At the mont, the only real risk in hiding Everly and Misha’s identities was that the police might discover the phones and identification docunts the two had hidden earlier.
Still, even if that happened, Old John could lie and claim that Everly and Misha’s luggage had been stolen, and that the people who boarded the vehicle carrying those belongings were not actually his granddaughter and Misha. That might barely be enough to fool them.
What they feared most was a gap in information between the police and Old John, causing contradictions to appear in the story he fabricated.
Therefore, even though Everly was fairly confident that she and Misha could conceal their identities, the two still decided to keep a low profile and use fake identities until they fully understood the situation.
After following the highway to the edge of the city, Everly and Misha finally stopped for a while to clean themselves up a little.
Honestly speaking, the two of them looked terrible.
They had drifted at sea for a long ti. During that period, aside from a single tube of toothpaste, they had no toiletries whatsoever, nor enough fresh water to bathe. At most, they could only dampen their clothes with water and wipe themselves down carelessly.
As a result, the two girls looked like they had just crawled out of a coal mine — dusty and grimy, with greasy hair, filthy foul-slling clothes, and sunburn marks all over their bodies. If soone got close enough, they could even sll the strong fishy scent of the sea clinging to them.
Dressed like this, nobody would find it strange if they were mistaken for holess people.
If they could find a place to shower and wash their clothes, things would improve greatly. Unfortunately, the two of them were completely broke right now. And even if they had money, staying at a hotel or motel would require showing a driver’s license, passport, or registering an SSN, which was not a good option while the situation was still unclear.
So they ended up trapped in a vicious cycle: to obtain information, Everly and Misha needed phones and internet access, but looking the way they did, ordinary people did not even want to talk to them, let alone lend them a phone.
At the critical mont, it was once again up to Misha to step in.
After enduring countless cold stares around the city, Misha finally managed to strike up a conversation with an elderly woman collecting recyclables.
The scavenger woman clearly relied on digging through expired food behind supermarkets to survive, yet she herself was surprisingly clean. Her clothes were old and worn, but tidy, and there was no obvious dirt visible on her body.
After asking around, the two learned that in Sunette City there was a nonprofit program called the “Mobile Shower Van.” The project was ant to help holess people maintain basic hygiene, giving them a better chance of finding work and housing. Even better, using the shower van required no identification whatsoever.
After thanking the elderly woman, Everly and Misha followed the directions she gave them and found the mobile shower van parked behind the library. They borrowed the van’s shower facilities to wash themselves clean and scrubbed their clothes while they were at it. Fortunately, the sumr weather was hot, so even if they put the damp clothes back on, they dried naturally after a short while.
Once they finished cleaning up, the two had finally evolved from “barely looking human” back into modern civilized people.
Now, when they asked passersby to borrow a phone, not only were they no longer rejected, but so people were even kind enough to offer to buy the two pitiful girls free hot dogs — offers they politely declined.
After obtaining a phone, the first call they made was naturally to Old John.
The ringtone had barely sounded for long before soone picked up. Old John’s low, weathered voice ca through the receiver.
“Hello?”
That simple question felt like an umbrella opening above their heads in the pouring rain, like a calm harbor welcoming a traveler ho through stormy seas — carrying a sense of safety and peace that only ho could provide.
Everly’s nose stung slightly. She took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to speak imdiately. Instead, she curled her fingers and tapped lightly against the receiver three tis.
Tap, tap-tap.
Two long, one short — the signal they had agreed upon beforehand.
The mont he heard the code, Old John imdiately understood that the caller was his granddaughter, Everly.
“How’s the trip going, Everly? You said earlier that you and Misha were going on a jungle adventure, and that there wouldn’t be any signal in the forest, so we shouldn’t worry. You probably don’t know this, but not long after you two left, a disappearance case happened in Fridt City. The police found luggage among the missing persons’ belongings that they suspected belonged to you and Misha. It scared both and Misha’s parents half to death. Thankfully, it was just a misunderstanding. After opening the suitcases for inspection, they discovered that the items inside didn’t belong to either of you…”
The way he said it was incredibly skillful. On the surface, it sounded like nothing more than ordinary family nagging, but in reality, the amount of information hidden within those words was enormous.
After hearing Old John’s explanation, Everly finally gained a basic understanding of the current situation.
Things had unfolded almost exactly as she had predicted. After the bus disappearance case occurred, the Fridt police investigated surveillance footage around the departure point in order to identify the owners of the two unclaid suitcases, and their suspicions had indeed fallen on her and Misha.
But before that happened, Old John had already contacted Misha’s parents and coordinated their story in advance.
The police first tried calling Everly and Misha’s phones. When nobody answered, they called the girls’ hos instead.
Faced with police questioning, Old John and the others responded that the two girls had long planned to go exploring in the nearby jungle. There was no phone signal there, which was why their phones could not be reached. The girls were not missing.
The police still refused to give up. They photographed the clothes inside the suitcases and showed the pictures to the girls’ families for identification. After looking at them, the families firmly insisted that the clothing absolutely did not belong to their daughters.
Upon hearing that answer, the police stopped suspecting them and directly removed Everly and Misha from the missing persons list.
