Chapter 32: Echoes in the Empty Mountains These are my coordinates, you must follow them...
"What are you doing here?" Gu Yifeng stood up suddenly, and the chair scraped against the floor with a harsh sound.
Wen Yi's chopsticks fell on the table with a "click".
The atmosphere in the room was even more suffocating than before.
Guo Qingyu seemed unaware of Gu Yifeng's murderous aura. He swaggered over to Wen Yi and sat down next to her. He took a can of Coke from the table and said, "Come and see the little fool."
Guo Qingyu opened a can of Coke and said, "I heard we're currently number one and two on the Bureau's AAA Most Wanted list."
He raised his glass to Wen Yi, his smile proving provocative: "Come on! Cheers to my fellow sufferers!"
Wen Yi, who is at the top of the list: ...Thank you.
Guo Qingyu took a sip of his Coke and said bitterly, "Look, if you hadn't insisted on digging out that garbage from my nursery, all this shit wouldn't have gotten into this."
He shook his head. "Success and failure are both due to Xiao He. I have a feeling that sooner or later you'll be the one to screw me over."
"Have you said enough?" Gu Yifeng clenched his fists, unable to bear it any longer, and ordered them to leave. "You are not welcome here."
Guo Qingyu leaned back lazily, tapping the Coke can with his fingertips: "That's enough. I'm not interested in your little idiot. Choose her..."
He raised his hand and pointed at Gao Yiyuan, who was sitting across from him. "I'd rather come out to him!"
"puff--!"
Gao Yiyuan sprayed a mouthful of cola all over the computer, and frantically wiped the keyboard, but his ears inexplicably turned red.
"Fuck! My keyboard!"
"Don't panic," Guo Qingyu said, his lips curled up slightly as he slowly pulled out a tissue and handed it over. "With me here, there's no appliance I can't fix."
Gao Yiyuan suddenly looked up and met Guo Qingyu's meaningful gaze.
Damn it, he tricked me!
"Without further delay, we will set off for Qingluan Mountain tonight." The silent Wen Chi suddenly spoke, with a rare solemnity in his tone, as if he was going to an appointment with no return.
"Eh?" Before Wen Yi could reply, Guo Qingyu suddenly put down his Coke, suppressed his smile, and interrupted her, saying, "I'm going with you this time."
Wen Yi was stunned: "Why...why?"
"It's easier for me to devour the data on site," Guo Qingyu explained seriously, a rare moment of silence. "I want to crack the secret of Qingluan Mountain myself."
"You'd better." Gu Yifeng's eyes were cold. "I will keep watching you. If you dare to have other thoughts..."
Gao Yiyuan, standing by, suddenly snapped his laptop shut and said expressionlessly, "If he dares to mess around, I'll hack into his control terminal and destroy his latest AI project."
Guo Qingyu exaggeratedly covered his chest and asked, "So cruel?"
Gu Yifeng interrupted the duel between the two with an expressionless face: "Gao Yiyuan and Brother Fan stay behind."
Late at night, a black off-road vehicle set off for Qingluan Mountain, hundreds of kilometers away.
The headlights could not penetrate the thick night. Gu Yifeng gripped the steering wheel tightly, and the car kept bumping along the rugged mountain road.
Wen Yi suddenly broke the silence: "Guo Qingyu, what's going on with that radioactive body in Miaopu? Is it related to the bombing?"
Guo Qingyu's fingertips paused on the phone screen for a second, and Gu Yifeng's gaze also moved back from the window.
"What's the matter?" Guo Qingyu raised his eyes, a familiar smile on his lips. "Has your Director Gu not yet come up with the results of his investigation?"
Gu Yifeng glared at him in the rearview mirror and tightened his fingers slightly on the steering wheel.
"Don't keep me in suspense." Wen Yi kicked the passenger seat. "Hurry up and tell me. We are in the same boat now."
Guo Qingyu was silent for a moment and put away his cynical expression.
