"Brother Lin truly has a pair of perceptive eyes."
"Didn’t you see it too? And here you are, buttering me up."
Lin Yi stretched out both hands and messed up the carefully tied ponytail, earning an eye roll from her.
Tang Shu finally understood, the more time she spent with him, the more she realised the Best Actor everyone talked about, and his online persona did not match; he seemed to be a refined gentleman on the surface, but in actuality, he was someone with dark humor and a mean streak.
This was the umpteenth time her hair had been ruffled; she had no idea why this bad habit of his existed.
The shuttle bus was driven by Captain Cheng at the speed of a sports car, racing down the treacherous mountain roads; what should have been a five-mile trip was covered in a mere ten minutes.
When everyone got off the shuttle bus, they saw three men and four women in front of them—it was the others from the group photo, except for Lin Yucheng, who was missing.
"Everyone, this is our search and rescue team’s third unit, and this is Captain Cheng. If you have any questions, you can speak to him."
"Alright, alright, Captain Cheng, hello, please make sure to find Yucheng. She was not in a good mood just now and left while crying!"
"Why was she crying? Did you all have an argument? Does the missing person have suicidal tendencies?"
With his notebook in hand, Captain Cheng began to jot down notes while methodically asking questions, his face expressionless as if nothing could shake his composure.
"Suicide? Impossible! Yucheng is very cheerful. Even if we had an argument, she wouldn’t consider suicide!"
"So, you did have an argument?"
The boyfriend was about to speak again when a girl in a white shirt, clearly impatient, interrupted.
"Captain Cheng, right? Your job is just to find the missing tourist; you don’t need to know all this, do you? You think you’re a cop or something, asking all these detailed questions, what are you, checking household registration?"
Captain Cheng’s note-taking paused as he looked up at the girl without saying a word.
It was just a look, but she visibly shrank back, retreating a step the next instant.
"What are you looking at, am I wrong?"
"Ma’am, everything you’re saying is related to our ability to analyze the location and destination of the missing person. Please tell the truth. Or... do you not want us to find her?"
"What nonsense are you talking about?!"
The woman immediately panicked, her eyes filled with confusion and anger, "What do you mean by that? Are you trying to shift the blame onto us because you can’t find her? Is this the attitude of your scenic area?!"
The man beside her held her back and it took quite some time to calm her down.
Tang Shu and Lin Yi exchanged glances, both seeing deep thought and interest in each other’s eyes.
Captain Cheng closed his notebook, "Is there anything else you want to say?"
The group looked at each other, and only a shorter man with a youthful face seemed to want to say something, but after hesitating for a long time, he ended up remaining silent.
"Alright then, you may go to the nearby rest area to wait for news."
"Everyone, we’ll conduct a grid search. We must find the missing person as quickly as possible. Tang Shu and Roger will form one group, responsible for Area A; Lin Yi and Owen will form another group, responsible for Area B..."
In a minute, Captain Cheng had effectively assigned tasks to everyone. Each person held a map of Xiaolin Peak and headed towards their designated area.
Tang Shu and Roger were at the back and closest to Area A. As everyone scattered and Roger was about to follow the arrow on the map, he was stopped.