Chapter 45

"…So, you finally chose to let Mr. Haitang run this trip for you?"

At the same time, on another bus. Lu Yueling righteously occupied the empty seat next to Xu Ming, and was talking to her in a bored tone: "I was wondering why the room felt much quieter this morning. But it seems to be made of wax, right? Wouldn't it be revealing if I just took you out like this?"

"Show it if you want, just leave one hand for signing." Xu Ming sat by the window, deliberately twirling his hair around his ears to reveal the bone conduction headphones on his head, so as to prove to the passing passengers that he was not talking to himself and that there was nothing wrong with his brain. "Oh, yes, it would be best if I could leave another mouth."

It can be used to confront people.

As for the rest, it doesn't matter.

Lu Yueling: ...

I can see that your family relationship is not very harmonious.

"So where are we going now?" Lu Yueling asked, while curiously looking out the car window. She is from City A, and this is her first time in this city, so everything is new to her.

Xu Ming looked at the gray streets outside the window, but he was not interested: "Go to my house."

Lu Yueling: "......?"

"Your house?" She didn't understand, "The one where Mr. Haitang has passed by?"

Xu Ming shook his head.

"No. It's my own home... To be precise, it's my own house."

Another familiar road sign passed by the window, Xu Ming's eyes subconsciously chased it for a while, and soon withdrew from it, with a rare bit of melancholy in his expression.

"When Yunshu came back this morning, didn't you see that... there are two more people in the house?" Xu Ming sighed, "My apartment is really a bit crowded."

The two old tenants of the hotel came back with Gu Yunshu this morning. One has a bison head and the other has a horse-like face. They are both in the stage of retaining self-awareness but with vague memories of the past. In other words, they can think but have no memory.

There is no problem with communication, and there are no problems with names either - they all wear temporary work badges given by Xu Ming, with the names they gave themselves on them. From the brief communication, their personalities are also very worry-free, but Xu Ming is a little troubled about how to arrange them.

As Lu Yueling once pointed out, her apartment is indeed too small.

Originally, it was a single apartment designed for young urbanites, a palm-sized place. Even if they, a bunch of non-humans, could squeeze themselves into various cracks and corners, once more than two of them came out to move around, the room would seem overcrowded.

Not to mention that Landor brought a dog with him - although she knew that the dog was an abnormal being and did not need to exercise, but seeing such a ball of fur moving around in such a small space all day, and even wagging its tail could only wag up and down, Xu Ming still couldn't help but feel that the animal was being treated unfairly.

She had originally considered whether to rent a bigger house, but she was currently in a window period, so the financial pressure would be a bit too much, and if she found a new job, she might have to change houses, and then she would have to deal with a series of troubles such as returning the deposit and finding a sublet.

It just so happened that her brother came to ask about the old house yesterday, which reminded Xu Ming of another thing.

- In addition to the inheritance from her biological parents, she actually has another house under her name.

It was a small house built in the countryside that her aunt left for her. Xu Ming lived there for a while when she was in school, and she had the impression that the area was quite large.

It’s just that the house is too remote, and it takes a long time to get there by car from the city, and the surrounding facilities are also backward; plus, for some complicated reasons, she has been drifting outside for the past few years and has rarely come back, so that the existence of this house in Xu Ming’s mind is extremely weak. If it weren’t for what happened yesterday, she wouldn’t even remember it.

"-Ah." While still thinking, she suddenly heard Lu Yueling next to her exclaim. Xu Ming looked over alertly, only to see that the other person was sitting on the top of the chair back, holding the window with one hand, looking out with amazement.

"This grass is so beautiful." She turned to Xu Ming and said, even though she tried to suppress it, her excitement was still visible between her eyebrows, "And it grows in the water... Is this some kind of landscape plant?"

Xu Ming: "..."

She looked outside silently. On both sides of the road, there were large fields of rice planted - green with a little yellow.

... Kids nowadays.

Xu Ming sighed in his heart, and the car turned a corner and drove onto another road. This time, it was not rice on the roadside. Instead, it was greenhouses one after another.

The city kid Lu Yueling was amazed and couldn't help but sigh: "Your house is...really far away."

"That's why you don't come back often." Xu Ming sighed again, "But the house is big and there are not many neighbors around, it's just right for you to rest."

Xu Ming had thought it through. He would go check the house today, and if there was no problem, he would take a group of people to live in it. When she finds a new job in the future, she will move out by herself. Anyway, there is a phone in the old house, and the others still have their work badges, so there is no need to worry about losing contact.

He brought Lu Yueling along purely because of the unnecessary concern of others. Lando seemed to be worried that Xu Ming would walk and run into the strange story area by himself. Unfortunately, the whale fat man was not there at the moment, he himself had difficulty moving, and Gu Yunshu...

