Just when there were some not too serious disputes in the office of the chairman of Hongjing Expressway, something happened in a mountain range in the southwest of Hongjing Expressway.
Qiongshan is in the southwest of Hongjing, with an altitude of nearly 1,000 meters, surrounded by clouds and mist all year round.
When the weather turns from sunny to rain, the scenery here is the best. The wet water vapor condenses on the rock wall, brushes the moss, and finally merges into a gurgling stream along the crevices.
On the side of the creek between the valleys is the Qiongshan Scenic Area Campground. From a distance, the entire campsite is colorful. There are countless camping tents and countless people who are setting up tents.
More importantly, among those people, there are many children.
Cao Qianzhi is an ordinary elementary school teacher at Fengjing School. Today is the day of the first-grade students of Fengjing School for a group spring outing. The location is set at Qiongshan, southwest of Hongjing.
He stood at the edge of the camp and watched the staff pretending to be mountain people bring a goat for the children. The children seemed to have never seen a moving goat before, and they all pointed and poked around the goat, looking extremely excited.
Cao Qianzhi's eyes moved from the goats to the water's edge, and some children were watching the fish by the creek. They were huddled together and seemed to be discussing how to fish. As a teacher, he didn't walk over to stop him, because the stream was very watery. Qian, it was a specially created artificial landscape. He also believed that his children would not get their shoes and socks wet in the still cold early spring.
So everything seemed peaceful and harmonious.
But Cao Qianzhi's unease became more and more serious.
There were hurried footsteps in the distance, and Cao Qianzhi hurriedly followed the sound.
The dean and another teacher who led the team with him were running towards him quickly. Both of them looked solemn and shook their heads at him.
"Have you not been contacted yet?" Although he knew the answer, he still asked subconsciously.
"No, Master Xu can't get through on the phone, and Teacher An's phone is also turned off. The car should have arrived half an hour ago!" The dean whispered.
Cao Qianzhi looked at his watch, it had been a long time since the scheduled meeting time.
Today's school spring tour, the school rented 6 buses to send the children to Qiongshan. They gathered at the gate of the school early in the morning. It took about 4 hours from the school to Qiongshan. When they came, they spent a lot of time because of the high-speed traffic jam. The sequence of the vehicles was completely disrupted because of the traffic jam. , so several cars arrived at the Qiongshan assembly point one after another ten minutes apart.
If that's the case, it's just a trivial matter of delaying the trip, but after 5 buses arrived at the meeting point, the last bus numbered 3 did not arrive. On the bus were 26 students from the third class of the first grade of the school and two leading teachers.
They always thought that car No. 3 was left behind because of a traffic jam. They tried to contact the driver and the two teachers earlier, but the mobile phone could not be connected.
At first they thought it was because the signal in the mountains was poor, but just now, the dean and another teacher went to the scenic area management center to try to make a call to the teacher's mobile phone. The other end of the phone was still a mechanical and cold female voice, and they realized that , Car No. 3 is likely to have an accident.
"Even if there is a car accident, the phone will not fail to connect!" the female teacher beside her said worriedly.
"Then have you called the highway?" Cao Qianzhi continued to ask.
"I hit it, they said they were investigating, but they haven't found it yet."
"Let's call the police." Cao Qianzhi was silent for a moment, and finally said.
…
In the office of the chairman of Hongjing Expressway, three telephones rang almost simultaneously.
Xing Conglian stepped back half a step in front of the desk and took out his mobile phone; the chairman was slightly relieved, and picked up the landline impatiently; Liu Xing heard the phone ringing in the assistant's office, got up and ran out.
After a while, Xing Conglian looked at Lin Chen; the chairman's face was stiff; Liu Xing rushed back to the room.
On the other end of the phone is the worst news.
"The city bureau just received the report that a tourist bus from Fengjing School disappeared on the highway." Xing Cong continued to hold the microphone and said to Lin Chen.
"Why did he disappear? There are surveillance cameras at the exit of the expressway!" Yang Dianfeng exclaimed before Lin Chen.
Xing Conglian frowned, only to see Lin Chen pursing his thin lips, sitting upright on the sofa, and did not speak.
He was still answering the phone and didn't have time to answer Yang Dianfeng's question. After a while, he suddenly raised his head, held the phone with one hand, pointed at the phone with the other, and tickled the dynasty again.
Chao Dynasty quickly reacted, he took out the mobile phone from his trousers pocket and was about to hand it to Xing Conglian, but Xing Conglian signaled to give the mobile phone to Lin Chen.
"The school teacher will call in right away, you pick it up." He said to the other end of the phone with a number.
Soon, the Dynasty mobile phone rang.
Qiongshan Scenic Area, campsite.
Cao Qianzhi's palms were sweating, and the female teacher who accompanied him was already crying. Various terrifying images kept popping up in his mind, making him even more flustered.
The moment the call was connected, he couldn't help shouting at the person who answered the phone, "Have you found the car yet? It won't really happen, right? What can I do!"
After he finished speaking, the other end of the phone was silent for about three seconds before the sound came.
It was a calm and peaceful male voice, like the flowing water of a stream or the breeze in the mountains, slowly pouring into his ears.
"Hello, I understand your anxiety now, but that requires you to calm down, take a deep breath with me, and answer the next question."
