Chapter 182 - Strange Van (2)
The people who were supposed to be in the van seemed to have suddenly disappeared into thin air.
"Xin Yi, look after our car. I will go take a look."
Wei Xiao Bei frowned and felt that this was too strange. Since he encountered it, he wanted to know what happened.
Moreover, he did not feel any danger, but it was still better to be careful.
"Master, please take care," Zhu Xin Yi worriedly reminded him and then took out the machete from her bag.
In truth, her boldness had increased after entering the Dust World twice.
If this was highway robbery, Zhu Xin Yi was not afraid, but that specific van was truly strange. After grabbing the machete, she calmed down.
Wei Xiao Bei circled the van, but did not notice anything. The van door was locked. Unless he did destroyed the door, he would not be able to pull it open.
After finding an open window, he easily pulled himself through the window.
With a loud bang, Wei Xiao Bei entered the van and stood up, while Zhu Xin Yi stood aside, looking at his direction with her hands sweating.
Wei Xiao Bei inspected the luggage, seating, and the other things inside.
He did not find any abnormalities, strange smells, or any signs of struggle. Even the cup on the driver's side cup holder was still steamer hot
At this time, he regretted not looking at any materials on criminal investigation to gain the skill. If he did, he might have just gotten an answer to this problem with his high reasoning attribute.
Even if that was so, he understood a few things.
This van was a van that travelled around different villages in the county. The time that it had been there was not long. At the very least, it had not been there since the morning, otherwise the police would have towed it away, forbidding cars from stopping the middle of the road.
The marks in the car also told him that it had stopped for less than two hours.
The most important problem was that the van's battery had already ran out.
This was the conclusion Wei Xiao Bei obtained when he tried operating the van.
It was hard to imagine that there was no battery already. This was because Wei Xiao Bei had inspected the battery and knew that it was newly changed, making it impossible to run out of juice from old age.
However, there was simply no charge.
It was also impossible for it to run out of charge due to the driver turning on the air conditioner, because the window was open and the temperature today was not hot.
Wei Xiao Bei frowned and patted away the dust on his hands. He returned to the front of the van and hesitated. He opened the door and told Zhu Xin Yi to go back in the car. He started the minivan again and drove past the van, heading towards the country.
Zhu Xin Yi did not ask anything. It was clear that it was a case without any clues.
It was impossible for them to just wait beside the van for a long time.
They could only wait until the next day to inquire about it.
Silence ruled the inside of the minivan. Wei Xiao Bei drove while thinking about the van's details, attempting to figure out the problem.
He felt that there was a relationship between the disappearance of the van's passengers with the Dust World, but he also felt that he was too paranoid to relate every mysterious incident to the Dust World.
Zhu Xin Yi, on the other hand, concentrated on her phone, turning her attention to learning martial arts to free herself from the thoughts of the strange van.
No other problems occured along the way.
When Wei Xiao Bei stopped in front of Bai Ta Elementary's gates, it was already 9:10 PM.
Uncle Liu opened the gates for them as he recognized Wei Xiao Bei. "Oh, it seems that Xiao Bei has returned. Ya? Is this your girlfriend? Not bad, not bad. Xiao Bei is a very sincere child." When he saw Zhu Xin Yi, he praised her and then praised Wei Xiao Bei in the end.
Zhu Xin Yi's face reddened and did not dare speak. She only relaxed when Wei Xiao Bei drove the car forward, leaving Uncle Liu behind.
Wei Xiao Bei's current attention though, was not on Zhu Xin Yi. He was looking at the familiar campus and felt emotional at his return.
Although he returned once when he retired from the army, he did not stay for too long. Now that he had returned, his mind traveled down memory lane.
His house was located within the elementary school.
His mother, Xiao Hong, was a famous outstanding teacher in the school. As a result, a room was prepared for her when the teacher's building was constructed. Because his father's, Wei Xiang Dong's, company was in a slump, earning money was just good enough. Hoping to buy a house for themselves was only a pipe dream
Living there was simple. When the teacher's building was being constructed, a worker's lodge was made inside the building to fit even four robust men.
Just like that, their family lived within the school.
No matter what was said, Wei Xiao Bei had lived there for most of his childhood. Remembering his youth was a normal thing.
