PD -Chapter 177 The Dense Forests of Shennongjia

That station wagon had indeed been loaded with a great deal of luggage strapped to its roof rack… it was just that at the time, none of our attention had been on that.

Now that I thought back on it, they really did seem to be on some kind of sightseeing trip.

This information was anything but simple. Since they were traveling by self-drive tour, it wouldn’t be unusual for relatives and friends to lose contact with them for a while. And since anything could happen on the road… the probability that what Tang Shanshan had seen in her dream was real immediately increased by more than half.

A sense of unease settled in my chest, but I eventually opened the file folder and pulled out the documents inside.

Just as I was about to examine them carefully, Tang Shanshan pushed open the door and walked in.

The moment she saw the thick stack of papers in my hands, she immediately came over and joined me in looking through them.

The documents showed that the missing individuals were a newly married couple. The husband was named Peng Hao, and the wife was Lin Xiaowan.

Both of them had decent jobs, and judging from their income, they belonged to a middle-class household. However, much of the information in the file wasn’t particularly helpful to us.

What worried me most was the possibility that something had already happened to them, but because they were on a self-driving trip and had temporarily lost contact with friends and family, nobody knew they were missing.

Therefore, the most important thing now was to determine their travel route.

After some thought, I picked up the phone and called the staff member Di Ting had assigned to help me gather information.

I asked him to see if he could track down the route of the couple’s road trip. If that proved impossible, then any recent spending records would do as well—we could use those to trace their movements.

The person on the other end agreed readily.

A little over an hour later, I received a reply.

The couple’s vehicle had been purchased through financing and was still under mortgage payments. Because of that, the bank holding the loan had installed a GPS tracking system in the car.

As a result, the vehicle’s travel history was quickly obtained.

Several screenshots from the tracking system soon arrived in my email. They showed that the vehicle had departed from Wuhan three days earlier and headed northwest for over three hundred kilometers.

The signal records indicated that for the past two days, the vehicle had remained near the Shennongjia Forest Region, in a place called Longxiang Village.

I compared the timestamps carefully.

The time the vehicle had stopped in Longxiang Village matched exactly with the time Tang Shanshan had that dream the previous night.

My heart skipped a beat.

Unable to help myself, I turned to look at Tang Shanshan.

She had clearly noticed the connection as well. Her face had turned pale as she stared at the computer screen, lost in thought. After a long silence, she finally looked at me and said:

“We need to go there.”

I let out a bitter laugh internally.

Things were developing in exactly the direction I had feared.

“Don’t rush,” I said, trying to reassure her. “If everything you saw in your dream is real, then that means the couple is probably already dead. Even if we rush over there now, we won’t be able to save them.”

“What we need to figure out is what exactly attacked them.”

“We need to learn what that thing is, understand its background, and only act when we’re confident we can eliminate it and stop it from harming anyone else.”

I looked at her seriously.

“So we still have a lot of preparation to do.”

Tang Shanshan hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she felt my reasoning made sense, because she eventually nodded and asked what we should do next.

After thinking for a bit, I said, “We should start by looking into local information and try to identify whatever that hook-handed thing is.”

“How are we supposed to investigate that?” Tang Shanshan frowned.

She had never been a patient person. Researching documents and combing through information were exactly the kind of tasks she hated.

I sighed and gave her a helpless look.

“By investigating it bit by bit, of course. How else?”

But this time, Tang Shanshan was surprisingly different.

After hearing my words, she somehow produced a laptop from who-knows-where, poured herself a cup of coffee, hugged the computer to her chest, and put on the appearance of someone seriously prepared to work.

I shook my head at the sight and began my own search.

In today’s age of the internet, uncovering information about a location was far easier than it had been years ago.

Even relatively remote places usually left some traces online.

Yet Longxiang Village, located near the Shennongjia Forest Region, genuinely surprised me.

Aside from finding its approximate location on satellite maps…

I couldn’t find a single useful piece of information about the area anywhere online.

Tang Shanshan spent a long time searching as well, but she made no progress either.

Finally, left with no other options, I entered the official website of the Shennongjia Forest Region and tried to find even the slightest reference to Longxiang Village.

After digging through countless local news articles, I finally found a few reports describing how villages in the area had benefited from Shennongjia’s tourism industry.

According to the reports, they had transformed from isolated, impoverished villages into prosperous communities that served passing tourists with farm stays, gas stations, and various other services, allowing residents to escape poverty and enjoy comfortable lives.

After reading through everything, I came to a conclusion.

If we wanted to solve this case, we would have to go there ourselves.

I let out a quiet sigh.

My eyes remained fixed on the computer screen, but my thoughts had already moved elsewhere.

I was planning how to secretly head out alone and deal with this matter myself.

No matter what, I couldn’t allow Tang Shanshan to get involved in something this dangerous again.

We continued searching for quite some time.

After dinner, I found an excuse to end the discussion and return to our rooms.

Once inside, I packed a few essentials, removed the bandages from my hand, and examined the injury.

Although a horrifying scar remained and my palm was permanently damaged, effectively leaving me with a crippled hand, the wound itself had almost completely healed. Aside from the scar, there was no pain at all.

I had already asked Di Ting to prepare a vehicle for me.

With my bag in hand, I quietly made my way down to the basement.

Just as I was about to open the car door and get in, a figure suddenly emerged from the other side of the vehicle.

The figure quickly circled behind me and grabbed my ear.

“You lousy Daoist! You’re really planning to ditch me and sneak off by yourself?”

The newcomer was none other than Tang Shanshan.

She looked absolutely furious, and the force with which she twisted my ear made it ache intensely. I couldn’t help sucking in a sharp breath.

“I’m telling you—don’t even think about it!”

She perfectly embodied the phrase “using both hands and feet.”

Not only was she yanking on my ear, but she also raised a leg as though preparing to kick me in the backside.

However, the moment she lifted her leg, her eyebrows knitted together and a pained expression crossed her face.

The movement had obviously aggravated her injury.

I hurriedly surrendered and supported her, asking whether she was alright.

Biting her lip tightly, Tang Shanshan shook her head.

Then she snatched the car keys right out of my hand and climbed into the vehicle as if it were the most natural thing in the world.