Chapter 83
Without positioning, the mountain road is rugged and has many forks. If you plan to drive back to the county town to buy a phone card, even if you don’t care about getting lost, the day will be wasted.
Ranlong thought that there was nothing important that required the Internet for the time being, so he could just go back after finding out about Qiu An's past, so he agreed to Yaoling's suggestion.
The two went to the noodle shop they had been to last night and had a bowl of noodles. Yao Ling chatted with the shop owner in dialect and asked indirectly if there had been any famous people in the town.
It’s a pity that all the people I inquired about were businessmen or industrialists, or scholars who were admitted to prestigious universities.
Qiu An was so famous, there was no reason to miss her. Even if she had done a good job of keeping secrets, how could she have lived here for so long without any news leaking out?
Ranlong was a little discouraged: "Tell me, did we come to the wrong place?"
Yao Ling comforted her: "Don't worry, there are so many people in the town, let's go ask around. Go to every store along this street and ask at every shop."
Yao Ling was about to stand up when Ran Long grabbed her and said worriedly, "No, that would be too conspicuous. Even though we can't access the internet, we do have internet access here. If someone notices something, not only would I be caught here, but Qiu An might also be implicated."
Yao Ling thought for a moment and said, "Okay, then let's switch to plan B."
"Plan B? What's that? Do we have one?"
"Yes. Follow me and you'll find out."
Yao Ling brought the confused Ran Long back to the hotel.
After driving away the cockroaches crawling all over the floor, Yao Ling opened the suitcase and unzipped one side.
Strange and bizarre things flowed out slowly but endlessly like magma.
Yao Ling took out one by one. Among these tattered things, there was a gray cloth robe, a long banner with the words "divine calculations" written on it, a retractable long pole for hanging the banner, as well as Zhuangzi's scarf, goatee, small sunglasses, "Book of Changes", peach wood sign holder, brush and other realistic props.
"This..." Ranlong was even more confused.
But Yao Ling said seriously, "From now on, you have to call me 'Zhou Banxian'!"
"What the hell is this? What are you trying to do?"
"I want to give guidance to the people here."
"?"
Yao Ling frowned and asked her seriously, "Let's assume that no one here knows Qiu An. In this case, where do you think we can start to find out about her 'past'?"
Ranlong thought for a moment and said, "Someone related by blood, right? Mother? Father? Or sisters or brothers?"
"You're right. If she has a rural household registration, Qiu An shouldn't be an only child. So what do you think her relatives are like?"
"Hmm... People here are generally not tall, but Qiu An is 1.68 meters tall. This means that at least one of her parents is tall, and perhaps her peers also have the same inheritance."
"Ruling out the possibility that Qiu An has a genetic mutation."
"...Also, the surname 'Qiu' is not common, especially in Zhilin. If you meet a family with the surname Qiu, they will probably be related to Qiu An."
"It's ruled out that Qiu An is using a pseudonym."
“…”
"Okay, these two clues should be enough. Come with me."
Yao Ling and Ran Long left the hotel with their suitcases and chose a flat area at the end of the street suitable for setting up a stall.
She put on a goatee, sunglasses, set up a small folding stool, spread out all the props on a Bagua diagram, and set up her stall.
"So, you're going to trick them into telling their fortunes?"
"That's right~"
From beneath the goatee came the deep voice of an octogenarian. With a little attention, one could hear the slightly unnatural electrical noise in the voice.
"A voice changer? Where did you get such a high-tech thing?"
"I spent a lot of money to get it custom-made from Hou Mei."
"Hou's sister?"
"Sister Hou's younger sister~"
Ranlong held his forehead with his hand. "Have you ever sold secret medicine that guarantees a boy in a conservative area? The kind that offers a full refund if the baby doesn't come out?"
"How do you know?"
"You are a fraud."
"Oh~ Hehe~"
Ranlong didn't want to pay any more attention to the nonsense Yao Ling was talking about. But she didn't want to question the feasibility of this method either. She just wanted it to be feasible, so that she could quickly find Qiu An's heart knot and leave this place.
Be it fraud or torture, it doesn't matter.
Ranlong squatted beside the stall for a while and saw a few residents passing by, but they just looked at him curiously and no one came forward to ask questions.
Ranlong was getting impatient waiting and suggested, "I'll be your agent. You pretend to tell my fortune. This way you can attract customers faster."
"You~ You look so fair and clean~ You can tell at a glance that you are traveling with me~ No~ No~"
"Isn't that easy? I'm just too fair. I'll just roll in the mud and smear some dust on my face."
Yao Ling lowered his sunglasses, revealing a pair of cunning eyes as he glanced at her, blinked twice, and said, "Okay~ Go ahead~"
After getting permission, Ranlong ran back to the hotel, changed into simple clothes without any extra decorations, found an unattended farmland, closed his eyes and jumped down.
