Back to the Peak by 决绝 (Jué Jué): Chapter 76

Chapter 76: Found

Seeing someone coming, the ant beasts that had been drilling into the armored vehicle turned and ran. Unfortunately, although they ran fast, Shi Qingyang was faster. A dozen wind blades sliced through the air one after another, and the three ant beasts were cut in half. At the same time, Ye Houan finally reacted and let out a scream of agony.

“I should have watched over them more. If we hadn’t run in the beginning, we could have just fought the longhorn beetles…” Li Jiajia cried. She hadn’t slept for two days and nights, and now her eyes looked even more terrible.

“Let’s go down and have a look,” Shi Qingyang sighed. He sympathized with Ye Houan and wanted to help the man find his daughter. For this reason, last night they used the mobile fortress to hurry this way overnight, but they never expected to see such a scene today.

When Shi Qingyang got out of the car and went to check, the parents of the two other girls and two teachers had also come down from the mobile fortress. Although they were wearing masks, he could also see that they were full of tears.

“My daughter, I promised her to buy her a new armored vehicle… Not long ago, she saved her pocket money to buy a massage bed for me and her mother…” Ye Houan’s lips were bitten bloody, the blood dripping on the ground.

Such a disturbance startled many monsters, but the size of the mobile fortress was so large that these monsters didn’t dare to get close, but instead ran away.

The armored vehicle was destroyed violently, and many exotic beast tooth marks were left on it. The people here should have been killed by the mutant beasts, but Shi Qingyang somehow felt something was off after looking carefully.

Ye Houan and the two other parents were cleaning up the things stained with blood on the ground, crying and calling their daughters’ names. They classified the things on each girl’s body, even the fragments of the armored vehicle. Everyone’s face was full of sadness

Looking at this scene, Shi Qingyang remembered how he had been when he had just learned about his parents’ death. Yet instead of helping them, he just looked around. Not only that, he also wielded a knife of radiant energy to cut open the stomachs of two ant beasts he had killed.

“Are you looking for the contact terminals of the three girls?” Cheng Xuze also walked down and asked.

“Not just looking for that,” Shi Qingyang spoke and walked to Cheng Xuze: “Grandpa, I think this scene is a little strange…”

“Why is it strange?” Cheng Xuze asked.

“If they really encountered a mutant beast, this is how it’d look in the end. But with their armored vehicle this broken, and their radiation protection suits this torn up, the people inside must have been pressed into pulp. Even if the mutant beasts that had destroyed the armored vehicle ate some of their remains,it should have left some residue that would have been later eaten by the ant beasts,” Shi Qingyang said. “But I opened the stomachs of the two ant beasts, and inside there was only roast meat.”

Ants were a magical beast. After eating something, they would share half of what they ate to others of the same species they encountered. Therefore, what an ant beast ate might also be in the stomachs of nearby ant beasts.

He found some roasted meat in the belly of the ant beasts he killed, but there was no fresh blood or human bones at all.

If these ant beasts had come late, then it was unlikely that they could have eaten roasted meat as rations. If they had come early in the morning, then there was no way they wouldn’t have fresh flesh and blood in their stomachs.

“Do you suspect this isn’t caused by beasts?” Cheng Xuze asked. If Shi Qingyang didn’t mention these things, he really wouldn’t have noticed. Moreover, the more he was in contactwith Shi Qingyang, the more he appreciated him. Accordingly, the more he admired Not Starving.

He didn’t know which old man that guy was… Maybe an old lady?

“Grandpa, maybe it’s not a beast that attacked this armored vehicle. If it were a mutated insect, It’s unreasonable that the radiation protection suit is still here, but the contact terminal is not,” Shi Qingyang said.

The intelligence of the beasts was not high. They either ate on the spot or dragged it away. If they ate on the spot, the contact terminal should also be here. If they took the food away, they wouldn’t peel off the clothes here first.

Once you started to doubt something, you would find more and more doubts.

Cheng Xuze frowned, “What do you suspect?”

“Grandpa, maybe those three girls are not dead… This time, we came to look for the mobile town.”

Ye Houan himself was not bad-looking, and his daughter was even more beautiful. The other two girls were both seventeen or eighteen years old, and they were no worse.

According to Liu Qilin, there were many beauties in the mobile town of the Yin Family. What would they do if they met three girls who were alone?

Of course, maybe this kidnapping wasn’t something they would do on their own initiative, but something these three isolated girls had stumbled across.

Ye Houan’s daughter was only considered ‘missing’ in his last life, which made Ye Houan and his wife not give up and insist on searching. This time, they found the wreckage of the armored vehicle very easily.

