Chapter 50 - Clues
Chapter 50 Clues
After calming down his second uncle’s family, he told them to wait for news at the Chen family’s house.
Chen Yiming left alone.
He first headed to Xu Yuanzhao’s house to find out where his cousin had gone for his job that night.
Xu Yuanzhao was a member of another city patrol team. He had worked in the same village as Chen Yiming’s team on several occasions, so they were considered close.
Soon, he found out that the location of the incident was a village on the east side of the city called Ma Village.
Ma Village was nearly 15 kilometers away from the city center. It was not truly considered a village in the city.
Then, he returned to the city center and paid a huge sum of money to hire a private detective to go along with him to investigate the location of the incident.
In Ma village, which was a small village near the fringes of the city wall, there were no street lamps in the area. It was pitch black and one could only rely on the moonlight to see the road.
The dense forest was in the distance, and there were patches of lush vegetation nearby. It was like a scene from a farming village, without the slightest hint of a city.
At the fork in the road leading to Ma Village, a middle-aged man carrying a bag was accompanied by a well-proportioned young man in tight-fitting clothes.
The two of them stood side by side and observed the nearby Ma Village.
For some reason, there was no sound coming from the village, not even the barking of dogs. It was too quiet.
“There have been too many cases of people mysteriously disappearing from villages in the city recently. Generally, they have remained unsolved,” Deng Hu said.
“What happened?” Chen Yiming asked.
The Chen family no longer lived in the village in the city, and he had not taken on the job of checking the household register for a long time, so he did not know anything about the current situation.
“They even dared to make a move on a city patrol team. To be so brazen, the ones behind it are probably not ordinary,” Deng Hu explained.
Chen Yiming turned serious when he heard Deng Hu’s words.
When he was at the level of three transformations, he had been able to fight against Tang Zhenfeng, who had undergone five transformations, although he had taken advantage of the fact that his opponent was injured.
His swordsmanship talent had increased by another level. He had even created a style of swordsmanship that was more suitable for him than the Mantis Snake Sword Technique.
He had also reached the level of the sixth transformation. Coupled with the basic physique for swordsmanship that he had yet to figure out, no matter how he looked at it, he should be stronger than those at the level of eight transformations.
As for how he would compare himself to someone who had undergone nine transformations, it was something that he had never encountered before so it was difficult to guess.
One who had undergone eight transformations would already be considered a powerhouse in East Lake City.
Therefore, he wasn’t worried about his safety when he headed to the village for an investigation.
“Why don’t we do this? If you can find any clues, I’ll add another 100,000 yuan to the reward,” Chen Yiming suggested.
If he did not use some money to tempt him, he was afraid that Deng Hu would back off the moment they encountered any trouble instead of investigating further. “Master Chen, you’re so frank. For this additional 100,000 yuan, I have to find out everything about this person tonight and give you a satisfactory explanation,” Deng Hu accepted it gladly.
With that, he walked towards Ma Village.
Chen Yiming nodded and followed suit.
Deng Hu and Chen Yiming didn’t enter the village from the entrance. Instead, they walked for half the distance and reached the grasslands.
There were many cornfields in the grasslands, and the tall corn stalks could block the line of sight and conceal their movements.
At the side of the village, by the wall of a house,
Deng Hu leaped over the wall and landed lightly on the ground.
Chen Yiming followed closely behind.
At that moment, the village was silent. Every household’s light was turned off, and it was impossible to tell if anyone was in from a distance.
“Don’t make any sound even if you have any questions later. I’m going to start,” Deng Hu instructed.
With that, Deng Hu fell to the ground.
After a few seconds, his nose suddenly became visibly bigger.
“Is this the legendary Dog Snout Technique?” Chen Yiming thought to himself.
The Dog Snout Technique was naturally a martial arts technique that specialized in tempering the nose, making one’s nose as sensitive as a dog’s.
Deng Hu sniffed around in the direction of the village.
Then, he crawled to the third floor of a house and looked down at the village.
The door and windows of this house were already broken, and it was obvious that no one lived there. Deng Hu was not afraid of alarming the villagers.
After making preparations, Deng Hu returned quickly. “Follow me and don’t make a sound,” Deng Hu whispered.
The two of them went along one after another to look for clues in the village.
Soon, Deng Hu led Chen Yiming over the wall into the courtyard of a house.
“This is the first place that may hold a clue since there is the smell of blood,” Deng Hu said.
Chen Yiming surveyed the courtyard and found nothing out of place. Deng Hu laid down again and walked around the courtyard before stopping at a corner.
He took out a shovel from his bag.
He quickly dug through the mud.
The items were quickly unearthed by Deng Hu. Two long knives, two long swords, an axe, a pistol, and some torn pieces of clothing.
“A pistol?” Chen Yiming asked quietly.
This was the first time he had come into contact with firearms outside of the army since he had transmigrated.
“It should belong to the team’s captain. If you are interested, you can keep it,” Deng Hu whispered.
“Forget it. I was just a little surprised that something would happen to them even though they had a firearm,” Chen Yiming replied. “It’s not that strange. In an environment like the village where there are obstacles everywhere, a pistol might not be better than a traditional weapon,” Deng Hu explained.
Chen Yiming nodded.
Martial arts practitioners had extraordinary movement speed and reaction speed.
With many obstacles nearby, dodging bullets would indeed not be difficult.
“Let’s go straight to the next place,” said Deng Hu.
Deng Hu led Chen Yiming to two other locations where something must have occurred.
Using the same method, he dug out the items from the team in the mud.
“My initial judgment is that they should still be alive.”
Deng Hu squatted by the hole in the mud and looked at the items he had dug out.
Chen Yiming nodded. He thought so too.
“What should we do now?” Chen Yiming asked again.
They knew that the team was still alive, but they did not know where they were being held.
“Let’s take a look around the village,” Deng Hu decided.
The two of them left the village quietly and searched the surrounding grassland for clues.
Deng Hu’s judgment was very accurate.
It did not take long for the two of them to find traces of human footsteps. “They are no longer in the village. They have been brought to another place.”
Deng Hu squatted down in front of a cornfield that had a track cutting through it. He squatted down and examined it carefully.
Chen Yiming looked at the cornfield in front of him as his thoughts drifted away.
As long as they were still alive, he would have a way to save them.
The current him was no longer the person he was half a year ago, the person who needed to consider things carefully even if he was making a sneak attack.
vas
Now, he was considering which identity to use to rescue the team.
Should he save them openly or in secret?
After he reached the sixth transformation, he had already planned to find an opportunity to reveal the strength of the third transformation.
This was because he discovered that those below the third transformation were categorized as those who had just started on the path of martial arts and were at the foundation stage. The disputes of the martial arts world rarely involved people at this level.
Only those who had undergone at least three transformations were qualified to participate openly, and those who had undergone at least six transformations were the main characters in many disputes.