18 Chapter Seventeen (Two chapters combined)
See you in the pool!
Zheng Miaojia seemed to understand, but racked her brains and carefully circled the numbers one by one: if the first item was A1, it was 6; if the second item was A2, it was 26; then the third item was A3, which was A1+A2=6+26=32; the fourth item was A2+A3=26+32=58… and so on. A5 was 90, A10 was 1010, A15 was 11200, A20 was 124210, and the last digit of each item was zero. Furthermore, 10, 15, and 20 were all multiples of 5…
So, the message Yu Miaomiao conveyed to Qiaoqiao meant that the five elements would cycle to zero?
Liang Mei immediately found the route of bus No. 58 on her phone and gradually caught up with the thought: "But there are a total of fourteen stops on the No. 58 bus line. The first stop is the farmers' market and the last stop is Xiaohuacheng. It almost runs through the entire Fengtan County. How can we determine its location in such a large area?"
Li Yingqiao was also thinking, pen between her nose and pen, lost in thought again, muttering to herself, "Yeah, how can we be sure which station Miaomiao is being held near right now?"
Li Yingqiao couldn't help but bite her lip. Her pen fell onto the table and rolled to the floor. She didn't bother to pick it up, her eyes still fixed on the numbers written on the draft paper, as she began to reorganize her thoughts.
Teacher Zhu once said that many things in life are arranged according to mathematical theorems. For example, traffic lights are actually a problem of solving equations. As long as you can find the optimal solution, you can perfectly avoid all red lights. When you are queuing, you always feel that the queue next to you is faster. This is also a mathematical problem, but she forgot how Teacher Zhu explained it.
The atmosphere became somewhat tense, so Liang Mei had no choice but to tap the table and remind them, "No matter what, you two must go to bed by eleven o'clock. Teacher Zhu will continue to figure out the rest."
Zheng Miaojia nodded obediently, while Li Yingqiao remained silent, staring intently at the manuscript paper, clearly not listening at all.
Just as Liang Mei was about to continue her education, Zhu Xiaoliang interrupted her in a deep voice, saying, "I just checked our Fengtan public transportation system. There are more than just the No. 58 bus that runs five times a day. If the second set of numbers is indeed No. 58, is it possible that the number 58 appears in the fourth item, referring to the fourth stop on the bus route—Fengtan Commercial Building?"
Meanwhile, the police also came to the same conclusion, focusing their attention on the Fengtan Commercial Building near the No. 58 bus stop. However, just like Zhu Xiaoliang, they quickly ruled out this possibility and only sent one or two plainclothes officers to keep watch nearby, and to report any unusual situations immediately.
Moreover, the Fengtan Shopping Mall is a bustling area with crowds during the day. It's so crowded that even tying a shoelace would be impossible without bending down, making it an unsuitable location for kidnappers to hide hostages.
Zhu Xiaoliang added, "The next stop is the police station. If the kidnappers hold the hostage here, wouldn't that be too blatant? After so many days, the police must have found a single clue..."
"If it's a zero-based system every five o'clock—" Li Yingqiao muttered to herself, "are there any buses that depart at five o'clock?"
Zhu Xiaoliang: "The train station? I remember the train station has special trains for night and early morning departures."
The words had barely left their mouths when the two of them simultaneously spotted the timetable for a special bus: "Teacher Liang! Quick! Call Uncle Yu, we know where Miaomiao is!"
Zhu Xiaoliang blurted out almost simultaneously, "It's the train station!"
"Could it be that abandoned wooden toy factory?" Zheng Miaojia clapped her hands and said, "Uncle Yu used to run a wooden toy factory near the train station, but it was shut down after someone reported it for dust pollution."
Liang Mei's breath hitched. Before she could think, her hand, as if wound up, instinctively reached for her phone on the table. Her hand trembled inexplicably as she dialed, a jolt of electricity shooting from her feet to her head, like needles pricking her. She hadn't held out much hope; if they actually found it, it would probably be on the news again.
Li Yingqiao, however, didn't think too much about it. She became increasingly calm, methodically crossing out irrelevant answers, and said confidently, "Yes! The train that passes through the train station departs at 5:06 and the last train departs at 23:26. This matches the first two terms of the Fibonacci sequence that Miaomiao gave us. 3364, as the square of 58, is exactly the fourth term in the Fibonacci sequence. It should be workshop number 4 in his dad's factory, or building number 4 or something like that. It could even be the number 4 trash can. Anyway, check every corner, in case he's starving and rummaging through the trash outside to eat."
"..."
If there is an afterlife—
Yu Jinyang thought.
If there is an afterlife, he never wants to be the son of a "Jie" like Renjie or Junjie again—not only is the pressure immense, but it also breeds hatred. Especially that guy named Renjie with the surname Yu; for days now, he's acted as if his family's toy factory had never been opened, not even glancing at it once.