After all, no one believed parents would lie about sothing like this — because under normal circumstances, if their own children had truly gone missing, there would be absolutely no reason for the parents to conceal it.
As for Everly’s fear that the items hidden inside the seat cushions might be discovered, that never happened either.
Because at the sa ti as the bus passenger disappearance case, several similar disappearance cases had also occurred in Fridt and a few nearby cities.
Altogether, the number of missing persons across these cases had reached the shocking total of one hundred people, and the circumstances were strikingly similar in every instance. All of the victims had seemingly vanished into thin air. There were no signs of struggle at the scenes, and the victims’ personal belongings had remained intact and untouched.
Police departnts across the region quickly classified the incidents as a serial case and handed the investigation over to the state police for a joint inquiry.
The problem was that staff shortages were a widespread issue in Arican governnt agencies, and even the state police did not have enough manpower to handle everything.
Overwheld and stretched thin, the state police imdiately requested assistance from the FBI. Unfortunately, the FBI was currently occupied dealing with the living-mutant incident in Gilosha and had no spare resources to focus on the disappearance cases for the ti being.
And so, the consequences of insufficient manpower beca obvious.
Even though the bus was the primary cri scene, the kidnappers apparently had not rummaged through the missing passengers’ luggage. As a result, the police conducted only a very superficial inspection of the vehicle, checking mainly the driver’s seat, the doors, and the aisle for traces of evidence. It never occurred to them to search inside the seat cushions.
Which ant that the personal belongings Everly and Misha had hidden there were most likely still inside the bus.
Hearing this, Everly’s heart stirred.
She felt that perhaps she could return to Fridt and secretly steal back the personal items belonging to herself and Misha.
For one thing, the driver’s licenses, bank cards, credit cards, SSN cards, and other docunts hidden inside the seat cushions were essential for functioning in society. Losing one of them would already be troubleso enough to replace, but if all of them were gone, the replacent process would beco extrely complicated and involve a long period of investigation and verification.
For another, leaving those things inside the bus was still a potential danger. If the FBI finished its current work and later decided to take over the Fridt disappearance case, then uncovered the items Everly had hidden, her position would imdiately beco very awkward.
However, those were not the sort of things that should be discussed over soone else’s phone.
After briefly speaking with Old John, Everly hung up, thanked the kind passerby, and returned the phone.
She now had a clear understanding of the current situation.
Since neither she nor Misha had been officially registered as “missing” in the police system, and since they were not connected to the Fridt disappearance case, there was no longer any need for the two of them to act as cautiously as before.
Everly decided that the first priority was to get so money and buy a temporary phone.
After parting ways with the helpful stranger, she and Misha found a chain secondhand shop by the roadside and sold the Nepalese kukri they had obtained from the killing-ga blind box.
The kukri is Nepal’s national blade, and depending on its material, craftsmanship, and place of origin, prices can range anywhere from a few dozen to several thousand U.S. dollars. So historically significant pieces can even sell for tens of thousands.
The kukri in Everly’s possession, although a modern-made item, was obviously no cheap mass-produced weapon at first glance.
The entire blade had been handcrafted, with a deep V-shaped groove running along its surface. The sheath was decorated with precious tals such as gold and silver, and the two small utility knives attached to the back of the sheath were both intact. The blade itself was hard and razor-sharp, sharp enough to slice through a falling strand of hair. Both the materials and the condition were excellent. If they had not been short on cash, Everly would have been reluctant to sell it.
Sure enough, the secondhand shop owner recognized quality when he saw it. Seeing the two girls dressed in ragged clothing, he initially tried to force the price down aggressively, but Misha refused to back down and stubbornly held her ground.
In the end, after an intense verbal battle, the two penniless girls finally secured their starting capital:
1,050 U.S. dollars.
Even at that price, Everly still felt they had sold it too cheaply. The crafty shop owner had realized that the two desperately needed money and deliberately offered a price that sounded acceptable while actually being far lower than the blade’s true value.
The secondhand shop not only bought weapons, but also sold all kinds of used goods.
The two of them directly spent 350 dollars inside the shop on a cheap secondhand phone, then went to a nearby convenience store to buy an unregistered SIM card.
Only after obtaining their own phone did Everly finally dare to contact Old John openly and without caution.
This ti, there was no need to hide anything. A call from Old John, who was unrelated to the case, would not be monitored.
From her grandfather’s side, Everly asked in detail about everything she needed to know, and also inford him of her and Misha’s current situation.
When Everly ntioned that she wanted to return to Fridt to retrieve the personal belongings hidden in the bus seat cushions, Old John calmly said that he could handle it.
“Coincidentally, I’m already in Fridt City. Because I was worried about you and Misha, I fooled the police and flew here. I’ve been here for several days now, and I’ve also been quietly observing the police station. I know that the bus is currently being held in the police impound lot. I can sneak in and get your things back.”
“Are you sure you can do it alone?”
“It shouldn’t be a problem. The security guards at the lot often sneak drinks on the job. The harder part is the surveillance caras there. I’ll need so ti to observe the situation before I can start acting.”
Everly thought for a mont and said, “I can handle the surveillance caras. I know a very skilled hacker. He can help us replace all the footage from the night of the operation.”
“Oh? That sounds pretty good.”
“Yes. Of course.”
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