Chapter 75.1

Shen Shian took Shen Xun and searched all the places where Liu Fangzhou’s smell remained in the hotel. But nothing was found.

Obviously, he could smell Liu Fangzhou’s scent in the hotel, but he seemed to have evaporated out of thin air without a trace.

When they were searching, they found out that there were many places that were heavily guarded in the hotel. Not only were there cameras that covered all blind spots, there were also people taking turns to guard, including the fifth floor on the top floor.

Because there was no Liu Fangzhou’s scent in these places, Shen Shian noted down the locations in his mind and left to not alert the enemy.

Returning to the suite on the fourth floor, Tao Yuan and Chen Nan also failed to find new clues.

Chen Nan remembered something, “Brother Shen, didn’t we also have missing persons when we were in the tobacco factory? At that time, we speculated that someone with an ability that could “evaporate” themselves and others into gas, will it be the same this time?”

Otherwise, in a room with the doors and windows locked, how did a living person disappear?

Shen Shian, “Fangzhou’s disappearance must be related to abilities, but it should not be exactly the same as the situation in the tobacco factory.” After the ability user in the tobacco factory used his ability, not only did they disappear, their scent was also gone, so Shen Xun, Shen Shian, and Liu Fangzhou couldn’t find them. The reason why Shen Shian was able to win against Zhou Jianghai was that the power of the ability copied by Zhou Jianghai was reduced, and secondly, he completely relied on the five senses that had been strengthened several times with his cultivation so he could perceive small fluctuations in the air.

“Do you remember what we did after entering the hotel yesterday?”

Chen Nan immediately recalled, “First, we walked into the hotel door, stood at the counter for ten minutes, then went through the lobby and took the elevator to enter the suite, then we went to the restaurant on the second floor for dinner, and finally returned to the suite.”

“There are two elevators, a and b,” Shen Shian said, “We always use elevator a. If what you said is what we did and Fangzhou has been with us from beginning to end, his scent should only be in the routes that you said. But Xun Xun could smell Fangzhou’s scent in elevator b, the bar lounge inside the lobby, and the hot spring sauna.”

Chen Nan understood, “So the ability user who kidnapped Fangzhou has no way to hide his scent. This should be good news for us?”

Shen Shian nodded, “At present, I’m certain that Fangzhou is still within the hotel area, but we don’t know what method the other party used so we can’t find him yet. At the same time, we can be sure of another point. Fangzhou should not be in danger for the time being.”

Tao Yuan agreed, “If they really wanted to kill him, they wouldn’t take him around in the hotel. They could kill him easily while I and Chen Nan were in a coma.”

Chen Nan’s anxiety calmed down a little, “Then what shall we do next?”

“Wait.” Shen Shian said, “I still don’t understand what the other party is kidnapping Fangzhou for, and what they will do next. The best thing to do for now is to collect information as secretly as possible, and at the same time, wait.”

He glanced at the blue sky that was already appearing through the window. He took out various foods from the space and piled them on the coffee table. “Everyone should take some time to rest and replenish their strength. There are important tasks after dawn.”

Manager Yang said that after dawn, the residents of Noah’s Ark would be mobilized to help find Fangzhou together. This was a good time for them to investigate the base.

Yang Xueqiu said that he wanted to mobilize the residents to find people, but he did not expect him to really mobilize most of the residents of the base. After the sun rose, the entire county town echoed the shouts of “Fangzhou, where are you?”

With the “Welcome to Noah’s Ark!” interspersed to the newcomers, it was really a spectacle.

Chen Nan was very angry: “The cat weeps for the dead mouse{n1}, the people are obviously hidden in the hotel. In this way, the purpose of them mobilizing these residents is to divert attention.”

Note1: Fake cry, crocodile tears.

Tao Yuan said, “Leave them alone, the greater their momentum, the better for us.”

Taking advantage of the opportunity to follow the residents pretending to find Fangzhou everywhere, the four of them had already visited the entire allowed area in the base.

Because they accidentally discovered cameras hidden on both sides of the street last night, they paid special attention to the various hidden corners where cameras could be installed.

Some things are like a face hidden behind a crack in the door. If you don’t find it, you won’t care. Once you find it, you’ll be horrified in an instant:

Not only were there cameras installed on the four main roads where the ability users lived, there were more cameras in the areas of ordinary survivors. One could be found every few steps, and it almost reached a point of full monitoring.

Chen Nan couldn’t help feeling cold in his hands and feet: What kind of life is going on in this so-called Noah’s Ark in the apocalypse?

But on second thought, this might be a good thing for them:

First, such high-intensity monitoring showed that the people in the base were uneven. Regardless of the purpose or theme of this place, there must be opposition among residents.

Secondly, it could be confirmed that there were no ability users like “thousand miles ear” in the base. Otherwise, it would not be necessary to have so many cameras. After the virus outbreak, there were zombies everywhere. Just collecting so many cameras might cost them a lot of time and effort.

The longer the day, the stronger the sun and the more unbearable the scorching temperature. Shen Xun didn’t sleep at all last night. At this time, he was napping in Shen Shian’s arms. Probably because of his cultivation, Shen Shian carried a very comfortable and refreshing coolness on his body. The dog spirit slept comfortably and hugged his neck. In a daze, he took a bite and licked his neck a few times, muttering, “Big watermelon…”

“En,” Shen Shian replied, and patted his back while carefully observing something. “Remember, I’ll give it to you later.”

The shouts of the surrounding residents looking for Fangzhou had dropped as the temperature got higher, and some people began to return to their houses.

Chen Nan and Tao Yuan leaned over, “Shall we go back to the hotel?” The search operation was about to end, and they had already mastered the general structure and topographic map of the county.