"The bombing has nothing to do with me. I noticed this person a few months ago. I couldn't obtain his identity information through remote means. I only know that he is related to the disappearance of the mutant. I have been tracking this man."
Guo Qingyu looked at the shadows of the trees outside the window and fell into memories:
"Later, I tracked him down in Yunchuan City. He drove away from a secret facility disguised as a private hospital. I suspected it was related to the missing psychic, so I followed him all the way... I hacked into his car's driving system, created a 'small accident', and took advantage of the chaos to sneak into the car and take the unconscious psychic away."
"What happened next?!" Wen Yi asked.
Guo Qingyu glanced at her meaningfully in the rearview mirror. His eyes were complex, as if filled with a thousand words, but in the end, they only morphed into a casual remark: "I thought... he could still be saved. When we returned to Yunhu, we found out there was no way he could be saved. I had no choice but to bury him hastily. As for the circumstances of that man's death..."
When he said this, his gaze lingered on Wen Yi's face for a few seconds, then turned to Gu Yifeng.
That look carried a hint of warning, "You know what's going on."
"It has nothing to do with me. But he's not innocent."
Gu Yifeng didn't say anything, but his eyes darkened slightly and he remained silent.
The car fell silent again.
Wen Yi vaguely felt that something had happened between them, and they should know something, but they didn't say anything.
At the end of the road, the outline of Qingluan Mountain became clearer in the night.
Qingluan Mountain, a modest mountain, lies like a beautiful emerald jade on the banks of the Yunlan River. Its southern slopes reveal the shimmering waters of Yunhu City, while its northern slopes wind through the myriad lights of Yunchuan City. The river, flowing gently around the mountain's foothills, quietly connects the stories of the two cities.
In the dim morning light, the outline of Qingluan Mountain is faintly visible in the mist, like the unfinished blank space in a Jiangnan ink painting.
The riverside villages at the foot of the mountain should have been the most vivid part of this picture, but now only empty houses are left.
Wen Yi stood at the entrance of the village, looking out at the green mountains to the south.
The memory of her escaping in the mountains fifteen years ago was still lingering in her mind. When she closed her eyes, she could still hear the footsteps behind her.
She was cold all over until a pair of warm hands brought her back to reality.
"What are you thinking about?" A familiar voice sounded in my ears.
Wen Yi opened her eyes and saw Gu Yifeng's concerned look.
"I was thinking about what happened back then, when I was..."
"Not here, but at the southern slope." Gu Yifeng's eyes dimmed. "I was in Yunhu City at the time." He suddenly stopped the subject. "Let's go and see what they found."
Wen Chi kicked open a rotten wooden door. The house was empty and had been abandoned for a long time.
Guo Qingyu put down the tablet and said, "You've done a good job keeping it confidential. I can't find any useful information. Why don't we go directly to the 702 Research Institute?"
"Wait." Wen Yi looked around the room, "I want to try a new method."
Wen Chi frowned, "What method?"
"In the past, I've always used the memories of the dead as coordinates for retracing my past," she traced her fingertips across the mottled wall. "But what about using the physical location itself as a coordinate? Can I retrace everything that happened at that location?"
"No!" Gu Yifeng grabbed her wrist fiercely. "You were already overdrawn yesterday. Take a rest today. I'll investigate the whereabouts of the villagers."
"I'm really fine." Wen Yi waved her hand nonchalantly.
The wrinkle between his eyebrows deepened.
"At least first determine the exact time the homeowner evacuated." Then he turned to Guo Qingyu and said, "Check the municipal water and power outage records."
"Okay." Guo Qingyu tapped his fingertips on the computer and after a moment, "April 18th, three years ago, at 9:00 AM."
"Work backwards from this point in time." Gu Yifeng held her hand tightly, "Do what you can."
Wen Yi playfully raised her thumbs up: "Believe me, I'm terrifyingly strong now..."
