The group of them caught the attention of a man with salt-and-pepper hair in the pavilion.
He watched Gu Mian's group for a good while. Just as Xia Jianren was about to lose his patience and ask what he was staring at, the man sitting on the stone stool finally spoke. "You folks are here to hike the mountain too, huh? A few days ago, a group of young people about your age also ca here to hike."
An idea crossed Xia Jianren's mind. "Were there about thirty-odd of them, arriving in a large vehicle?"
"Yes, that's right," the man nodded. "They stopped here when they passed by, and a dozen or so got out to stretch their legs. They all looked quite happy. But I heard later their vehicle overturned, and more than thirty people died. Several are still missing."
Xia Jianren swallowed hard. He didn't dare say he was a colleague of those thirty-odd people.
"These past few days, I've seen police cars driving back and forth constantly. I guess they're looking for the missing ones. Doesn't look like they've made much progress, though."
"Wait a minute," Xia Jianren interjected. "Are you on this mountain every day?"
The man chuckled, lifted his backside a bit, revealing a stack of flyers underneath him for 'Treatnts for Infertility and Premature Ejaculation.'
"Many people hike here daily, so I've been handing out flyers at this pavilion these past few days."
Cang Yue also turned to the man. After a mont of thought, she asked, "Sir, you've been here for several days. Do you know why that vehicle fell down the mountain?"
The man shook his head. "I've heard many stories these past few days. So say the driver wasn't paying attention and it rolled over; others claim it swerved to avoid an oncoming car and went down. But who knows if any of that is true? Anyway, the police are calling it an accident."
While speaking, he pointed ahead. "It's about a ten-minute walk further ahead to where the vehicle crashed. It's cordoned off with police tape; you'll see it as soon as you get there."
Cang Yue nodded without uttering another word.
After a few minutes of rest, they had recovered. During this ti, Gu Mian found a roadside vendor and bought five bottles of soda.
Accepting the soda from Gu Mian, Cang Yue stood up. "Let's keep moving."
Xia Jianren rose while opening his bottle. In the real world, he didn't have extra Ga Coins to buy such things. Most instances took place in desolate wilderness or confined spaces, and there were rarely any normal world-setting instances with chances to shop. He hadn't had soda in a long ti.
They set off up the mountain trail again, drinks in hand.
Gu Mian, holding his soda, said, "The vendor just told that when the bus passed him on October 1st, soone got off and bought thirty-seven bottles of drinks."
Cang Yue nodded. "Zhao Shuang got off the bus. That left thirty-seven people on board."
It seed like it was one bottle per person.
The group quickly arrived at the crash site. It was cordoned off with yellow police tape and was indeed very conspicuous. From ti to ti, a few passersby would walk past, all keeping a wide berth from the tape, as if afraid they too might accidentally fall.
They stood at the edge of the road and peered down.
Beside the road was a steep slope, dropping about twenty ters to a slightly gentler incline below.
The steep slope was covered in weeds. These weeds had recently been crushed, lying askew, and so patches of soil had even broken away, exposing fresh earth underneath. Gu Mian knew these were the tracks left when the bus tumbled down the mountain.
Even standing at the edge of the slope and looking down was enough to make one's legs tremble.
On the gentler incline at the bottom, there was a shallow pit, which looked like the impact mark from the bus. However, the bus itself was gone now; Gu Mian had hidden it sowhere concealed.
Fortunately, the police weren't on duty at the mont. Otherwise, if they discovered the bus missing from the accident scene, they would surely launch a massive search. It would be bad if that search led them to Gu Mian and the others.
Keke turned and asked the others, "Should we go down?"
There were still a few people missing. Perhaps they could find so clues down there.
Cang Yue took a deep breath. "Since we're already here, let's find a slightly gentler spot and go down to take a look."
The group picked a spot where no one was around and climbed down a small path. They soon reached the bus's landing site. There were scattered bloodstains on the ground, likely from the people inside the bus.
The area around this spot was covered in ssy wild grass. Further out was a dense forest where the grass grew almost waist-high.
There were no signs of anyone having passed through, making it difficult to determine which direction the missing people had gone based on this large pit alone.
Keke turned to the others. "Alright, let's search the surrounding area first and see if we can find any clues." As she spoke, she glanced at Gu Mian. "Let's spread out a bit; it'll be more efficient that way."
After Keke finished speaking, Cang Yue then looked towards Xia Jianren. He just nodded, not moving, apparently wanting to stick with Gu Mian.
Just then, Keke suddenly said, "Zhao Shuang, let's go check over there."
Saying this, she took the arm of a slightly bewildered Zhao Shuang and led her off in one direction.
Only when Keke had led Zhao Shuang so distance away did Cang Yue look away.
Xia Jianren asked, puzzled, "Didn't you say we should split up to find clues? Why aren't you two moving?"
"Obviously, she just wanted to get Zhao Shuang out of the way," Gu Mian said matter-of-factly. "But you didn't get it."
"Get Zhao Shuang out of the way?" Xia Jianren asked, still puzzled. "Is there sothing she's not supposed to hear?"
Cang Yue shook her head. "No, it's to use a special item."
As she spoke, she casually produced a doll about twenty centiters long—not from her pocket, of course, but from her item bar.
[Simple Eyewitness]
[Description: One-ti use item. As the na suggests, this is an eyewitness. This special item is highly anthropomorphic and possesses all human flaws, such as a hazy mory, missing key details, fragnted recollections, etc.]
[Function: Can be asked about what it saw and heard when the accident occurred.]
Gu Mian looked at the doll in Cang Yue's hand. "Looking at these flaws, this thing doesn't seem very reliable."
Cang Yue placed the doll on the ground at their feet. "It's better than nothing."
Two seconds after being placed on the ground, the doll, whose head had been lolling to one side, suddenly straightened its neck. Its head snapped up, and its eyes began to glow, startling Xia Jianren who was standing nearby.
Gu Mian noticed a small screen on the doll's stomach displaying a countdown.
"180," "179"...
It would probably beco useless when the countdown reached zero.
At this point, Cang Yue had already asked, "How many people were still alive after the bus crashed?"
But because this thing 'possessed all human flaws,' it couldn't give an exact number.
"It was already dark then, so I couldn't see clearly. I only saw so people crawling out after the bus crashed. I'd say about seven or eight of them crawled out."
It had only seen a few crawl out, but it didn't know how many were alive.
Cang Yue continued, "Then, among those who crawled out, was Jiang i there?"
"Who is Jiang i?"
Cang Yue closed her eyes in exasperation. She'd forgotten this thing was just an unrelated eyewitness; it had no connection to these people and wouldn't know her colleagues at all.
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