Shen Shian didn’t speak and let the group of residents go back to their houses. Then he walked under a camphor tree.

Here is a blind spot for the monitoring.

“Have you found something?” He whispered, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What?”

“The number is wrong.”

Tao Yuan and Chen Nan looked at each other, and couldn’t understand the meaning of this sentence for a while.

“Before we entered the base, Fangzhou said that there are more than 5,400 people in the base.”

“Yes.” They still remember this.

“We went around the county town four times this morning, and the total number of people we met was only about 4,000.”

“Maybe someone stayed at home and didn’t come out?”

“I counted it,” Shen Shian said, “I also included the guests and staff in the hotel.”

His five senses could hear the sound of breathing and heartbeat in a range of about two hundred meters accurately. This ability, which is purely evolved by **{n2}, was affected by buildings or other barriers, but unless the barrier was a few meters thick, the effect would only be slightly limited.

Note2: It’s like that in the raws.

“With all the people who did not come out of their houses counted, the total number is about 4,000. There should be only 200 or less differences.”

With the scorching sun, Chen Nan and Tao Yuan shuddered together: So, where are the nearly 1,500 people?

Shen Shian had a hunch: If they find the whereabouts of the more than a thousand people, they can find Liu Fangzhou.

The key was how to find it.

He patted the child on the back and whispered, “It’s time to ask someone who knows the truth.”

Golden Phoenix Hotel is committed to meeting all the needs of our guests.

Leaving aside the fact that this hotel made people disappear every night, this slogan was not all lies. At the very least, not long after Shen Shian put forward the request for “special service”, the woman who stuffed him with a note in the restaurant last night appeared at the door of the suite.

After letting her in and asking her to sit on the sofa, Shen Shian was straightforward. “By asking us to save you, do you mean taking you out of the base?”

The girl was stunned for a second before reacting, “There is my sister, my sister is in their hands. If I don’t obey, they will kill her. Please save my sister!”

“I don’t guarantee that I can do it,” Shen Shian looked at her with a gleam in his dark eyes. “But I promise that I will do my best. The condition is that you can’t lie to us, and you must tell everything you know about this.”

The woman’s eyes were red, she bit her lip and nodded vigorously.

Chen Nan poured her a glass of water, “Don’t be afraid, speak slowly from the beginning.”

The woman held the glass of water and quickly sorted her thoughts. “My name is Xu Ge, and my sister’s name is Xu Yao. Our family are all residents of the county town. Before the apocalypse, we opened a restaurant in the North District. Both my parents became zombies because of the flu, and only my sister and I were left in the family. Other local families were also in the same situation.”

“Our county is not big, and almost all of our economy is supported by the hot spring tourism industry. There were particularly many tourists during the peak season of autumn and winter. But there were fewer people since April because of the flu virus. The surviving more than two thousand people united together, and it took only half a month to clean up the zombies in the inner city, and blocking the county with fences and barbed wires. Everything was fine, although we were still a little bitter, everyone was supporting each other, but no one thought that a group of ability users would suddenly appear.”

“There were a lot of them, about five or six hundred. They have various abilities and are very powerful. They captured all the original inhabitants and said that to build Noah’s Ark, they needed us to evolve our abilities for them to be willing to accept us. Only those who have abilities and are willing to accept the captain’s rule can get on the ship and survive the apocalypse and become the seeds of the new world.”

“What about ordinary people?” Chen Nan couldn’t help asking.

“Ordinary people can also board the boat, but they can only exist as ‘livestock’, they have to unconditionally provide all services, and are committed to satisfying all the needs of the ability users.” Xu Ge lowered her head and stared at the cup. Probably remembering something, her voice was gloomy. “There were a total of 13 people with abilities among the original inhabitants. Three of them were killed by them because of resistance, six agreed to join, and the remaining four disappeared inexplicably. We are forced to become slaves driven by them at will, taking on all the labor work in the base; some are unwilling to give in but they have other family members, such as my sister and me. The family members will become hostages to force us to obey their orders; the other people who were neither willing to give in nor had anything to be threatened by, they were all hung on the wall by them and starved to death.”

“F*ck!” Chen Nan gritted his teeth, and blue veins appeared on his forehead.

Tao Yuan’s baby face was frowning, and he subconsciously placed his hand on the handle of his gun.

Shen Shian’s eyes were deep, and after Xu Ge took a sip of water, he asked, “Do you know who the captain is?”

Xu Ge shook her head, “I only saw him from a distance on the night they occupied the county. I didn’t see what he looked like and I never saw him come out. The affairs of the base are usually handled by the chief officer, Manager Yang of the hotel is in charge.”

“You said that the four people with abilities who were unwilling to submit are missing. Do you know their whereabouts?”

“I know this. They are locked up with my sister. This is what my sister told me: All the original residents who were taken as hostages and the people missing in the base are all locked in one place.” Not waiting for Chen Nan and others to ask, with a smile on her face, Xu Ge continued, “But I’m not sure where they are locked up. In order for ordinary people like me to be obedient, we could see our family once a week to confirm that they are still alive. But we must cover our head with a cloth bag before meeting, and we can take it off only when we reach the place.”

Shen Shian asked, “Did you walk there? Do you have any impression of the route? Do you remember the characteristics of the place where they are locked?”

Xu Ge nodded and shook her head, “It’s walking, but it’s like going around many places back and forth. It feels like we were always turning in circles. I tried to write down the route, but I can’t remember it at all. There was nothing special about the confinement place. The space was large, but the area I’ve seen was limited. The cell door was surrounded by vines created by the ability users, and I can’t see any other places. Oh, right, The cell should be underground.”

Shen Shian’s mind flashed, “Underground?”