When we returned to Qingyun Town, the sun was about to set.

Jiang Man looked at the empty streets, her big eyes full of curiosity: "What happened to Qingyun Town while I was gone? Why is it so deserted? Has everyone gone to hide in their homes?"

"I forgot to tell you, the people of Qingyun Town have already been evacuated."

I was thinking about the monkey the whole way and didn't have time to chat with Jiang Man. When she asked, I explained, "In order to protect the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace, the people of Ping'an Village brought out all the things like the human Gu that we saw before. In order to avoid causing panic and exposing their existence, they released miasma. With the cooperation of their city branches, the people here were evacuated."

"Although Qingyun Town is small, the fact that it was able to relocate the entire town shows that Ping'an Village's power is much stronger than I imagined."

Jiang Man paused for a moment: "It seems I really underestimated them before."

"Now is not the time to talk about these things; finding the monkeys is the priority."

With my mind preoccupied, I had no time to care about anything else. I said to Xue Dong, "Bring Li Changyou out. He's familiar with the terrain around here. Let him lead the way."

Jiang Man chimed in, "Didn't we bring several large drones with us? Let's launch them and conduct a high-altitude search, prioritizing their machinery."

The drones that Jiang Man and her team carried were over a meter in diameter, each costing more than 300,000 yuan, and could fly up to five kilometers away.

With Li Changyou leading the way, our three drones also took off and roared away into the distance.

Before we even reached the edge of town, a young man holding a tablet computer spoke up from behind: "Mr. Xue, we found a road on the south side of town. The vegetation on both sides has been damaged, so it must be a newly built road."

Xue Dong countered with, "Have you discovered anything in the east?"

Another person shook his head: "There is a barren ravine to the east of the town, with lush vegetation and many scattered large rocks, which is not suitable for travel."

Xue Dong thought for a moment: "They are very likely to open a road from the south and take a detour to the east. Let's go and take a look."

Because the area around Qingyun Town is all mountain roads, and we need to be careful of any clues on the road, everyone is on foot. However, just in case, Jiang Man still had two off-road vehicles follow behind.

Before we set off, we went to the town government compound to check. Several trailers that brought the equipment were parked there, but all the machinery was gone.

As we approached the south side of the town, we indeed found a road that had been repaired by a loader, with tracks left by the tracks of a construction vehicle.

"This is the road."

Xue Dong observed the traces on the ground and said to the people operating the drone, "Have the drone search along the road, paying close attention to the traces on both sides of the road."

"clear!"

The three agreed, and the drone whizzed overhead and quickly disappeared from sight.

"Found it!"

We walked less than two hundred meters forward when a young man holding a tablet walked briskly toward us: "Look, isn't this the mechanical equipment we brought?"

I glanced at the screen, and the image on it was of a road that was only half-built, with a thicket of bushes next to it, but the plants had all been crushed.

Seeing that the only thing visible in the image was the end of the road, I asked him, "Where's the equipment?"

"Over here."

The young man manipulated the drone's handle, and the camera began to move outwards along the flattened bushes. After moving a distance, the camera captured the machinery parked in the roadside woods, but only the construction vehicles were visible in the frame; there were no people present.

Seeing what was on the screen, I pressed the young man for an answer: "How far is this place from us?"

The young man pointed to the bottom left corner of the screen: "Three thousand five hundred meters."

"Get in the car, let's go take a look!"

When I learned that Monkey and his team had left their equipment by the roadside, I had a bad feeling. I waved to the SUV behind me, opened the door, and got in: "Drive straight ahead, all the way to the end of this road."

"etc!"

Seeing my anxious look, Xue Dong stopped the driver and instructed the other person, "Take a few people and get in another car to scout ahead. Be careful of ambushes around the convoy."

When I heard Xue Dong's instructions, I realized that I had been a bit too hasty. Monkey and his team's equipment was left on the roadside, and the drone was still able to transmit signals back normally from there, which meant that there were no signal jammers or similar devices there. So Monkey and his team's disappearance was enough to explain the problem.

I waited patiently for a few minutes until the vehicles ahead confirmed it was safe before Xue Dong and I got in the car and drove over.

In the wild woods by the roadside, all the machinery that Xue Dong had borrowed from Jintu Mining, including drilling machines, winches, power machines, and mud trucks, were parked. Because the area around the vehicles was grassy, ​​no footprints were left.

I walked over to the winch and saw that the vehicle had scraped against a tree when it entered the woods, causing the door to be dented and the paint on the body to be scratched off.

Xue Dong frowned as he looked at the large dents on the car and said, "It seems that these cars did not drive in on their own, but were coerced into doing so. Otherwise, they wouldn't have damaged the cars like this."

"That's for sure. If nothing had happened to them, how could more than a dozen people have gone missing?"

I reached out and tugged at the winch door; the machine was already locked.

At this moment, a young man walked quickly to my side, his face serious: "Mr. Duan, come with me over here and take a look."

Seeing the young man's serious expression, I walked to the hole punch machine next to him and looked in the direction of his flashlight. I noticed a clear bullet hole in the windshield of the driver's side of the car.

Seeing this mark shattered the last vestiges of my illusions.

In Qingyun Town, the monkeys all disappeared, and their vehicle was abandoned in the woods, indicating that they were definitely kidnapped.

However, this scene also filled me with doubt. Although the monkey and I are very close, he does not have a leadership position in our team. If someone kidnapped him because they were after me, I should have received the call long ago. Otherwise, what would be the point of someone kidnapping him?

Before I could speak, Jiang Man came over and touched the bullet hole in the car window. "Strange, this bullet hole wasn't fired from the outside in, but from the inside out. Xue Dong, does anyone in our group have a gun?"