front of the guesthouse, but there seemed to be someone lying on the ground.

Fang Cheng frowned deeply.

Could it be that those two people also killed other people?

Fang Chengjin let out a breath. There were still some questions in his mind that he hadn't been able to answer. He roughly knew who those two people were after and who they were after.

After a moment's hesitation, Fang Cheng gripped the knife tightly and slowly walked towards the guesthouse.

He first walked to the front of the guesthouse.

There was a person lying on the ground, and those clothes... seemed familiar.

Fang Chengjin's eyes flashed with a moment of surprise. He squatted down and turned the face of the person on the ground around.

With her eyes closed, her sweet and lovely face was now pale and haggard.

It's Tang Tiantian!

Fang Cheng reached out and checked her breath; there was no breathing.

He examined Tang Tiantian's body but found no particularly obvious wounds. If he wanted to further investigate the cause of death, he could only wait for the forensic doctor to arrive.

Fang Jin was deeply shocked.

How could Tang Tiantian be dead?

What about Ye Xiao?

Fang Cheng glanced into the guesthouse, his mind becoming more wary.

**

It was very quiet outside the guesthouse, and I didn't see a single person even after walking into the guesthouse lobby.

Fang Cheng gripped the knife tightly and observed silently.

At that moment, the sound of bells echoed in the hall.

After looking around and finding nothing suspicious, Fang Cheng quietly walked to the stairs and saw bloodstains. He frowned, and before he could react, he suddenly felt a pain in the back of his head. His eyes widened, and he turned around by instinct.

The moment he collapsed, he saw Ye Xiao's face.

Ye Xiao held up a long stick, looking fierce and menacing.

"You killed Tiantian, and I'll make you all pay with your lives!"

I killed Sweetie?

Fang Chengjin was suddenly startled. Why would he say that?

Then, they were plunged into endless darkness.