After walking around the campus, Wei Xiao Bei stopped his car close to an eight floored building.
"We're here. Don't be nervous. My mother is easy to talk to. Just treat it as your master inviting you over to eat."
Even if the lights were dim, Wei Xiao Bei could clearly see Zhu Xin Yi's red face and couldn't help but reassure her.
Zhu Xin Yi forced herself to settle down and shook her head, "No problem. I was just a bit nervous. It was also like this when I went to a teacher's house."
Hering this, Wei Xiao Bei could not help smiling. After all his mother was a teacher, so Zhu Xin Yi was correct in a way.
The two of them carried their luggages as well as gifts they had bought in Cui Hu City. Wei Xiao Bei walked in front, followed by Zhu Xin Yi close behind.
While walking up the stairs, Wei Xiao Bei saw that his driving skill increased from intermediate to advanced, making him smile.
He noticed that normal skills like driving seemed easy to level up.
Normal people would probably need 3 years before their skills reach advanced, which was also roughly on the level of operating a bus. Wei Xiao Bei was on the better side as he learned it to this point in just 200-300 kilometers.
He would probably be beaten up by driving students who were going to take the driver's exam soon.
There was no elevator in the building, but luckily, the eighth floor was the highest floor.
Wei Xiao Bei's home was on the fifth floor and it was not a bad place.
The school leaders lived on the second or third floors to have a more comfortable time.
As for the first floor, there were only a few teachers willing to live there due to the humidity. Most people who lived there developed diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and other such diseases.
As a result, the most popular floor was the fourth floor, and the fifth floor was barely good enough. Those on the sixth and seventh floor were retired teachers, and those on the ninth were young teachers.
This arrangement could be seenas both reasonable and unreasonable. It just depended on how you saw the situation.
Standing in front of the old security door, Wei Xiao Bei suppressed his rising emotions and pressed on the door bell.
At this time, his mother should be preparing the next day's teaching materials. His father would be watching television while drinking tea. His little brother, Wei Xiao Peng, was currently a third year senior high school student, so he should be preparing for the college exams and would still be at school, not yet returned home.
Then the one who would open the door would be his little sister, Wei Xiao Yun, a third year junior high school student.
"Who is it? Who is knocking at the door?"
A nice sounding voice came from the other side of the door.
Wei Xiao Bei smiled at her vigilance. However, this was natural since old security doors did not have peepholes. Thus it was impossible to know who it was without opening it and asking a question.
"It's me!"
Wei Xiao Bei originally planned to tease his little sister but he never imagined that when he spoke, the door would immediately open and his little sister would jump into his chest.
"Brother, you really returned. I missed you so much."
The girl spoke with a tearful voice as she rubbed on Wei Xiao Bei's chest, as if she was letting out the feelings of not meeting for a long time.
Although the two of them were siblings, the power of genetics had hit the both of them.
From small, whenever Wei Xiao Bei would bring Wei Xiao Yun out to play, people would never realize that they were siblings.
Wei Xiao Bei looked ordinary. He had single eyelids, a slightly slanted nose, slightly dark skin, and a circular head. His body was not too big or too small. In short, it would be hard to distinguish him if he was thrown in a sea of people. He had completely inherited his father's genes and could be said to be a bit handsome when he was young.
But Wei Xiao Yun was completely different.
From birth, she looked like a delicate doll. The older she grew the prettier she became. It was said that during her sixth grade, she had already received love letters from precocious boys. During her first year in junior high, if a male student talked to her, fists would go flying behind the scenes.
However, his little sister was a lively and friendly person. She did not have the concept of 'men and women should not touch hands when they give or receive things'. Because of this, it was easy to imagine the multitude of misunderstandings that were born.
Luckily, Bai Ta Elementary had an elementary school and a junior high school, so she had studied there. It was thanks to their mother's strong suppression, that many of these misunderstandings were resolved.
Even so, the amount of men looking at her everyday was not few.
No matter what, she was someone who would always tag along with Wei Xiao Bei ever since she was small. Her relationship with her brothers was the closest, to the point that it would even incite their father's jealousy from time to time.
When Wei Xiao Bei left for the army in the past, she bawled her eyes out. When he retired from the army and returned, she became so happy that she cried again.
However, he never imagined that she would cry again when he just returned.
