Chapter 107

Chapter 107

It was probably around then that Wang Zhaodi began to realize there was something very wrong with her situation.

She had tried calling the police, too, but because she had no concrete evidence, the police never opened a case.

The worst incident happened one night after she got out of evening classes and was heading home along the same out-of-the-way stretch as usual. That day, as she passed through, she saw a van parked beneath the shadows of the roadside trees.

Because of everything that had been happening lately, she had already been reminding herself to stay alert. So the moment her sixth sense told her there was something off about that van, she immediately turned around, intending to take a detour out to the main road.

The people lying in wait inside the van seemed to realize she had noticed them. Several men jumped out at once and chased after her with everything they had. Fortunately, Wang Zhaodi had helped with farm work at home since she was little, so she had good stamina and could run fast. She kept running until she reached a crowded area, and only then did she manage to escape.

Afterward, Wang Zhaodi reported it to the police as usual. But because the van had been parked in a perfect blind spot, completely outside the surveillance cameras’ range, the police still failed to find any relevant leads.

In fact, after Wang Zhaodi repeatedly insisted this was not the first time, the Police Station did arrange for local officers to protect her for a while.

But the other side was truly patient. Every time there were police officers following her, those people went quiet. As soon as the police withdrew, they came right back.

After it happened again and again, the police lost patience as well. They even began to suspect that she might be suffering from paranoid delusions.

Wang Zhaodi had no other choice but to ask Gu Zhishu for help. The day she asked him for help was April 5, the date Nan Mu later saw on Gu Zhishu’s calendar schedule.

“Actually, my sister did tell me about this once. But at the time, I didn’t realize how dangerous it was.” When Wang Pandi recalled what she had thought as a child, she only found herself naive. “I even told her she could just stop going to evening classes for a while… I thought that would be enough to avoid those people.”

Later, with Gu Zhishu’s help, Wang Zhaodi went into hiding. But the truth was, no matter where she hid, those people would find her.

“The last time my sister told me anything about her plans, Gu Zhishu had given her some money and told her to leave City A, to run as far away as she could. At first, my sister and I agreed that she would find a way to call me every half month or so to let me know she was safe. But starting in July 2022, I never received another call from her. At first, I thought something must have delayed her, but later, every time I thought back to the last call she made to me, I felt like something about it wasn’t right.”

On that call, Wang Zhaodi had said some very strange things. Looking back now, it was almost as if she had been giving her final instructions. In truth, when Wang Pandi had listened to her at the time, it wasn’t that she hadn’t sensed anything unusual. But whenever she asked for details, Wang Zhaodi would change the subject or make an excuse, saying only that she had been gone too long and wanted Wang Pandi to take good care of herself and their younger sisters at home. Wang Pandi had only been a sixteen-year-old girl then, after all. She knew nothing of how dangerous the world could be, and she believed her easily.

Wang Pandi said, “After that, I never got any news about my sister again, until ten years ago, when you called me… So later, I kept calling you because I wanted to ask whether you knew where my sister had gone.”

Nan Mu was puzzled. “Since you wanted to know where your sister was so badly, why didn’t you return my call back then?”

Nan Mu remembered that he had called her on the third day after returning to the past. But he had waited until he came back from the Time Machine, and he still never received a call from Wang Pandi.

Wang Pandi sighed. “That year, I had just passed the high school entrance exam… Before my sister left, she kept telling me that I had to study, no matter what. I did get into high school, but by then my sister had already fled to another city and was hiding. Because she hadn’t sent living expenses home for several months, my father assumed she’d run off with some man. He said my sister had been ruined by studying too much, so he was strongly against me continuing school. He found a family in the neighboring village and wanted to marry me off in exchange for a bride price. The day after you called me, they caught me and dragged me back… By the time my third sister secretly let me out, it was already October 24. I fled to the city overnight and called you the next day, but that number… I called it for many years after that, and it never went through again.”
Nan Mu asked curiously, “Then do you know where your sister went?”

Wang Pandi said, “I don’t know exactly. I only know she went to the Northwest.”

The Northwest?

Nan Mu suddenly remembered something Gu Zhiyu had told him a long time ago.

Gu Zhiyu had said that in the year Gu Zhishu went missing, on a night in June or July, he had once received a phone call. No one spoke on the other end, but Gu Zhiyu had heard sounds coming through the receiver… intermittent, ceaseless whistling, like wind and sand sweeping across a wilderness, swirling and crashing through the air.

Because in the final year before Gu Zhishu disappeared, he had mentioned several times that he wanted to travel around the Northwest. He said he wanted to see the motherland’s deserts, mountains, and rivers before he died. So at the time, Gu Zhiyu had always believed that Gu Zhishu was the one who had called.

But Gu Zhishu had already died in April of that year, which was why Nan Mu and Wen Miao had always found the matter so bizarre.

But what if the person who made that call really hadn’t been Gu Zhishu, but Zhaodi?

Zhaodi had fled to the Northwest. Afraid of being discovered, she moved around constantly and only found a way to contact the others once every half a month. After Gu Zhishu was killed, Zhaodi, far away in the Northwest and still unaware of what had happened, continued trying to get in touch with Gu Zhishu according to their previous arrangement. But she hadn’t expected someone else to answer the phone. Wary and unsure whether the person on the other end was friend or foe, Zhaodi had stayed silent…

Wang Pandi said Zhaodi had stopped calling her in July.

In terms of timing, that fit this theory perfectly.

From Zhaodi’s perspective, she had been trying to contact Gu Zhishu all along but couldn’t reach him. When she finally got through, the person who answered was a stranger…

Far away in the Northwest, all she had to do was think a little more about it, and she would have become uneasy, suspecting that something terrible might have happened to Gu Zhishu.

Although they didn’t know whether Su Yu was a mutual friend of Zhaodi and Gu Zhishu, according to the little boy who lived next door to Su Yu, Su Yu hadn’t come home since May…

If something had happened to Su Yu as well, then it was very likely it had happened in May.

In that case, Zhaodi definitely wouldn’t have been able to reach Su Yu either.

At that point, what would Zhaodi do?

She was far away in the Northwest, with no way of knowing anything that was happening in City A. The friends who had helped her leave had gone completely silent. She would have been anxious and terrified, burning with worry.

If she went back, she risked being discovered. If she didn’t, she couldn’t find out whether her friends were alive or dead.

She might even have started suspecting something as early as April, but still convinced herself to wait until June…

Perhaps the reason Zhaodi suddenly said those things to Wang Pandi was because she had finally made up her mind to return to City A and confirm Gu Zhishu’s situation.

But when she returned to City A, she discovered that Gu Zhishu had disappeared…