Before she finished speaking, Gu Yifeng suddenly lowered his head and placed a light kiss on her forehead: "This is my coordinate." His voice was very light, with an emotion she didn't understand, "I'll wait for you here, you must follow it back."
"Cough cough!" Wen Chi's angry cough and Guo Qingyu's faint laughter came from behind.
Wen Yi blushed slightly and tilted her head to glance at Gu Yifeng.
What is he doing? Nervous? Or scared?
Then she took a deep breath and placed her palms against the wall.
"There's no body." She murmured softly, "Then I will read the memories of this house."
Invisible air currents rippled out from the fingertips, sweeping across the entire space in an instant, and memories that had been dormant for many years were slowly awakening.
Wen Yi opened her eyes. The room was quiet, with only the rustling sound of mice gnawing on wood.
"Wow, I'm late." She curled her lips, "Looks like I have to look back a little further."
Wen Yi returned to the light cube and flicked her finger at the glowing timeline. "How far back should I go? Is one day enough?" Her consciousness traced back along the light cone of time. She closed her eyes and said, "Try again."
The scene suddenly changed, and the room suddenly became lively. I could hear noisy voices.
Wen Yi opened her eyes and looked up to see a group of men, women, young and old sitting in a circle in the room.
"Director Wang, we really don't want to move!" an old lady pleaded.
The staff member sitting there was firm in his attitude: "We must move out when the deadline comes. This is a government order."
An old man slammed the table and said, "Our family has lived here for generations! Why are we moving?"
"Uncle Li, if you don't move, the bulldozers will come to help you move tomorrow. Then you won't even get the reward compensation."
Wen Yi lowered her head. Lying on the ground was a flyer that read, "Notice of the Urban Housing Project in Qiyun Village, Qingluan Mountain." Her gaze fell on the notice: "Under the guise of 'township reconstruction,' the government is gradually relocating residents within 20 kilometers of Qiyun Village."
She raised an eyebrow. "There's a confidentiality clause in the compensation agreement. Violators will be severely punished... This means they're trying to keep their mouths shut."
What exactly happened? Was there a nuclear leak at the nuclear weapons research institute? Or was there something wrong with the nuclear power plant?
"Wen Yi!"
Gu Yifeng's voice sounded in her ears.
She opened her eyes and found that her hand was being held tightly, so tightly that she felt a slight pain.
"How is it?" His voice was a little tense.
Wen Yi frowned, a drop of blood oozing from the tip of her nose. She raised her hand to wipe it away and continued to explain to him: "The villagers were forced to evacuate, and they themselves don't know why..."
Gu Yifeng's eyes darkened slightly: "Are you feeling unwell? Do you want to rest for a while?"
"It's okay, just a little cold." She was interrupted and looked at him in confusion. "I'm fine. I just watched a big show."
Hearing her mention "cold", he subconsciously pulled her into his arms, but she gently pushed him away.
"What's wrong with you?" She raised her hand and touched her forehead. "I'm really fine. It's just a small thing. I'm used to it."
The room fell silent for a moment.
She paused, as if remembering something: "Shall we go to the 702 Research Institute first?"
"Let's go!"
Just as the group reached the entrance of the village, Gu Yifeng suddenly stumbled and his legs sank into the ground as if they were filled with lead.
"Wen Yi!" He turned around suddenly, his voice anxious, "Stop using your ability!"
Wen Yi looked up blankly after hearing this: "What are you talking about? I didn't do anything..."
Before he could finish his words, Guo Qingyu's tablet fell to the ground with a bang.
"It's not her." Wen Chi gritted his teeth and snapped his fingers, and the four of them suddenly felt lighter.
The sound of rustling footsteps came from behind.
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The author has something to say: Ding ding ding, the next chapter will start to let myself go.
Each chapter is a bold attempt, I hope someone will like it.
Click to collect and don’t get lost~Bow~~[Starry Eyes][Starry Eyes][Starry Eyes]
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