Chapter 183 - Follow-up on the Strange Van
"I missed you too, but you are a big girl already. You can tell your big brother if you have any problems. Your big brother will help you vent, but don't you let others laugh at seeing you like this."
Wei Xiao Bei flexed his muscles while saying this to display that he was now very strong.
"Okay, Xiao Yun, stop embarrassing your brother. Don't you see that your brother brought back a guest?"
A happy voice came from within the room. Wei Xiao Bei raised his head and noticed that his mother and father were standing there. Among them, his mother's expression was the most excited.
He was even able to guess what his mother was feeling right now.
Just from the expression on her face, he could tell that her words meant, "Stop being so enthusiastic toward your brother already. You will be laughed at by your sister-in-law."
He could also tell that the most important thing his mother wanted to do was to pull Zhu Xin Yi over and interrogate her.
Xiao Bei finally yielded interest!
He found a girlfriend, but he did not report back about it, causing this mother of his to go around and ask for marriage interviews. Did he think it was simple?
When they finally entered inside the house, Wei Xiao Bei introduced both sides. His mother quickly went to the kitchen and prepared a meal. Wei Xiao Yun, on the other hand, moved her attention to Zhu Xin Yi and pulled her into her room.
Many things happened that night.
In brief terms, his mother was very satisfied with this daughter-in-law, while his father, who did not express his opinion, was smiling the entire night.
Instead of being happy, this made Wei Xiao Bei worry. If his lie was exposed, his ending would probably be ugly.
The Wei family's upbringing was a bit strict. At night, Zhu Xin Yi slept with Wei Xiao Yun, while Wei Xiao Bei slept in his brother's room.
The next day, Wei Xiao Bei had overslept. When he woke up, he sighed as he felt that the atmosphere in the house had completely changed.
He never imagined that he would actually have such a serene sleep the first night he returned home.
It must be known that Wei Xiao Bei never had such a comfortable sleep back in Cui Hu City.
Today was a Saturday. His little brother had returned home from school, but because he had many assignments during his third year senior high school, he quickly returned to his school after eating lunch.
When Wei Xiao Bei saw his little brother, he felt that his changes were too huge.
Now, his little brother's height was almost the same as his.
While Wei Xiao Bei was sighing, he did not know that his parents were worried for him.
In the afternoon, Wei Xiao Yun volunteered to serve as a guide for Zhu Xin Yi and pulled her to go window shopping.
Her situation was different from Wei Xiao Peng. No matter how many assignments third year junior middle schoolers had, it could not be compared to the workload of third year senior middle schoolers. With her grades, her mother would not say much even if she idled a bit.
When the both of them left, Wei Xiao Bei's father called him over. The two of them sat on the sofa. His serious expression startled Wei Xiao Bei, causing him to think that the fake relationship between them had been found out.
After all, neither Wei Xiao Bei nor Zhu Xin Yi had been in a real relationship before. This made it awkward for the both of them, making it easy for people to see through this falsehood.
"Xiao Bei, is your body alright?"
His father asked worriedly while his mother was a bit nervous.
"Body? There's nothing wrong."
Wei Xiao Bei was baffled by this sudden question from his parents.
Naturally, he also sighed in relief. As long as the truth about his relationship with Zhu Xin Yi was not exposed, then everything was still good.
"Nothing wrong? You have suddenly grown so tall. Could it be that something bad is growing in your brain? Why not go see a doctor this afternoon?"
Before his father was able to continue his question, his mother spoke up with concern.
Height?
Wei Xiao Bei immediately understood it.
He had thought about it before going to sleep the night before. He was originally 1.71 meters tall, but now, he was 2 meters tall.
With such a huge change, how could his family not notice it?
He never imagined that his family was actually waiting for him like this.
They actually thought that his brain had a tumor, which resulted in him growing so tall in such a short period of time.
This also had its precedents.
Now that information had spread so much, many things that were unknown in the past became clear in the modern era.
Everyone knew that there was an illness known as gigantism. This was caused by a brain tumor, resulting in abnormal secretion of the growth hormone and increasing a person's height at a fast speed.
It was no wonder that his parents were tense. His little sister also shared their concerns as she pulled Zhu Xin Yi outside so that they could talk.