She endured the unpleasant smell and rolled around in the ground until her body, face and hair were covered with dust and mud.
After rolling around, she stood in the scorching sun again. The dirt on her clothes solidified into lumps, and her neck and face were covered with sweat, becoming red.
I brushed off the excess dirt and found a piece of reflective glass to look at the picture. It actually looked a bit like someone had just finished working in the fields.
She happily ran back to find Yao Ling, and had already figured out how to be a competent customer without revealing her accent, but she found that Yao Ling's stall was already surrounded by a circle of people.
This dog Yao Ling will go to hell sooner or later.
Ranlong mixed into the crowd with a gloomy face and found that Yaoling was really fortune-telling and divination for people.
She was chatting happily with an old lady in dialect, and no one knew what they were talking about. The old lady held her hand with tears of gratitude and took out cash from her waistband and insisted on giving it to her.
Ranlong saw that Yaoling was calculating very hard, and was afraid that she would forget the important things, so he coughed to remind her again and again.
Finally, when it was the third person's turn, Yao Ling picked up the brush and wrote a Chinese character on the paper. The character was as elegant as a phoenix feather, and each stroke flowed in all directions, with a style that was quite like that of a famous doctor.
When Yao Ling finished writing and turned the rice paper around to face everyone, Ran Long was able to see clearly.
The word Yao Ling wrote was "Qiu".
When the villagers saw this word, they started discussing it one after another. Ranlong didn't understand much and could only look at this and that, but couldn't figure out what it meant.
After a while, an old man asked for Yao Ling's paper and pen, and wrote the word "Pei" on the paper.
After writing, he suddenly stood up and gestured a few times in the air. Yao Ling looked at him and nodded.
After a few more fortune-tellings, Yao Ling finally put away the paper, pen, and fortune-telling holder. Amidst everyone's regretful cries, he stuffed the things into Ran Long's arms and said to her, "That's about it. Pack up and go back."
Back at the hotel, Ranlong didn't even bother to shower. He plopped down on the bed, covered in mud, and asked Yaoling anxiously, "Have you found out? Tell me quickly, is there a family here with the surname Pei? Maybe that's Qiu An's original surname."
Yao Ling glanced at the mud-covered bed and asked instead, "We still have to stay here for another night. How are we going to sleep if you've made the bed dirty?"
"How else can I sleep except lying down?"
"Wow, you have to know that the farmyard manure used in the countryside is..."
"If you keep nagging me, I'll smear shit and piss in your mouth!"
Yao Ling retreated repeatedly, finally having kept the suspense a secret, and begged for mercy, revealing, "There are two families of exceptional stature in this town. One is across the street, and the other is two streets away. We can check them out one by one late at night when no one is around. And one more thing, you're right. There's no one here named 'Qiu,' only one named 'Pei.' They say she's a woman from a nearby province who married in, and her age fits the bill."
"conform to?"
"It fits the age of Qiu An's mother."
Ranlong swallowed unconsciously, feeling a little nervous for some reason. She continued to ask Yaoling, "Where is it? Should we go to this one first?"
"No hurry, do you remember the fork in the road we came from?"
"The one we got out of the car to determine the direction?"
"Yes. The woman surnamed Pei lives where another path leads to. Not in the town, but in a nearby village. It's getting dark, and the road is unlit and unfamiliar. We should go tomorrow. Today, we'll go check on the other two households first."
"All right."
At night, they changed into dark clothes and sneaked into the night. The houses in the town were low and the windows had no curtains, so they easily found two tall families following the instructions given by the villagers.
It's a pity that one of these two families has a son who was born due to a gene mutation. He is about ten years old and stands out in the small family. His head is about to hit the roof; the other is a young couple who moved from the Northeast. They can act out the whole "Boonie Bears" with just one word.
The two families did not match in age, appearance, or even accent or birthplace.
Not only does it not match, but he also had an inexplicable "genetic mutation" and moved all the way to this small, stagnant town with no relatives or friends...
They know that they shouldn't judge people by their appearance, and they also know that they shouldn't make stereotypes, but many times, these principles are useless.
Yao Ling took a quick look and was frightened. He pulled Ran Long, who was unwilling to give up and wanted to observe for a while longer, and quietly left.
Maybe he was tired from jumping around all day, or maybe he didn't sleep well last night and was sleep deprived today. He returned to the hotel, took a comfortable hot bath for half an hour, brushed off the dust on the bed, and fell asleep as soon as he lay down.
It’s hard for Yao Ling.
Ranlong snored for the first time in his life tonight, and then he snored and snored.
The noise made Yao Ling get out of bed several times to cover her mouth.
Of course, to no avail.
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