Maybe someone didn’t want them to keep looking.

Of course, even if Ye Houan’s daughter’s accident had nothing to do with the mobile town, it didn’tmatter. No matter what the truth was, it was good for them to let Ye Houan suspect that his daughter’s death was related to the mobile town.

Shi Qingyang wasn’t sure that the people in the mobile town had necessarily taken the three girls, but he planned to tell Ye Houan so.

Being killed by a mutant beast was a matter that lead to a dead end for getting vengeance. Because of this, Ye Houan and several others packed everything they could, and then returned to the mobile fortress crying.

Ye Houan and Li Jiajia didn’t sleep last night, but they didn’t mean to sleep at all. Finally, Shi Qingyang gave Li Jiajia a bottle of sleeping pills, and she finally returned to the room. Ye Houan refused to take any. He kept holding his hair, the grown man sobbing with tears.

“Ye Houan, do you want to find your daughter?” Shi Qingyang went to Ye Houan and sat down.

“What do you mean?” Ye Houan, holding the bag of his daughter’s remains and belongings, abruptly raised his head.

“I doubt that they were attacked by mutant beasts,” Shi Qingyang said.

“How is that possible?” Ye Houan’s eyes blew wide open.

Shi Qingyang didn’t hide anything. He directly stated the doubts he found, and at the same time pulled out the photos he had just taken.

“If it wasn’t beasts, did I drag my daughter into this? I…” Ye Houan trembled. “I’m a reporter. I’ve reported many things, but they were all facts. The most serious matter I reported recently was Cheng Hong… Cheng Hong.”

“As I said, your daughter might not be dead. If others want to get revenge on you, it doesn’t need to be so complicated.” Ye Houan didn’t offend Cheng Hong in his last life, but didn’t his daughter still go missing?

According to Li Jiajia, what happened to them in the beginning was an accident.

“Who did it?” Ye Houan immediately asked.

“Near Anhang City and Spark City, there is a wandering mobile town full of criminals and their children, engaged in various illegal acts.” What Shi Qingyang said was half true. This time, they needed someone to help control public opinion. Ye Houan, a famous reporter, was 

very good.

Ye Houan’s expression suddenly changed: “I heard some news that someone illegally purchased weapons and medicine outside the city… There is someone in Anhang City with a fetish who likes young boys. He would leave Anhang City every other time…”

Shi Qingyang just wanted to get Ye Houan to help, but he didn’t expect to receive information like this from Ye Houan: “What else do you know?”

“This is just something I found out when I followed up and interviewed some people. It’s all I know,” Ye Houan said. This was what he learned after working as a reporter for 20 years, and some of it was even rumors.

“Would you like to go with us?” Shi Qingyang asked again.

“Yes!” Ye Houan immediately said, even if it might be Shi Qingyang deceiving him, he was willing to believe it.

The other mobile fortress returned to the city with the relics of the three girls and the message Ye Houan wanted to send to his wife. Cao Yang and Li Jiajia also went back with that mobile fortress. Only Ye Houan stayed. To the others, he wanted to get experience with Shi Qingyang and find a way to find the contact terminals of the three girls.

In fact, Shi Qingyang wanted to let Li Jiajia come along with them at first. After all, the Li Jiajia in his previous life had left a deep impression on him, but he gave up this thought after thinking. Right now, Li Jiajia was really just a young girl.

After the other mobile fortress left, Shi Qingyang drove their mobile fortress to the ant nest where he and Cheng Ran escaped not long ago. When they got there, it was still in the morning. They waited for some time, and an armored vehicle arrived. The person sitting in the armored vehicle was Liu Qilin.

“Shi Qingyang, what happened? Why did you ask me to meet you here?” Seeing Shi Qingyang, Liu Qilin immediately asked her questions. She received a message from Shi Qingyang that asked her to wait in these area for these few days, but she didn’t understand what Shi Qingyang wanted her to do.

“We’re going to find the mobile town.”

“Really?” Liu Qilin spoke excitedly.

“Of course it’s true,” Shi Qingyang immediately said. The Yin Family wanted to kill him. How could he let the Yin Family have an easy time?

Cheng Xuze had been worried that Shi Qingyang would have bad intentions for Cheng Ran, but this worry was completely unnecessary, because Shi Qingyang was so busy he didn’t even have much rest time.

Over the next few days, their mobile fortress moved slowly outside the city. According to Liu Qilin’s instructions, they checked several places where she had found clues. Shi Qingyang also carefully recorded each place, found the field map of Anhang City, and began to mark every location.

There were more and more marked places on the map, and the place Liu Qilin escaped from was highlighted. Unfortunately, these places were very scattered, and nothing could be seen at all.