After noticing this, Wei Xiao Bei did not know whether to laugh or cry.
He felt moved by his family's concern and care, but he felt a headache on how to explain this to them.
This was different from his master and apprentice brothers.
No matter how close they were, there would still be personal space left in between them.
However, parents were different. They would care for you in every possible way and force you to go to a check-up and other things.
It was not that Wei Xiao Bei disliked it, but he had no way of explaining this at all.
"It's just secondary growth. I already had it inspected the previous month by the best hospital in Cui Hu City. It's real since I value my own life."
Luckily, Wei Xiao Bei's thought process was faster than before. He was able to quickly find a dependable excuse and attempted to cover this matter.
However, his mother was not easy to fool. She immediately followed up with more questions, almost making Wei Xiao Bei speechless.
In the end, Wei Xiao Bei also brought out the ace card known as Zhu Xin Yi and told them that she also knew about this, making them drop the topic.
Afterwards, Wei Xiao Bei took the opportunity to go to the toilet and sent a message to Zhu Xin Yi to urge her to support his claims.
Only when Zhu Xin Yi and Wei Xiao Yun returned was the matter settled.
In the next few days, Wei Xiao Bei enjoyed his family's company. At the same time, he also tried to gather information about the strange van.
In the end, Wei Xiao Bei found out more about it when he brought Zhu Xin Yi to his classmate's reunion party. A classmate who worked for the police talked about it which attracted his attention.
For this reason, Wei Xiao Bei grabbed onto him and poured him more wine to loosen his mouth.
Originally, before 10 p.m. on that day, there was person in a different car that noticed the empty vehicle, so they called the police.
Afterwards, the traffic police and the criminal police were sent over there, but just like Wei Xiao Bei, they were not able to find any clues. The only clue that they found was that the van came from some village and was heading toward the county. When the van left the village, it was half full of people.
However, because it passed through several villages, people would depart and join, so there was no fixed number of passengers. Thus, it was hard to count how many passengers there were.
Without any clues, the traffic police could only tow the van to the side of the road and did not dare move anything inside. Only two criminal police remained there to guard the place, and then they continued the inspection on the next day.
Something unexpected had happened in the wee hours of the day before 2 a.m.
While the two police were smoking and chatting, they would look at the van from time to time.
One of them joked, "Xiao Li, do you think that this van is a ghost van? How could a car full of people suddenly disappear? It's probably impossible for each of them to jump down from the car and jump into the river, right?"
The other police was just a new recruit that had not yet reached two months of his training. He was still considered as a newbie without any experience. When he heard this, all his hairs stood on their ends as he looked at the river ten meters away from the road.
If he had heard of this in the day when people were around, he would not have been scared.
However, under the night where the road was rarely used and the darkness surrounded the place, even the sound of wind would be chilling.
The old officer's sudden words were truly frightening.
"Old Wang, do-don't joke around. How could that be possible."
Although Xiao Li's back chilled when he heard this, he was not willing to express his fright. If he did this, he would have lost face once Old Wang spreads the news.
Being afraid of the supernatural as a police officer was a truly embarrassing thing.
"Joking? We have already encountered many cases like this in the force. Tomorrow, you should go to the archives and check those old cases that could not be solved. For example, a woman had hung herself by the river, and a corpse appeared inside of a van in the middle of the night. Many other cases like these had taken place."
The old police smiled. Who knew if he was lying or not, but his tone had changed.
Fuck!
If it wasn't scarier outside, Xiao Li would have opened the door and jumped out. In his heart, the thought of Old Wang being a demon arose.
Bang. At this time, a striking sound suddenly came from above the van.
In the quiet night, the sound was extremely clear.
"Ah!"
At this time, Xiao Li's mind snapped from the tension. He opened the door in fright and jumped down from the car while crazily shouting.
The following scene had startled Old Wang, but his psychological resistance was higher than Xiao Li's.
He never expected Xiao Li's psychological resistance to be that bad.
He pulled out his gun and went down from the car. Then he gave Xiao Li two slaps on the face and shooted, "Wake up! Something happened in the direction of the van! Quickly inform the team. I will go take a look first!"
After being slapped, Xiao Li finally became clear-headed. He quickly pulled out his phone and made a call, but he never imagined that this would be the last words he would hear from him.
