I Got Rich in Period Fiction-Chapter 64 - Entering the Village (Part 5)

Chapter 64 -64 Entering the Village (Part 5)

Chapter 64 -64 Entering the Village (Part 5)

Without realizing it, more than an hour had passed, and he suddenly felt a bit restless. Thus, he left the laboratory and headed back to his office, only to find the office door was ajar, and Rongrong was gone.

With his long legs, He Xiuyu searched the entire Big White Building quickly, within a few minutes. Rongrong wasn’t there, and nobody had seen a little girl leave.

He Xiuyu went back to where Rongrong had been sleeping. The shoes were gone, the outer clothes were gone, the room was tidy and clean, but he saw a green glass ball on the bed.

Could it be Xiao Hu?

Without any hesitation, He Xiuyu dashed outside. The guard at the door confirmed his guess; indeed, Mr. Li’s son, Li Mingguang, came to the base on his own.

Since the guard was on duty, he had a colleague take Xiao Hu to the duty office.

The duty office was empty.

Xiao Hu wasn’t there at all.

A cup of water was still on the table, and the guard turned pale with fright, “Chief Engineer He, I asked the child to wait here. I’ve already called Director Shen and told his mother to come and pick him up. I even got him some cookies and candy.”

He Xiuyu’s face was as grim as water, no need to ask; those two kids definitely hadn’t left through the main gate.

Surrounded by tall perimeter walls and covering a vast area, it was not easy finding where the two children might be hiding in some empty building.

But he had a nagging feeling of unease.

He had no choice but to call Director Lin, who then dispatched all the security staff for a comprehensive search.

Meanwhile, He Xiuyu returned to his office and then walked down the corridor and the stairs following the possible routes the children could have taken. This time, he didn’t directly leave the Big White Building but instead fixed his gaze on a small door on the north side of the first floor.

That door was open, and if he remembered correctly, the Iron General had been there in the morning.

Without further delay, He Xiuyu stooped, pushed open the small door, and stepped outside to the Big White Building’s shaded back area.

There were a few bungalows nearby, and not far off was the boiler room.

He Xiuyu went over Xiao Hu’s possible escape route in his mind several times, ruling out each path until he finally took one towards the boiler room.

Behind the boiler room was the coal yard.

At that moment, it was piled up like a mountain of coal.

The workers in the boiler room all said they hadn’t seen the two children.

Was this a dead end?

He Xiuyu’s gaze fell on Coal Mountain.

He climbed up it, and on one side of Coal Mountain was the tall courtyard wall. He easily stood atop the wall, with a large pile of coal slag beneath him.

The coal slag should have formed a mound, but now there was a clear trace that had been stepped on.

Without hesitation, He Xiuyu climbed over the wall head. The boiler room workers looked at each other. Old Zhao murmured softly, “How come I haven’t heard any children talking…” Another worker glared at him, “With the noise in our boiler room being so loud, we have to shout to talk to each other, how could you hear the children talking from outside?”

And at this moment, He Xiuyu was already on Yellow Sand Road.

With the dry weather and the strong winds, even if there were car and footprints on the road, they would have been blown away without a trace by now.

He Xiuyu’s hands, hanging at his sides, clenched tightly together. He wasn’t comfortable leaving the ill Rongrong with her mother, but if anything were to happen to her in his care, how would he explain it to his elder brother?

Most importantly, Rongrong was now incapable of communication and interaction. If she was with Xiao Hu, it would be fine, but if not, it could be very dangerous.

Even the composed and calm He Xiuyu felt his clenched hands tremble slightly, and a cold sweat broke out on his back.

Director Lin, leading a group of guards, and Old Xie, with quite a few workers, nearly a hundred people, had also made their way to He Xiuyu’s location.

Every possible location in the newly built family quarter of Zone 5 behind the Big White Building had been searched, but there was no trace of the two children.

He Xiuyu instructed Director Lin to continue searching while he drove the jeep along Yellow Sand Road toward the front.

At this time, Qiao Qingyu was riding her bicycle and had arrived at the entrance of a small village.

The village was really small; from a distance, it seemed to consist of just a few dozen households, sparsely surrounded by a few poplar trees.

The wind was still blowing fiercely, and there was no one working the fields, although there were more waste grounds and hillslopes.

It wasn’t an endlessly flat area.

Turning past this hill, you couldn’t see what the next one looked like.

Her mind began to race. Now this area fell under the jurisdiction of the Xiaxi Commune, which was generally organized into one large brigade with several small teams underneath.

Whether it was tractors, agricultural tools, or horse-drawn carts, these all belonged to the collective property.

Policies had not yet spread to the Xiaxi Commune, and the contract responsibility system had not started, making it almost impossible for individuals to buy a horse-drawn cart.

So the middle-aged man driving the horse-drawn cart could very well be a small team leader or someone of the sort.

Small team leader, huh? An official of the village, could he be the criminal?

It seemed not that likely.

Qiao Qingyu braced herself and rode her bicycle into the village.

She refused to believe that the village was filled with large horse-drawn carts everywhere.

Moreover, the residences here were the same as those in the family quarter, with tall threshold gates that the horse-drawn carts simply couldn’t pass through.

So all she needed to do was find the horse-drawn cart.

The village indeed didn’t have many households, and because of the bad weather, not a single person could be seen on the roads. There were no chimneys smoking either, and from afar, it looked a bit like a ghost village in a desert.

After passing one house, Qiao Qingyu’s heart skipped a beat, and she stopped in her tracks. The horse-drawn cart she had seen was parked at the entrance of a house, and just as she had imagined, the gate was small and low, with a high threshold. The horse-drawn cart simply couldn’t enter.

And the blanket that had been on the horse-drawn cart was gone.

Then she saw the old lady who had sat on the cart walked out of the courtyard, casually locking the gate behind her, and then headed west, starting to knock loudly on the door of that house.

The door opened, revealing a middle-aged woman, roughly forty, with her hair wrapped in a headscarf. She stepped aside to let the old lady in and then quickly shut the door.

Qiao Qingyu looked around. At this moment, she didn’t know if anyone was watching her from behind the windows covered with paper.

Nor did she know if a large group of people would suddenly emerge and surround her.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t fall into the wolf’s den before figuring out what was really happening.

Her hand, carrying a stick, gently touched the red mole on her fingertip.

Her heart finally settled in her stomach.

Ten seconds would be enough for her to hide in her space.

As for the consequences of disappearing into thin air, that was not within Qiao Qingyu’s current considerations.

Qiao Qingyu leaned her bicycle against a mud wall, thought for a moment, and decided not to lock it. With a stick in her right hand, she walked directly toward the house with the parked horse-drawn cart.

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At this moment, the surroundings were not quiet; the sound of a dog barking could be heard not far away.

But it was quickly drowned out by the howling wind, and the clouds in the distance grew thicker and heavier. The air had been somewhat humid just before, but it was now becoming dry.

Looking up at the sky, Qiao Qingyu guessed that if a storm wasn’t approaching, then it must be a sandstorm…