Of course Cao Qianzhi knew what a deep breath was, but things were so urgent that there was no time to take a deep breath! He thought so, but his body involuntarily followed the calm instructions on the other end of the phone and began to inhale deeply, then exhale.
"Excuse me, what time does the bus leave from the school?"
"6:30 minutes."
"Okay, I need to recall carefully now, when was the last time you saw that school bus."
His voice was still calm and mellow, but this question made Cao Qianzhi panic again: "I don't remember!" His mind was in chaos, so he blurted out subconsciously, "Every car is the same, I can't tell!"
On the other end of the phone, the young man holding the phone seemed to have already expected this. He put down the pen, turned the white paper in front of him, and faced the man on the opposite side.
Opposite him, there was a young man wearing a cap instead. The young man glanced at the white paper, which read "Car, Recent Photos, Callout", he nodded and started typing on the keyboard.
The voice on the other end of the phone disappeared for a few seconds, and Cao Qianzhi even felt that the wind in the mountains had turned cold.
"Hello, I am here."
The clear water-like words flowed out again, Cao Qianzhi relaxed a little, and then he heard the man say: "Perhaps you don't know, but in fact human memory does not completely fade away due to the passage of time, human beings have other A set of implicit memory system, what you forget or not remember, in fact, our brains are preserved in another form, so, I need you to calm down and recall some things, and I need you to remember It's very important that we try our best to help us determine the cut-off point."
…
The same sound as clear as running water also sounded in Wang Chao's ears, but Wang Chao obviously didn't have the chance to close his eyes, he was very nervous.
After hearing what Lin Chen said, he quickly connected to the Sky Eye system, and called up a photo of the spring outing team gathering at the gate of Fengjing School around 6:20.
Six buses were lined up on the road one after another. The bodies were pure white and painted with colorful cloud patterns. The words "Hongjing Foreign Affairs Vehicle Management Co., Ltd." were vaguely recognizable.
From the outside of the several buses, there was no difference. Chao Dynasty looked up anxiously, but the person on the opposite side was gone. When he looked to the right again, Lin Chen was already standing beside him.
On the screen, white and delicate fingers crossed and stopped on the body of the third bus.
"enlarge."
Wang Dynasty Yiyan, zoomed in on the picture, the word "foreign affairs" on the body became bigger and bigger, and the rest of the words became more blurred.
"here."
He tapped a piece of space above the rear wheel with his finger, and then quickly pulled it away.
Dynasty took a closer look. Behind the car, where the huge blue cloud was supposed to be painted, seemed to be missing a piece, which looked very incomplete. It is very likely that the No. 3 car has just come out of the repair shop, and the missing piece has just been repaired, so the spray painting has been eradicated.
He subconsciously looked at Lin Chen, Lin Chen had already walked to the window, and he slowed down again: "There is a blue cloud above the rear wheel of car No. 3, but half of that cloud is missing, although you won't notice it This, but your brain will surely record it as it is. So, I need you to close your eyes now and start recalling…”
"It was on a busy highway, there were a lot of cars around, and there were children laughing and laughing in the car. Because it was a bit noisy, and because you got up early, you would feel sleepy, and when you lost your mind, you would look out the window, the scenery outside the window It's very beautiful, there are reeds all over the sky, and you see cars passing by from time to time. Suddenly, you see a car, that car is very strange, the pattern on the wheel behind him seems to be missing a piece, you may only have more Watched for 0.1 seconds, but that was really weird, so you remembered that picture…”
Following the soft voice, Cao Qianzhi seemed to have really returned to the noisy bus. He looked out the window, and a bus happened to pass by.
"I remember!" He raised his voice sharply. "There is such a car, but I don't know when it was!"
"Please try to see if there are any landmark buildings in that picture, or a green road sign, it will stand on the side of the road, very conspicuous... "
"No, no, there are reeds all around." Cao Qianzhi frowned, as if trying to grab the flashing image, "Wait a minute, I remember!" A child told me to go to the toilet, and then The driver said that we will soon arrive at the Plum Village rest stop! "Cao Qianzhi suddenly opened his eyes.
Lin Chen quickly returned to the desk, picked up the pen, and wrote the word "Plum Village" on the paper.
"You or the teacher around you, do you remember what time it is at the Plum Village rest stop?"
"Wait a minute, I'll ask."
In front of the computer, Dynasty had already called up the full map of Hongjing Expressway. He looked at the map and calculated on the paper: "Meicun service station is about 130 kilometers from Hongjing to Qiongshan. The traffic jam occurred after 7:00. If you leave at 6:30, you will arrive at the Meicun service station around 8:30, taking into account the variable of the traffic jam.”
Just as Wang Chao dropped his pen, an eager male voice came from the phone: "Our director said that entering the Plum Village Service Station is at 8:30! I really can't remember the rest!"
The male teacher over there was very apologetic.
"It's been fine, thank you very much, you've been very helpful."
Seeing Lin Chen hang up the phone, Wang Chao breathed a sigh of relief, but felt strange again in his heart: "How do you know that there will be something different in the No. 3 car!"
"I don't know." Lin Chen picked up the calculation paper of the technical house, and said, "But at that time, I could only hope for luck."
"What if you're unlucky?"
"If you're not lucky, just keep trying your luck."