Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Going to Lion Mountain from the South Gate versus going to Lion Mountain from here?

One by car, one by boat?

But Wen Miao didn’t think the question would be that simple.

While she was lost in thought, Wen Miao’s phone chimed with a notification. She pulled it out and saw a text message from Wen Xin.

Wen Xin: [I’ve finished watching all the surveillance footage from Guiziyuan Square. I’m certain I didn’t miss anything. He shouldn’t have come out from here.]

Wen Miao tapped on the message box. She was halfway through typing “Understood” when a sudden flash of inspiration hit her. She abruptly looked up and scanned the banks of the waterway.

“Is it… the surveillance?”

Nan Mu nodded at her words. “Exactly. The surveillance.”

Since the person who asked Gu Zhishu to meet had left the phone at Guiziyuan Square, it proved that they didn’t want to meet Gu Zhishu there. Where would they want to meet?

If they were worried about someone following Gu Zhishu, they shouldn’t have chosen a park. Instead, they should have picked somewhere with high-rise buildings; being at a high vantage point would make it much easier to observe the situation on the ground. But this person didn’t. They chose a place with dense woods. While such a location was convenient for them to hide, the same applied to anyone else.

Therefore, the reason they asked Gu Zhishu to come to Guiziyuan Square wasn’t out of fear of being followed, but because they needed Gu Zhishu’s movements to vanish from the public eye.

A recently built square where surveillance equipment was not yet complete, and a waterway from the square to Lion Mountain that had no surveillance cameras at all…

Wen Miao suppressed the churning thoughts in her heart, speaking with a mix of shock and dread. “Then what do we do now?”

Nan Mu calmly set down his teacup. “We retrace the path he took.”

***

The boat rowed slowly for about an hour before reaching the foot of Lion Mountain.

Lion Mountain was overgrown with wild grass. Because it was undeveloped and far from the city center, hardly anyone ever came here, let alone there being any other facilities.

Nan Mu followed the route in his memory, leading Wen Miao as they felt their way to the site where Gu Zhishu’s body had been buried. They didn’t find any suspicious items along the way.

“It’s about here, roughly this position.” Nan Mu grabbed a handful of soil from beneath his feet. “Look at the grass here; by comparison, it’s indeed shorter and sparser than in other places.”

Wen Miao stood beside him with a heavy heart. At this moment, she still found it hard to believe that the young man who had once lived with her was buried beneath this yellow earth.

And yet, she could not exhume his body, nor could she clear his name.

Wen Miao suddenly clenched her fists, her knuckles cracking.

***

As the two of them were coming down from the mountain, they heard a series of faint dog barks coming from the thicket.

Nan Mu followed the sound and found a Border Collie in the bushes with its hind leg caught in a leg-hold trap.

The Border Collie was clearly a pet. As soon as it saw people, it began to whimper and cry, its tail wagging so hard it looked like it might fly off.

“Why is there a trap here?” Seeing the Border Collie’s pitiful state, Wen Miao’s heart softened instantly. She went over and stroked the dog’s head.

The Border Collie tried to nuzzle Wen Miao’s knee with its head, but as soon as it moved, it aggravated its leg and immediately bared its teeth in pain.

“Don’t move, don’t move,” Wen Miao soothed it while attempting to pry the trap open.

Nan Mu reached out to stop her. “Let me. Don’t move, or you might catch your hand.”

The trap had a lot of tension. Nan Mu found two thick wooden sticks to jam between the trap’s teeth, then pried it open with a forceful twist of his wrists.

The Border Collie pulled its injured leg out almost instantly and dove into Wen Miao’s arms with a whimper.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Wen Miao comforted the dog, stroking its large head.

Nan Mu checked the Border Collie’s hind leg. It was bloody, and a row of punctures was clearly visible on the bone-marks left by the trap.
“Its leg is injured, so it can’t walk. Let’s carry it down first,” Nan Mu said as he picked up the Border Collie.

It took quite some time to walk from the mountain down to its base. Just as the two were debating whether to take the dog straight to a pet hospital or ask around nearby to see if anyone knew who it belonged to, a man’s voice suddenly rang out.

“Who’s holding my dog? That’s my dog! Let go of my dog!”

Nan Mu froze, instinctively looking around.

Wen Miao, however, instinctively looked toward Nan Mu’s arms. She could have sworn she heard the dog talking.

“I can see your face! Miss, please put down my dog. That’s my dog…”

This time, the two finally pinpointed the source of the voice. Nan Mu lifted the dog slightly higher in his arms while Wen Miao leaned in to inspect the collar around the dog’s neck.

There was a bell-shaped pendant on the collar. She had assumed it was just a decoration, but it turned out to be a mobile monitoring camera.

Wen Miao waved at the bell. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you, I can hear you!”

“Your dog is hurt! We found him on Lion Mountain. His back leg got caught in a leg-hold trap!”

“What? Xiao Fu is hurt?! Where are you guys? I’ll come over right now! Wait for me!”

Neither Wen Miao nor Nan Mu could clearly explain their exact location, so they had to turn around while holding the dog, showing the surroundings to the camera.

“I know where that is. Wait for me, and thank you!”

After those hurried final words came through the bell, it went silent.

…

About ten minutes later, a young man finally arrived on an electric scooter.

As soon as he saw the two of them, he thanked them profusely.

His name was An Zi, and the Border Collie was his pet, Xiao Fu.

Xiao Fu was originally kept in a courtyard, but the family was busy and couldn’t take him out for walks often. Seeing Xiao Fu lying in the yard looking miserable day after day, An Zi eventually switched to letting him roam free. Xiao Fu knew his way home, so there was no fear of him getting lost. Since they lived in the suburbs where everyone in the village knew each other, most people let their dogs roam. No one really cared about whether a dog was on a leash or not.

Typically, Xiao Fu would play outside during the day and return home for meals and at night. However, since he was a purebred dog, An Zi had been worried about dog thieves, which was why he installed the mobile monitor on him.

“You really went all out for this, didn’t you?”

While waiting, Nan Mu had examined the mobile camera on Xiao Fu’s neck. It was a brand-name device and wasn’t cheap.

An Zi gave a hearty laugh. “Xiao Fu earned the money for it himself.”

“He earned it himself?” Wen Miao asked curiously. “How does a dog earn money?”

Speaking of this, An Zi’s interest was piqued. “My Xiao Fu is a bit of an internet celebrity. He runs around outside every day, and after he comes back, I export the ‘scenery’ from his daily travels. I edit it into videos and post them online. People nowadays are quite curious about what the world looks like from a dog’s perspective.”

Wen Miao realized what he meant and complimented him. “That does sound pretty interesting.”

Nan Mu, however, looked thoughtful as he asked, “Do you have the footage from every day? Does Xiao Fu like going up Lion Mountain?”

“Yeah, Xiao Fu likes Lion Mountain quite a bit; he goes up there often. I keep most of the footage. Sometimes, if there isn’t any good material from the current day, I’ll dig up some old clips to edit.”

“This GoPro… how long has Xiao Fu been wearing it?”

“This?” An Zi rubbed his chin as he thought. “Quite a while… almost a year now.”

“Could you do us a favor? I’d like to see the footage Xiao Fu captured that you’ve kept.”