Oh, Gu Yunshu didn't know about this yet.

Because as soon as Gu Yunshu came back this morning, Xu Ming rewrote the address he wanted to go to and handed it to her carefully.

Thinking of this, Xu Ming couldn't help but flash through Gu Yunshu's expression at that time. It can't be said that she was very surprised or excited, but just stood there in a daze, staring at the paper. Her eyes were originally blank, and slowly, a little bit of confusion filled up, which reminded people of an empty cup that was slowly filled with water.

Xu Ming watched her slowly pick up the note, and then bowed her head deeply to him, as if to express silent gratitude; she explained the origin of the note to Gu Yunshu, and asked her about her future plans. She wanted to go to the address with her. Gu Yunshu thought for a long time, but shook her head slowly and vigorously.

"No." She said to Xu Ming seriously, "You don't need to accompany me. I can go by myself."

"Are you sure?" Xu Ming was a little worried, "This place is some distance from the new district, and the address is quite complicated..."

"I can." Gu Yunshu was very firm, "I know the way, and I can tell the difference between four and six."

Passing by Landor from behind while pushing a mop: "..."

???

"Don't worry, she didn't say anything about you." Seeing this, Xu Ming quickly waved his hand at him, "Don't think too much."

Lando: "..."

I don't know if it was Xu Ming's illusion, but when Lando heard her say that, his eyes became even more resentful.

No matter what, seeing that Gu Yunshu was so insistent, Xu Ming didn't say anything more. Gu Yunshu was also very active. After agreeing with Xu Ming on the time to come back, she went out directly. Xu Ming was left alone, and she and her newly brought back Niu Tau Ma looked at each other in bewilderment. They looked at the little space left in the apartment, and then looked at the still early sky outside.

Finally, she decided to learn from Gu Yunshu decisively. Better to do it today than to wait. She packed up her things on the spot and prepared to go out to look at houses.

Out of concern, Lando hurried out to give her a bell and a Lu Yueling; now one was hanging on her bag, and the other was hanging on the window, staring at the greenhouse outside the window.

"It feels good to live in a place like this, a rural life." Lu Yueling leaned closer to the window, her skirt hanging down to Xu Ming's legs, "Can't you find a job nearby?"

"The Urban-Rural Integration Department, I can find a suitable job." Xu Ming tilted his head, "But there's no rush. The cost of living here is low, and I can still take orders for painting, so it should be enough to make ends meet."

"Painting?" Lu Yueling looked over in surprise, "You can do this?"

Xu Ming: ... Otherwise, how do you think you got the super cute Q version of your two-head body on your work badge? Did it fall off naturally?

"So it's still your hand-painted..." Lu Yueling lowered her head and picked up her work badge. After staring at it for a while, she sat down with interest and began to ask Xu Ming's account number.

Xu Ming didn't want to hide it either, he took out his phone and opened the account homepage to show her. When Lu Yueling saw the number of fans, she was immediately surprised: "I didn't expect you to be a big shot."

"Not really. It just happens that some paintings have a lot of people who like them." Xu Ming said, put away his phone, clicked on the message box of the account and browsed quickly.

This account was created when she was in college. It was originally just a private place for drawings, and gradually developed into a commercial account. It's just that Xu Ming had too many things to do in the year of graduation and really had no time to take care of it. Later, unfortunately, she joined a 996 company, which resulted in her not coming online to check it for a long time. As

soon as she opened the message box, the piles of unread messages immediately dazzled her. Xu Ming's mouth twitched slightly, and she felt a headache and a little sorry at the same time. Taking advantage of the free time now, she simply replied to the messages one by one.

The latest message was sent two days ago. I have to say, it is really amazing to feel that someone still remembers it after such a long time.

Lu Yueling sat beside her, tilting her head and watching her sorting out the private messages. Gradually, she seemed to find some fun in it.

"I don't know what kind of education these kids are getting." Xu Ming heard her say, "In such a short paragraph, she used more than ten 'save the children'. It takes a lot of skill to have such a limited vocabulary."

"Who cares? It's not a serious matter." Xu Ming was very open-minded about it. "It's enough to use."

In comparison, she felt that not knowing Shuidao seemed to be more serious.

Just at this moment, there was another "ding" sound. A pop-up promotion popped up above the screen. On the pop-up was a line of clear small words:

[Hello, my name is Guo Shuyi. I'm being kidnapped now...】

"..." Xu Ming's hand, which was about to delete the pop-up window, suddenly paused. Lu Yueling beside him had already spoken thoughtfully:

"Guo Shuyi? This name sounds so familiar. I seem to have seen it somewhere."