"Vice-captain, this is Xiao Li. Something happened in the direction of the van…." Xiao Li was still tense, but he calmed down after making the call.
Chapter 184 - Bai Ta Hill
However, at this moment, Old Wang's loud voice came from the van!
"Who is it! Show yourself!"
"Bang bang!" Two gunshots were fired.
"Ah! Help! ....." Old Wang's call for help came, but in the next moment, the call for help completely disappeared.
Xiao Li was startled and quickly moved his position. He dropped his phone on the ground and pulled out his gun while hiding close to the police car.
When the team quickly came over, Old Wang had already become a corpse.
All traces of the attacker had completely disappeared.
These were the only things Wei Xiao Bei found out from his classmate's mouth.
After all, he was only a traffic police and not the chief of the criminal police. Knowing this was already good enough. Naturally, some parts of the plot came from his imagination.
However, 80% of the information should be correct.
After acquiring the imformation, Wei Xiao Bei became even more confused. Without a doubt, the thing that appeared on top of the van was the one that attacked Old Wang, because of this, he believed that there should have been clues left behind by the attacker. However, he could not go look at the moment. Even if he did go, he would not be able to see anything.
At the very least, Wei Xiao Bei now understood where he should go.
Nothing unfortunate happened until the reunion ended. After all, the main reason he joined the reunion was because his relationship with his classmates was not bad.
When he was still a student, the amount of people he had bad relationships with were a minority.
There really was a huge difference between novels and reality as there were not that many dishonest people among them.
They all exchanged contacts and agreed on another reunion once they would have another chance to.
Having such relationships with his classmates was not a bad thing in this society.
As long as a person had enough common sense, they would not harm their classmates.
It was said that you couldn't judge a person by their appearance.
Wei Xiao Bei's generation of classmates were people who had the biggest chance of rising up. Who knew if someone would suddenly become the boss of a company, or become rich to the point of being famous.
However, a few male classmates definitely felt jealous of Wei Xiao Bei, someone who had nothing special, obtaining such a beautiful girlfriend. In the end, they still asked Wei Xiao Bei to let his girlfriend introduce a few people to them.
After leaving the restaurant, they said their goodbyes and left their own way.
Wei Xiao Bei brought Zhu Xin Yi along but he did not call the police, chatting while walking towards the police station.
After circling the police station twice, the both of them returned home.
Zhu Xin Yi had also heard of his classmate's story. Thus she did not object to Wei Xiao Bei bringing her to circle around the police station.
On their way back, Wei Xiao Bei had a discussion with Zhu Xin Yi.
As a result, Zhu Xin Yi took a bath early and pulled Wei Xiao Yun into her room.
Wei Xiao Bei, on the other hand, accompanied his parents in watching television and used the excuse of being tired to go to sleep.
What his parents did not know was that when he returned to the room, he locked it and directly jumped out the window. He did not use the minivan and jumped over the wall behind the school, running towards the police station.
Naturally, it was still very early, around 8 PM. Wei Xiao Bei sat on a side stand and ordered barbecue and beer. He took his time as he ate and drunk.
Time slowly passed to 11 PM. Wei Xiao Bei got up and moved to the back of the police station. He wore a black mask and entered by climbing up the wall.
When he finally found the police chief's office, he frowned.
Perhaps because of Old Wang's death, the office was still brightly lit even though it was 11PM.
It seemed that the police chief intended to work well into the night.
If this situation continued on, it would be hard for Wei Xiao Bei to infiltrate and obtain more information.
No matter how awesome he was, he could not turn invisible.
The amount of people monitoring the place was also not few. Since he was not invisible, there was a high chance that he would be exposed.
After pondering a bit, he decided to hide behind the office first and walked there slowly.
Maybe because the office was old or for security purposes, the back side of the building had no windows.
After climbing onto the rooftop, Wei Xiao Bei hid there until 3 AM, only then did the lights were turned off. The police rubbed their blurred eyes and yawned as they eventually all left the place.
However, there were still people who hadn't left yet. At this time, Wei Xiao Bei did not care about this meager amount of people. He carefully infiltrated the building and hid from the guards. In the end, he found information from the case file on the office desk.
In normal cases, these files should have been placed into the paper shredder.