Although Yu Jinyang's childhood memories of this place were not very deep, on the first day the kidnappers brought him here, he was able to roughly deduce his location based on his vague childhood memories.
The main problem is the piercing sound of the train horns near the train station. Especially at night during this season, you can hear the cracking and popping sounds of the rails expanding and contracting due to heat, as well as the daily sounds of workers inspecting the rails. This indicates that the railway tracks here are definitely no more than 500 meters away from the train station.
When he was a child, his mother brought him to find his father. His father was afraid that his mother would run back to Hainan without saying a word, so he treated him like a hostage and kept him by his side at all times. Since he had to go to work, his father got him a cot in the factory manager's office and made him lie on it to read and sleep, but he rarely spoke to him.
Because they were completely unfamiliar with each other at that time, and neither wanted to understand the other's interests and preferences, there was no common ground between the man and the little boy, especially the man who was pretending to be young.
His dad especially likes to ask him at mealtimes if he can eat something spicy, or if he can eat cilantro and garlic sprouts. They all sound like his old kindergarten classmates. How can he possibly eat that?
Moreover, he had long since stopped using reduplicated words, but Yu Renjie, in his forties, still used them with great enthusiasm.
Yu Jinyang loved listening to train whistles back then. After listening to them so many times, he could distinguish which whistles were for trains entering or leaving the station and which were for train malfunctions. So, on the first night he was kidnapped, he heard the clear sound of train whistles and the sound of workers inspecting the rails in the early morning.
If he remembers correctly, it should be around 4 a.m., when the railway station workers regularly inspect the rails.
Although he couldn't pinpoint his exact room or location in the abandoned factory, he was certain that the maintenance sounds he heard in his father's office when he was a child were almost identical to those he heard now.
Right now, he'd either be in his dad's office or in the staff dormitory, the only two places facing the train station where the sound of the rails would be clearest. So he tried to calm himself down and think about how to get the phone and how to send a signal, even though it was risky. He figured he was in deep trouble anyway, so he might as well take the risk.
In that instant, he suddenly remembered the time a couple of days ago when he and Li Yingqiao were at the bus stop. Li Yingqiao was rummaging through his bag, frantically searching for money. He was too lazy to argue with her, so he casually looked away. With nothing else to do, he started looking at the bus timetable on the bus stop sign.
He then noticed that the first and last bus times for the bus that passed the train station seemed to be different from other bus routes. The others were on the hour or half-hour, but that bus's first bus was at 5:06 and the last bus was at 23:26.
The answer is actually quite simple—
626 refers to the bus route from 5:06 AM to 11:26 PM. He didn't dare give the bus number, fearing the kidnappers would find out before Li Yingqiao. So he gave the bus that passed the train station, mentioning the two minutes after the first and last bus times that seemed unusual, and he didn't dare give the full time, fearing the kidnappers would use Baidu.
Although it was somewhat subtle, Li Yingqiao waited for the bus at that stop every day, so she should have easily noticed the problem.
As for 3364, it is indeed the square of 58.
...Nothing else—it's just 58, my dad; 58 squared, my dad.
Is that so hard to think of?
The train station, my dad! The wooden toy factory! Is that hard to imagine?
Li Yingqiao! What are you doing?! Did you go and marry Fibonacci?!
He watched as the kidnapper, his mind seemingly blank, almost came to a conclusion. Then, the tattooed man slapped his thigh and rattled off a string of random thoughts: "You said 3364 is 58 squared, so what does 58 represent? I know—58.com!"
"Screw you!" the man in the jacket cursed. "Call Brother Tao and cancel the deal."
The tattooed man was stunned. "Why!"
The man in the jacket said confidently, "Idiot! I told you not to pay attention to him! You wouldn't listen... This provincial highway next to us is Provincial Highway 58!"
Yu Jinyang: "..."
Hey! He really doesn't know! Besides, the provincial highway is so long, who can pinpoint their location by just one highway? He's not a 100-kilometer-long snake that's so long it has to hang on the highway!
The tattooed arm was indeed thinking the same thing as him: "It's just a coincidence. Besides, this provincial highway is so long, how could the police find this place? And at the time, I was afraid he would play word games with me, so I allowed him to use numbers instead."
Yu Jinyang nodded repeatedly in agreement.
The man in the jacket pointed at the two of them: "Are you two in cahoots? I'm starting to suspect that I'm the one who was kidnapped!"
Even the tattooed man couldn't take it anymore: "Are you sick? You're so paranoid. Why don't you call your brother and ask him when the deal is going to happen?"