"It's a TV series." Xu Ming pursed his lips slightly, and couldn't help sighing, "It could also be news or urban legends."

Lu Yueling: "?"

"This place, in the south of the city, there was a big case two years ago." Xu Ming continued, "The case of the dismemberment of serial girls. It was quite a big deal during that time."

Speaking of which, she basically never went back to the south of the city after going to college, and part of the reason was precisely because of this incident - the case had not been solved when she was in school. She was also afraid of death, and her aunt was no longer there at that time, so there was no need to come back. She simply didn't come.

"......!" Lu Yueling's eyes widened slightly, and after a moment, she frowned uncertainly, "I seem to have an impression... Has the murderer been caught?"

"Yes." Xu Ming nodded, "He was caught years ago. It is said that he has been executed."

"And the key to catching the man is said to be this Guo Shuyi--"

Or rather, it was the letter left by the other party.

Before that, the murderer had been on the run for nearly two years.

No one knew how he did it. He killed, dismembered, and discarded the bodies one after another, but he never left any pointing evidence. Even the body parts he threw away were often not discovered until ten days or half a month later. In this highly modernized city, it is simply incredible.

The south of the city is said to be a rural-urban junction, but it is a first-tier city after all, and it has a well-developed electronic surveillance network and information database. Even so, they still could not determine the identity of the murderer.

Finally, someone bought an old warehouse in the south of the city. When preparing to renovate it, they found a lot of handwritten letters in the wall of a room, and then they knew that the room had been used by the murderer to imprison the victim. And on those letters were various records left by Guo Shuyi during her imprisonment -

because her first letter was a letter for help, some people later speculated that she actually wanted to throw the letters outside at the time. But after realizing that this was difficult to do, she turned to writing letters to record everything she observed, and hid them in the wall before she was killed...

These records repeatedly mentioned the various characteristics of the murderer, and even made further inferences based on some of these characteristics, which played a great role in the police's later identification of the suspect.

Because this matter itself was too bizarre, it was widely circulated on the Internet at the time. In addition, Guo Shuyi herself was a little special - it was said that she had a withdrawn and eccentric personality, but her grades were quite good. When she was in school, she was also a little genius who kept to herself and was not good at socializing. This character setting undoubtedly brought the discussion of the matter to a new level.

Soon, someone caught on to the popularity of this incident and adapted it into novels and plays. In all the works, the name "Guo Shuyi" was retained without exception.

"...How mysterious." After listening to Xu Ming's narration, Lu Yueling showed a rare dull look on her face. After she slowed down, her eyes became more subtle. "But now criminal investigation methods are so advanced, and in the end, it was a few letters that helped solve the case. This development is too novel..."

"So it was adapted." Xu Ming said, "We discussed this case in the law class in college, but at that time, Guo Shuyi's letter had not been found, and the case was also discussed as an unsolved case..."

?

Wait.

Xu Ming stopped talking here.

——This case happened two years ago. When he was still in college.

During that period, rule books appeared in large numbers and some holders were committing crimes.

...And according to Shi Mian, in that environment at that time, some holders would take the initiative to hide in the ghost story, and the ghost story area is basically isolated from the world...

The two time periods just happen to overlap, is it a coincidence?

If the murderer really has some means to separate himself from the real world, then the police's failure to find evidence seems to be more reasonable...

Xu Ming's eyes turned slightly, and his brows wrinkled involuntarily. While thinking, he saw Lu Yueling lift the hem of her skirt and gently move to her side.

"That pop-up window..." she said while looking over tentatively, "Have you deleted it?"

Xu Ming: "..."

Xu Ming: "Not yet, do you want to read it?"

"Just a little interested." Lu Yueling's eyes drifted over again, "So what is that promotion? A novel?"

Xu Ming exhaled, cooperated to open the window for her, and after a quick glance, he said: "No. It seems to be a report literature about that thing."

It was probably because she searched for some information about Chengnan while waiting for the bus, and the big data was automatically associated with this matter. After all, the most popular related entry for Chengnan now is this.

Xu Ming had already read about the related events on the Internet, and he didn't really want to review it now. But seeing that Lu Yueling was very interested, he still opened the article and deliberately pushed the phone in the direction of Lu Yueling.

Lu Yueling leaned forward slightly and immediately read it curiously. While reading, the long hair draped over her shoulders bounced from time to time, and sometimes twisted nervously, as if she was expressing her emotions.

Instead, Xu Ming was a little dumbfounded. After carefully observing for a while, Fang retracted his gaze and looked at the article on his mobile phone. The beginning that he had seen on countless web pages jumped into his eyes again -

[Hello, my name is Guo Shuyi.

[I'm kidnapped now. If you can see this letter, please, please save me...]