However, this time, they might have neglected these things due to an officer also dying.
After getting what he needed, he returned home and lied down on his bed while thinking over the situation.
There had not been much difference from what he heard from his classmate, but it was a lot more detailed.
Old Wang's breastbone had been completely shattered and the skin on his chest was burned open. It was as if he was burned by some high temperature substance. What was left was a hand print that looked close to a paw print.
The old police fired his gun thrice. Three meters away from the officers corpse was a footprint embeded a few millimeters into the road. Although the road was old, it was still made of thick asphalt which was incredibly hard. Being able to leave a footprint made it easy to understand how strong the attacker was.
In short, the information made Wei Xiao Bei feel that it could be a Guo Shu Expert that grabbed onto burning coals and attacked Old Wang.
However, when he made a connection to his special skill Release Electricity, he immediately came to a conclusion.
His previous guess seemed to be a bit more reliable.
The passengers of the van had been sent to the Dust World, then a random passenger returned and attacked the police!
However, there was still something that was a little difficult to explain using this line of logic.
How could a passenger who had just entered the Dust World for the first time kill a robust police? Moreover, they had also grasped a flame special ability.
However, Wei Xiao Bei knew that as long as it was related to the Dust World, anything could happen.
Other than that, Wei Xiao Bei noticed an important piece information.
On the east side of Bai Ta Hill, strange incidents were happening that might be related to the suspect.
A village located on the foot of the hill was raising chickens. However, more than 30 chickens seemed to have been stolen after a night. The one responsible for guarding the chickens even reported that he heard chewing sounds in the night. Because of fear, he did not go out to search so there was not much information.
However, later, the police found a lot of bloodstained chicken feathers 500 meters away from the village.
Now, the police and the militia were all searching around that area of the mountain, yet there was no other information at the moment.
Wei Xiao Bei considered the information while studying on the saved information on his phone.
In reality, doing this would be hard if he did not increase his learning to 15 points. Naturally, even if the difficulty was high, it was not that efficient.
After letting his thoughts run wild, he stood still and made a breathing stance to let himself calm down. Afterwards, he held his phone and devoted himself to studying.
Once his efficiency increased, his interest also rose. He did this until 2 AM of the next day and stopped due to insufficient battery. Only then did he sleep.
He woke up at 6 AM and immediately called Zhu Xin Yi over. The two of them went down the stairs and arrived at the flower garden in the east section of the school.
Wei Xiao Bei gave pointers to Zhu Xin Yi and let her practice by herself while he trained his Qi.
Time quickly passed and when he finished his training, it was already 11 AM.
After training, his Qi was able to flow quicker due to its increase in amount.
Wei Xiao Bei then made Zhu Xin Yi return first to cover up for his future absence. He then started the minivan and left the school. After eating a bowl of sesame wonton outside, he headed towards Bai Ta Hill that was 10 kilometers away.
Bai Ta Hill was the logo of Bai Ta County. It was also the origin of the name.
In the records of the county, during the Tang Dynasty's rebellion, a great evil appeared in Bai Ta County. This great evil alarmed the populace and killed everywhere. At that time, the county magistrate invited a capable daoist. The daoist ordered the construction of a white tower on a barren hill to protect Fengshui and suppress the evil. In the end, peace returned to the county. Afterwards, the hill where the white tower was name Bai Ta Hill.
Of course, the county record was already more than 1000 year old.
As for what the evil was, no one knew about it.
However, the name of the county was still used until this day.
Wei Xiao Bei was familiar with Bai Ta Hill. Bai Ta County was part of the agricultural sector so its economy was not too developed. There were not many places to play in the county, so most school excursions were to the Bai Ta Hill.
Before the minivan approached the hill, Wei Xiao Bei found a police checkpoint three kilometers away. A few police cars had blocked off half the road and inspected every vehicle that crossed the place.
Wei Xiao Bei did not take the risk and turned the car around and stopped the car in a rural tourism building. He rented a room and rode the van heading towards Huang Long town, safely passing through the checkpoint.
The distance between Bai Ta Hill and the road was not far, only adding up to around 200 meters. As the van passed by, Wei Xiao Bei swept his gaze around the place and saw a lot of military uniformed figures. He could even faintly hear the barks of police dogs.