Chapter 440 - Padded Floor
TL: LifeisaJourney
"Okay, so I found information regarding Wan'er. The girlfriend of the couple said Wan'er was searching for the restroom. Wan'er was pointed in that direction," Star Yu reported quickly.
"Okay, then we should maintain traveling in that direction to see if we can find anymore new clues!" Liu Gan nodded. The four of them were now a team, and they headed in the direction pointed out by the girlfriend. The new path led them out of the forest.
Following the path, it led them to a playground area of small eco-friendly equipment. Most of the playground equipment was constructed from recycled plastics, and the padding on the ground was interlocked with different colors and shapes.
Liu Gan warned others to be aware of their surroundings before letting them wander off to look for clues. They were looking for the symbol of a public restroom. As of now, their only clue was that Wan'er should be heading to the restroom.
After a short period of searching, Liu Gan found the symbol for the public restroom on an eroded metal pole. The white paint for the arrowhead was peeling off, but even if it was faint, it was still possible to distinguish the direction.
Liu Gan led the three people to where the arrowhead was pointing. After leaving the padded playground, the path headed north, covered now in moss and weeds. By now, it was hard to figure out what the original path had looked like. They only knew which way to go because of the rows of trees on both sides that served as guidance. The weeds in between the trees atop the buried concrete path were relatively shorter than the weeds growing by the tree.
These weeds are resilient to the cold, and it didn't require much sunlight. The sunlight rarely reached the weeds, so most of them had dried up. Only a small portion of the weeds were still struggling to survive and there were no signs of new plants growing. It seemed the weeds wouldn't survive much longer.
At the end of the path lay the public restroom. Liu Gan led the way with the other three tailing behind. While walking, they were looking for any clues about Wan'er along the route. When they reached the end of the path, they found a well-camouflaged restroom.
The public restroom wasn't eye-catching. The walls were covered in all types of vines and moss. Perhaps, it is due to the lack of sunlight in the area, that benefited the growth of moss over plants.
Walking up to the restroom door, it was hard to tell which side was for male or female at first glance. The task of searching inside the female restroom was assigned to Ana. If it was performed by any other gender, that would be immoral.
"Wan'er! Wan'er!" Ana shouted as she propped open the restroom door. No response so she was forced to check every stall. A slight push was enough to make stall doors come crashing down.
After every stall was checked out, Ana was able to confirm that Wan'er wasn't there. There were no traces of Wan'er having been there at all.
When Ana was done searching through the women's restroom, Liu Gan had also finished with his search through the men's restroom, just in case the young girl had mistaken the symbol for men with women, due to urgency.
Where could the problem have stemmed from? Could there be more than one public restroom? The whole way there, it felt as if this was the closest public restroom to the swinging chairs. If Wan'er had asked for directions from anyone, they would all point her to this restroom.
So what went wrong? Was she given wrong information by a third party? If so, then they had to find the third party and get more information.
Returning empty-handed, Liu Gan and the other three people returned along the path they came from. They went all the way back to the recycled playground for children. They hadn't searched the area when they walked by, so now they took the time to search through the nearby deteriorated buildings. Just like before, their search was fruitless. They couldn't find any new NPC.
Where could this young girl be? Once again they had to return to square one! What a depressing day...
Liu Gan was thoroughly disappointed. As they were about to leave, they heard a child's giggle coming from behind them.
Liu Gan and the others turned around to look. To their surprise, it was the smile of a naive young girl. Her hair was tied up into two space buns, she wore a red jacket and white embroidered dress, and a white pair of shoes to match the dress. Her clothes matched the exact description of whom they were searching for.
"Haha! Seems like this mission isn't hard at all! It was hardly any work at all. It was a walk in the park!" Ana laughed loudly.
Wan'er was prancing around the broken plastic paddings, it was as if she had no idea the paddings were ripped. They were unaware of how this apparition appeared or why she had appeared, but that wasn't important now.
"Uncle! Uncle!" Wan'er ran over to greet Liu Gan.
Liu Gan was about to receive her with open arms, but Wan'er stopped herself just in time.
"Wait, you're not my uncle. My uncle is bald," Wan'er retreated back in a corner, mumbling to herself.
"Wan'er, why are you playing here by yourself? You mother is searching all over the place for you! Uncle is very familiar with your mom. Don't you remember uncle?" Liu Gan smiled naturally and warmly at Wan'er.
"Lord Liu seems like a strange uncle¹. How could he trick a young girl…" Ana almost vomited as she overheard the shameless words coming out from Liu Gan's mouth.
"Girls like sister Ana receive a lot of essence. Bad uncles like Liu Gan, will always change their personality for girls like you," Stratos whispered the words loud enough for Ana to hear. Even though Ana acted like a big sister, there might not be a big difference in their ages. He still had to pay her respect, since she was the acting squad leader.
"I have essence? How do I have essence? Do explain yourself!" Stratos answer did not sit well with Ana. From his tone, 'energetic' had an underlying degrading meaning.
"You will receive a lot of sperm essence," Stratos chuckled loudly.
Ana kicked Stratos away and snarled, "Fuck off!"
"Uncle, do you know where the restroom is?" Wan'er believed everything Liu Gan had said to her. She didn't question Liu Gan's integrity.
"I will take you to see your mother," Liu Gan replied instead.
"No! I want to go to the restroom!" Wan'er threw a tantrum as she shook her head.
"Okay, if you want to go to the restroom, I will take you there, okay?" Liu Gan gave up on his original thought. He wanted to hand the young girl over to the mother and obtain the reward, but he had to complete a side quest first, and accompany her to the restroom. What an annoying task!
"Oh goodie! Uncle you are the best! Take me, take me!" Wan'er clapped her hands as she cheerfully skipped around the playground.