Moreover, some time ago, Liu Qilin clearly found a place where a huge mobile town seemed to have docked, but everything around was clear, and there was no way to find out where the mobile town went.

“Qingyang, what are you looking at?” Cheng Ran took a bath and cleaned his body of medicinal herbs. Then he looked curiously at Shi Qingyang holding a recorder.

These days, he had been staying in the study of the mobile fortress, preparing and mixing medicine on his own. When others weren’t paying attention, he would try mixing medicines that required radiant energy.

“Looking at a map. Ranran, how do you feel lately? Are you feeling bored without the Internet?” Shi Qingyang looked at Cheng Ran, and then his eyes couldn’t move away.

“No, I like to make medicine quietly like this.” Cheng Ran didn’t care about whether there was any internet: “Qingyang, I mixed some medicines that need radiant energy and finally got it right.”

“Ranran, you’re so smart!” Shi Qingyang immediately boasted, putting his hand on Cheng Ran’s shoulder.

Hearing this, Cheng Ran smiled, his eyes bending to crescents. After looking at the time, he clung close to Shi Qingyang: “Qingyang, let’s sleep together!”

“Alright.” Shi Qingyang nodded. He swiped the screen of the recorder in his hand to save it, and embraced Cheng Ran at the same time.

Cheng Ran laid in bed and saw the map on the screen at a glance. Suddenly, he said, “Those  mobile towns are by the river?”

Shi Qingyang was stunned, and suddenly studied closer. He discovered that what Cheng Ran said was indeed true. All the marked places were along the river, and even the place where Ye Houan’s daughter ‘died’ was by the river.

Mobile fortresses could prevent gasses from the outside from entering, and naturally could also prevent water from entering from outside. It was no big deal to cross the river. No, this was also wrong. Many of the rivers they saw were not big. How could they hide the activity of their underwater movements without leaving a trace?

He checked every place. Those rivers had not been widened, and it was impossible to accommodate the mobile town mentioned by Liu Qilin.

“Qingyang, they have so many mobile fortresses? When Grandpa gave you this one earlier, so many people envied you. But in the end, these people destroyed a mobile fortress in order to deal with us.” Looking at the red dots marked as mobile fortresses, Cheng Ran spoke this. He hadn’t been involved in Shi Qingyang’s investigation. These days, he had been teaching himself how to prepare medicine.This was the first time he had seen this picture.

Shi Qingyang was stunned again, and suddenly figured it out. Yes, Liu Qilin had seen the traces left by a huge mobile town, but such traces might not really be left by that kind of vehicle. As long as a mobile fortress carefully rolled back and forth, it could leave behind similarly huge and deep marks.

Therefore, they might not find the mobile town at all in these places, and the Yin Family might hide the large mobile town in a fixed place, and then find a smaller mobile fortress to swim around through the river and trade with people.

Shi Qingyang followed the cause and effect, jumped up quickly and walked out: “Ranran, I’ll go out for a while and come back soon.”

Seeing this scene, Cheng Ran laid down helplessly. In the books he had read, once those men caught sight of their sweetheart, it didn’t matter what they had been doing before. Why didn’t Shi Qingyang react like this? He had obviously touched him just now…

Turning over, Cheng Ran soon fell asleep.

After Shi Qingyang went out, he directly knocked on Liu Qilin’s door: “I found a clue.”

“What clue?” Liu Qilin was surprised.

“Didn’t you say that you could only find some traces before it disappeared again? You tell me, is it possible to take the waterway with that mobile town?” Shi Qingyang asked.

“That mobile town is so big…”

“Maybe there is more than one mobile town.”

Liu Qilin suddenly took out her recorder and turned out the map, her hands shaking.

Near Anhang City, there was a lake, which was very large and was said to be very famous in ancient times, but had now become a very dangerous place. The lake was full of mutated plants. Even in the middle of the lake, there were reeds and other mutant plants growing in the water. There were large areas of mosquitoes, dragonflies and so on. It was very dangerous and was considered by many people to be one of the most dangerous places near Anhang City.

No one would go to such a place at all, and many radiation warriors who went too far in were never heard of again.

Shi Qingyang wrapped himself in radiation and moved forward slowly. At the same time, he sent out countless ripples of radiation energy outwards  to check the situation around him.

Suddenly, he paused. The helmet he was wearing had a telescopic setting. From a distance, he saw that there was a miniature camera in the middle of a reed about arm thick. If he hadn’t looked very carefully, he might not have noticed it at all.

There was really something wrong here.

Posted in Back to the Peak Novel Translations and Tagged back to the peak