Chapter 9 Influenza

  Hei Zi said that Pan Zi and I are not locals, if we follow the divine brush master, in case the master slips away to go out for a stroll, it would be easy for us to lose him. This kind of job can be done by ordinary informants.

  I found that Heizi is quite eloquent. This time, he praised Panzi and me as special informants on the surface, but in fact, he still doesn't think we're capable enough.

  But he said so, I couldn't refuse, so I just laughed and nodded in agreement.

  Hei Zi immediately took out his mobile phone and called a person named Tǔ Gǒu. As soon as Tǔ Gǒu heard there was a task, he promised to arrive in half an hour.

  This is none of our business, Lu Yifeng drove us away. When we reached a fork in the road, a black sedan came from the opposite direction. I didn't pay much attention to it at first, after all, black sedans are very common, but Hei Zi stared at the sedan and said, "The dog is working."

  It's almost dark now, and I think it doesn't make much sense to go out and dig for clues at night. I thought we were going home, but Lu Yufeng drove the car to the printing company instead.

  He and Kuroko got off together, saying they wanted to ask about the blood test results.

  I and Panzi didn't follow them in, we were waiting in the car. Half an hour later, they came out, but one of them was holding two belts.

  I was smoking when I saw this and almost choked. I'm puzzled in my heart, don't know what this belt is for.

  Lu Yifeng spoke up as soon as he got on the car and didn't give me time to ask questions.

  He told us that the test results are out, and neither of us has been infected with the virus. He also asked about the mobile phone number, which is what I dreamed about last night. The organization has sent someone to follow up, but this phone has been turned off since this afternoon, and there's no signal at all.

  Then he and Hei Zi together, distributed the belts to us. He held up his own belt and explained that the disappearance of Xiāo Guǐ and Dāo Kè had made the organization quite worried about our safety, so they specially developed this. At first glance, these belts look like ordinary ones, but inside, a miniature GPS system is installed, which automatically sends out signals every minute. If we wear them and really get lost, the organization will be able to track us down in no time.

  I thought this was great, since it's a good thing, of course we wouldn't refuse, and changed into them right there in the car.

  We were all busy with our own things at first, so we didn't have time to bother with each other. I found a problem with this belt, which is that the models are all the same and there's no size difference. It was okay for me, Lu Yifeng, and Heizi, but Panzi had a thicker waist and it was hard for him to tie it up. In the end, he still needed my help, and after finally tying it up, when we opened our clothes to take a look, his waist was clearly in an "8" shape.

  Then we found a small restaurant to fill our stomachs, and went home together. Hei Zi didn't plan to stay long, so after making an appointment with us for the next morning, he hurriedly left.

  I guess he went to join the local dogs.

  I wanted to go to bed early tonight, but for some reason, after dinner my throat became extremely itchy, and when I got home, my throat was so itchy that it felt like there were bugs crawling inside.

  After lying on the bed, I still couldn't help but cough a few times. These few coughs were so contagious that they made Ah Feng and Panzi also start coughing one after another.

  Although Lu Yifeng gave me a reassurance, saying that we hadn't contracted the virus, our current situation isn't great either. It's clear that after dinner, our colds are getting worse and worse.

  It's so late now, we don't want to go to the hospital or clinic either. Lu Yufeng thought of a way, let us drink more water and take some medicine to see if we can suppress the cold.

  We two didn't drink less, just before going to bed this time, the water dispenser had half a bucket of water. However, there was no improvement at all, we coughed at each other, and struggled until dawn.

  By 7 o'clock in the morning, we couldn't bear it anymore and wanted to get an intravenous drip. Otherwise, with our current state, we wouldn't be able to do anything for the rest of the day.

  We went to a nearby medical point, because it was a sore throat, mainly hanging erythromycin, but this medicine stimulated blood vessels, we had to patiently endure the time, slowly dripping drop by drop.

  Lu Yufeng took advantage of the empty space to call Heizi. He was afraid that Heizi would go home and not find them, so he told him to come directly to the medical point.

  But unexpectedly, Heizi's phone turned off.

  Unless it's a special task, Lin's mobile phone is always on 24 hours a day. Hei Zi being so abnormal makes us somewhat puzzled.

  I was still guessing and said to Ah Feng, "Maybe Heizi was careless for a moment and his phone ran out of battery."

  Until we finished hanging the drip, Lu Yifeng made two more calls, both of which prompted no answer.

  A bad premonition emerged in my heart, and Lu Yifeng also became anxious, and he called the contact person again to ask if he knew where Heizi had gone.

  At that time, Ah Feng used a hands-free phone. I heard the person on the other end of the line answer that he only knew Heizi went to monitor Lao Dao last night and didn't receive any other alarm information.

  Lu Yufeng made an appointment with the contact person and we drove to that supermarket, still the same place, and met him in the backyard.

  This time, however, the bed was empty and the official's body had been taken away.

  We didn't stand on ceremony and got straight to the point of our conversation.