The phone to Brother Tao was always switched off, but he couldn't get through. The man in the jacket slammed the phone down, kicked Hua Bi in a fit of rage, and aggressively put on the mechanical arm, gritting his teeth and saying, "Something's not right. My brother should have been arrested. Get off me, I'll kill him."
Damn it. Here we go again.
Installing a robotic arm makes him think he's RoboCop.
Yu Jinyang felt like a dried sausage, with bloodstains and sweat congealed into mottled, cracked dark red patches. His whole body was dry and stiff, and the slightest movement caused him pain and itching. In any case, he wouldn't be able to take the exam normally if he went out.
He straightened up in despair, imagining himself as an indomitable sausage.
Exhausted, Yu Jinyang leaned back in his chair, his eyes blindfolded. His bloodied lips twitched calmly and gently. His tone was cold: "If you're still a human being, end me with one stab. If you stab me even more, I'll haunt you as a ghost."
"..."
"Bang!"
Without saying a word, the man in the jacket suddenly kicked him and the chair to the ground.
Yu Jinyang was kicked hard and slammed to the ground. His face was pressed against the ground, and he coughed violently. He braced his fingers on the ground and wiped the blood that was gushing from his mouth with his cheek. Other than that, he did not make a sound.
Because he was certain that this was the office where his dad had put his cot and accompanied him to work. He used to refuse to sleep in the bed and preferred to lie on the floor playing marbles, scratching the floor all over with messy patterns. Although he often got a spanking from his dad for scratching the floor at first, his dad had a completely different attitude towards his mom: he said that a scratched floor could be replaced, but a son's happy childhood could not be replaced.
He's good at dealing with people. It made it harder for him to mess with him later on. Initially, their relationship was quite tense and strained. That's why it's best for children to stay at home from birth and not run around. If you miss out on the precious time with your father before he learns to speak and chases after you calling you "Dad," it's really hard to forgive his two-faced nature.
However, it suddenly stopped hurting so much.
He can go play marbles now, since he doesn't have to take any more exams.
The man in the jacket raised his foot again—
The next second, the door was suddenly kicked open, and Yu Jinyang finally heard a series of noisy footsteps like an iron hoof team, accompanied by the police officers' pleasant shouts of "Hands up!" as they rushed in.
It was 11:30 p.m., nine and a half hours before the high school entrance exam at 9 a.m. the next day.
**
It was 7:30 in the morning. The road surface was slightly damp, and the whole city seemed to have been washed by a simple rain. It was wet and cool, and water droplets were still condensed on the green leaves. Liang Mei was moving all the flowers from the balcony into the house.
Seeing Zheng Miaojia and Li Yingqiao come out of their rooms to wash up and have breakfast, he gave them a final pep talk: "Remember this! Don't be nervous. At this crucial moment, whether you pass the exam or not depends entirely on the blessing of the Bodhisattva."
The two nodded vigorously in unison, as long as it wasn't pizza. They were sick of it; just hearing the word made them want to vomit.
"Is Yu Miaomiao still unconscious?" Li Yingqiao asked while drinking soy milk, glancing down suspiciously at the taste of the soy milk...
"What's wrong?"
"It's alright," Li Yingqiao shook her head. "Can Yu Miaomiao still take the exam today?"
“He’s probably still in the emergency room right now, he’s dehydrated. The kidnappers haven’t fed him for three days and he was on an IV drip all night,” Liang Mei said, glancing at her watch. “I heard he’s in the same exam room as you, at No. 3 Middle School. You can wait for him at the entrance. If he doesn’t show up, you two can go in on your own when it’s time.”
"I'll wait for him and see how badly he's been beaten." Li Yingqiao finished her soy milk in one gulp, grabbed Zheng Miaojia who had already finished breakfast, and went out, shouting, "Sister Mei, wait for our triumphant return!"
Li Yingqiao was in exam room number sixteen, Zheng Miaojia was in exam room number three, and it was unclear which exam room Yu Jinyang was in. At the school gate on the first day of the high school entrance exam, the crowds were like a flood. The parents' attire was remarkably uniform. Li Yingqiao always felt a strong urge to sell cheongsams at this time of year, as cheongsam sales were always booming. There were also various banners and flags, and even the breakfast shops on the roadside were raising their prices by 50 cents or a dollar compared to usual.
"Is he here?" Zheng Miaojia also peeked out from the crowd to look at the injured person. She glanced down at her phone. "Gao Dian has already entered the examination room. He's taking the exam at your No. 2 Middle School."
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Li Yingqiao said absentmindedly.
Do you need anything?
“No,” Li Yingqiao said. “After he finishes his exam, he should go to our homeroom teacher’s office and say that he is my dad and that he is helping me get back the comic books she confiscated from me.”
"..."
