When I asked the question, the survey team members recalled for a moment: "Yesterday at noon, after receiving the temporary survey assignment, everyone set off under Boss Hou's command. Because the machinery couldn't travel on the complex road surface, we had to repair the road as we went. After the road was repaired for a while, everyone was tired, and the loader needed refueling, so we took a temporary break..."
Xue Dong interrupted the other person: "Get to the point."
"I've already been brief enough. The main thing is that what happened yesterday was just too bizarre."
The other person looked at us with a somewhat blank expression: "We were resting under the shade of a tree by the roadside when we suddenly saw something that ordinary people can hardly see. We were all terrified at the time, but now that we think about it, we must have been hallucinating, because after we talked about it, we all saw different things. I was in a daze and then I passed out. When I woke up, someone put a hood over my head and brought me here."
I frowned at him and asked, "So, you don't know anything? Then how do you know the monkey was taken away by someone else?"
"I saw it."
Another person spoke up: "I was carsick at the time, so I took some motion sickness pills containing sedatives. So while the others were hallucinating, I was just feeling drowsy and woke up earlier than them. While the others were being drugged, I was still awake. In my panic, I saw a group of men in black rushing towards us, and then I don't remember anything else."
When I woke up again, I found that we had been taken to the mountains. The men in black were about to kill us to silence us, but then a woman appeared.
I pressed further, "What kind of woman is she?"
"I wasn't very old, and I've forgotten exactly what he looked like. We don't know how we were drugged, but when we woke up, we had terrible headaches and our memories were all blurry."
The man recalled carefully: "After that woman arrived, I don't know what she said to those men in black, and then we were dragged into the bushes. I vaguely heard them say something like, 'Let's keep them alive for now,' which probably meant to spare our lives. Then Mr. Hou was taken away, and I have no recollection of what happened after that."
I recalled the bullet holes I'd found on the convoy's windshield and pressed further, "Is anyone in your convoy carrying a gun?"
"There are no real guns, but there are a few air rifles."
The other person nodded: "We surveyors spend all year round running around in the mountains, and many of us will get a few air guns to shoot for fun, and also to defend ourselves when we encounter wild animals."
While I was questioning him, Jiang Man and Xue Dong also inquired about the situation of the other people, and found that these people had very vague memories of what happened.
Jiang Man inquired about everyone's situation and came over to me, saying, "It seems that these people were drugged yesterday. This drug has a sedative effect and anterograde amnesia. Most anesthetics have this effect, causing people to lose their memory."
I nodded: "To be able to poison so many people so silently, and to have considered silencing so many people, the one who did it must be someone from Ping An Village. But according to these people's descriptions, those men in black were wearing modern clothes. I suspect they are from another branch of Ping An Village."
"After you stole the bull's head in Ping'an Village, Ping'an Village lost its ability to stop the tomb raiding gang from entering the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace. They will definitely send a large number of people into the mountains to defend it. Monkey and his gang went to the old site of Qingyun Town with detection equipment, which has already threatened them. So I can understand the people of Ping'an Village reacting. But who is that woman?"
Jiang Man thought for a moment: "Do you think it's possible that Miao Xiaoxian recognized the monkey and then found an excuse to take him away, and the monkey's condition at the time was that he couldn't hurt anyone with him?"
“Young Miss’s explanation is indeed the most reasonable speculation, but there is still one thing I don’t understand. Since Ping’an Village is the team that protects the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace, why did they kidnap Mr. Hou and make him dig a tunnel for them?”
Jiang Man continued to speculate, "Could it be to destroy the keyhole so that even if we get the key to open the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace, we won't be able to enter smoothly?"
"Won't!"
I waved my hand: "Qu Ruilin just spoke to me on the phone, and we both believe that the mountain range where we dug up the green clay is not the real location of the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace! If the people of Ping'an Village really want to destroy the keyhole, they should dig out the real location of the entrance."
"What if the people of Ping'an Village can't find the true entrance to the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace either? Although they have guarded the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace for generations, none of them have ever been inside. With so many generations of history, perhaps they only know a general area, so they are also trying to find it?"
Jiang Man paused for a moment: "You said before that the mountain where the blue clay was dug out should not have an ancient tomb, according to common sense. But there was a tomb raider's hole there, and they dug out blue clay that had been filled in by humans. This means that they must have some relevant information."
"I'm 90% certain about the kidnapping of the monkeys in Ping'an Village."
I lit a cigarette: "To find the monkey, we must know the purpose of Ping'an Village. Only in this way can we find the monkey... Take our people away and then go to meet up with Qu Ruilin and the others. I need to talk to him."
Xue Dong pointed to the deaf-mute people we had taken control of, and said with some helplessness, "If we all leave, what will happen to these deaf-mute people?"
I waved my hand: "It seems that the purpose of this camp is to detain our people. The people of Ping'an Village did not even conduct an interrogation, which means that our people are not important to them. These deaf-mute people are just guards. There is no use in keeping them. Tie them all up and leave them here. Let them break free of their ropes on their own."
...
Although our operation rescued all the members of the survey team, we did not find any monkeys.
I was completely baffled by the purpose of Ping'an Village, so I had no choice but to consult Qu Ruilin, a feng shui master.
Qu Ruilin's camp was located in a well-hidden valley. When I approached their tent, the Wei family members were outside mixing mud. When Song Laosan saw me, he walked over and said, "Xiao Duan, you're here."
I pointed to the people mixing mud nearby and asked, "What are they doing?"
Song Laosan kept everyone in suspense, pointing to the tent behind him: "Qu Ruilin is waiting for you. Go in and take a look, and you'll understand."
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