  Just now, the contact person also contacted Tǔ Gǒu. According to what Tǔ Gǒu said, last night at midnight, Shén Bǐ Fǎshī went out and took a taxi away. At that time, Hēi Zǐ followed him but told Tǔ Gǒu not to make any rash moves and continue monitoring the situation at Lǎo Dào's home. However, until now, Shén Bǐ Fǎshī has returned home, but Hēi Zǐ still hasn't come back. In other words, Hēi Zǐ might have gone missing.

  The matchmaker has a high opinion of Heizi, and he specially emphasizes that Heizi's skills are great, having even won awards in the national free fighting competition before, so there shouldn't be any big mistakes.

  But I didn't have the heart to crush his confidence, thinking that being a thief and an assassin aren't so different after all. And yet, until now, there's been no news of him at all?

  We all changed into new trousers yesterday and didn't expect to use them just a day later. Lu Yufeng took out the wireless communicator and sent a message to the superior.

  He first said "Ghost Hand Summoning", and after the other party replied, he asked the superior to check Hei Zi's record.

  Not long after, a dynamic picture came from upstairs, and I found that the current technology is really advanced. A small picture can solve the problem.

  This image can be enlarged and is a map of Moose Town and its surroundings. In the lower right corner, there is also an exact time in hours and minutes.

  At first, time was frozen at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon. A small red dot appeared on the map. I looked at the location of this red dot and it happened to be the Qiushui Printing House.

  That is to say, at that time Heizi had just changed his belt, and then every jump for a minute, there was one more red dot.

  We waited together, the red dots gradually gathered into a path, and also prepared to mark out Hei Zi's whereabouts: Hei Zi first followed us back home, then returned alone to Lao Dao, at midnight twelve o'clock, he moved northwest towards Muxi Town, finally left the town, and eventually stopped in one place, until now.

  This location, according to the map, is really in a remote mountainous area. I suddenly felt a headache and thought that it's likely that Hei Zi was kidnapped. Furthermore, going deeper into this, Shen Bi Fa Shi indeed has some suspicion.

  To save Heizi, we can't delay. Lu Yifeng also mentioned the plan, anyway, Shenbifashi is at home and he can't run away, let's go northwest according to GPS first.

  This task makes us all feel dangerous, and Lu Yifeng is really impolite, asking the contact person if he can get a gun.

  I'm quite sensitive to guns because we're all guilty, if we shoot and injure someone, it'll add to our guilt, and furthermore, we've never used a gun before, we don't even know how to fire one.

  The go-between didn't consider these things, and the cat's nest near this supermarket was quite big. He went out for a while and came back, and he really got a revolver.

  He handed the gun to A Feng, and at this time I couldn't help but ask, "A Feng, can you play with guns?"

  A Feng shook his head, then turned around and handed the gun back to me, saying, "Guns are strange things, some people don't need to learn how to use them, they just hold it and can feel the gun talking to them. You're that kind of person, Xiaobai, this gun belongs to you now!"

  I scowled and thought to myself, "What a joke", I'd play with guns? As a kid, I couldn't even hit the target with a slingshot. I was also afraid of carrying a gun out in public, so I shook my head and refused to take it no matter what.

  Finally, Lu Yifeng didn't force it and holstered his gun at his waist with the muzzle facing backwards.

  The four of us set off together in this sedan. With the help of dynamic maps, we undoubtedly navigated like a GPS and went straight out of town without taking any detours.

  The road was still passable at first, but gradually it became bumpy and finally I was shaking up and down.

  I regret it, I think we four rode motorcycles well. After a while, Lu Yifeng suddenly came up with a foot brake again.

  I looked at the road ahead and thought the car could move forward, but why didn't Lu Yifeng move? I was afraid he had given up, and we were very close to Hei Zi's final stop, it would be a pity to give up like this.

  I advised Ah Feng a sentence. But Ah Feng strangely asked us to get off the car.

  I found Ah Feng's eyes are really sharp, he has discovered something on the road.

  Right in front of our car, there was a depression with three rows of tire tracks. I don't know much about tires, so even if I looked carefully, I couldn't tell anything from them.

  Lu Yifeng and the contact person squatted in front of the car wheel print, studying it. They discussed it with each other, one sentence at a time.

  I was listening on the side, according to their analysis, these three rows of tire prints were made by two motorcycles, among which the widest tire print should be a military motorcycle, that is, Heizi's.

  Hei Zi came last night, but he didn't leave after arriving, which matches the GPS data. Also, the motorcycle left two tire tracks, indicating it went back and forth.

  According to Tǔ Gǒu's words, the divine brush master is a taxi driver, so he shouldn't ride a motorcycle. Moreover, yesterday when we went to his home, there was no motorcycle either.

  This makes me a bit puzzled, thinking that the Divine Brush Master is not suspicious again?

  We just looked at the tire tracks and couldn't analyze anything else, so Lu Yifeng took a photo of it, and we continued on our way.

  But this time we didn't go far before we had to get off, because according to the GPS display, Heizi deviated from the main road and rode the motorcycle into a grassy area.

  The grass thicket swept across the bottom plate. Lu Yifeng held a wireless communicator, and we two surrounded him in the middle, just like that, deep into the grass thicket.

  I have a premonition that if we continue on this path, we will soon encounter some great danger.