Zheng Miaojia smelled smoke from somewhere. She looked around and saw several boys in No. 3 Middle School uniforms blocking the wall in the narrow alley opposite the school. They were talking and smoking, puffing out clouds of smoke, while their eyes kept glancing in their direction.
Zheng Miaojia tugged at Li Yingqiao, "This place at No. 3 Middle School is really chaotic. How come those boys are openly smoking at the entrance? Are they all junior high students? It's scary."
Li Yingqiao glanced back and recognized one of the tall men in a black hoodie as the ex-boyfriend of the girl from No. 2 Middle School who loved to gamble and had won her two thousand yuan. The group was discussing how to win back the girl, and they probably recognized her as a student from No. 2 Middle School. Their eyes swept over her a few times. The man in the black hoodie didn't shy away from his gaze and directly told the men next to him her name, his voice deliberately low: "That's Li Yingqiao."
Zheng Miaojia was stunned for a moment, then tightened her grip on her hand. "Qiaoqiao, you didn't fight with him, did you? Why does he talk like a hippo? Why is his voice so low, moo moo moo—"
"Ignore him, he's got a screw loose," Li Yingqiao said without turning her head. "Forget it, let's go inside. We're not going to wait any longer."
Just as she was about to turn and go inside, a familiar voice came from behind her, clear and pure like jade: "Li Yingqiao! Zheng Miaojia!"
The two subconsciously exchanged a glance, feeling as if their ears had been cleaned. The boy's voice was slightly hoarse than before, but overall it was still clear enough to illuminate the entire world.
The two of them turned around at the same time, just about to greet him loudly—Welcome back safely to take the high school entrance exam, Comrade Yu Miaomiao, after overcoming all obstacles!
Turning around, she saw the wind whipping the boy's freshly washed hair high in the air. His once sharp features now resembled a crumpled piece of paper that had been crumpled and stomped on, revealing not only colorful scars but also dark red scabs around his mouth. His face was swollen and slightly crooked; Li Yingqiao had never seen Yu Jinyang look so terrible.
“…Let’s pretend we don’t know him,” she whispered to Zheng Miaojia.
Yu Jinyang had been receiving intravenous nutrition all night, but he didn't care that he looked like a little devil crawling out of the eighteenth level of hell, with both eyes swollen like light bulbs. At least the doctor said he wasn't blind, and his vision test was normal. Surprisingly, his mind was also very clear at the moment.
When asked if he could see the tree trunks outside the window, he said it was fine, as long as he could see the question.
So he pulled out the IV and excitedly rushed off the hospital bed, saying he was going to the exam venue. At this moment, his foot was still in a cast. As soon as he got off the car, he hopped and skipped to his feet, and immediately called out to the two of them. Yu Renjie and Tang Xiang followed closely behind him, cheering him on.
That scene was something Li Yingqiao would never forget.
Supported by her elderly parents, her childhood sweetheart, with his arms around their necks, skipped and hopped towards the school gate where the high school entrance exam was held, not forgetting to turn back and remind them—
"Li Yingqiao! Zheng Miaojia!"
"The author of 'How the Steel Was Tempered' is Ostrovsky, don't write his full name!"
Li Yingqiao suddenly felt deeply shocked by this tenacious willpower, like that of a wild dog. So, such a scene appeared at the gate of No. 3 Middle School that day, which almost made the few guys smoking nearby even more convinced that they shouldn't study too much.
"Yu Miaomiao! Liu Yuxi—"
"His courtesy name was Mengde! He was known as 'Liu Liu' along with Liu Zongyuan, and in his later years, he was known as 'Liu Bai' along with Bai Juyi."
"Li Yingqiao! Which line in 'The Humble Abode Inscription' uses an object to express one's aspirations?"
"This is a humble abode, but my virtue makes it fragrant!"
"Zheng Miaojia, what is the line in 'Red Cliff' that uses cultural relics to express feelings?"
"The broken halberd lies buried in the sand, its iron still uncorroded; I will polish it myself to recognize the former dynasty!"
"Li Yingqiao!"
"Hey! Go ahead and ask."
"See you in the pool."
"See you in the pool!"
"See you in the pool!!!"
"You little devils! See you in the pool!!!" Yu Renjie shouted as well.
"As expected, the one who doesn't need to take the test shouts the loudest," Tang Xiang said.
"Hahahaha, Aunt Tang, Uncle Yu's voice is even louder when he plays cards. I can hear him playing 'I can't beat a three-on-one' even when I'm watching TV at home!"
Yu Renjie: "...Kid, you want me to beat you up again, don't you?"
Li Yingqiao: "...Hehehe!"
[Author's Note]
This is a quiet second update today!
Two hundred red envelopes~
See you the day after tomorrow.
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