Chapter 656: New

Chapter 656: The New

Two pale fingers, stripped of their blood, lay on the table in the mediation room.

Everyone present, except Li Huowang, wore expressions of grim displeasure.

Naturally, silver handcuffs were fastened around Li Huowang's wrists.

"It was I who was kidnapped! Have you lost your minds! Why are you cuffing me!"

Li Huowang shouted at the others, suppressing his fury, but no one listened this time—except for the two guards, everyone else had gone outside.

Sun Jianye, listening to Li Huowang’s voice from outside, peered through the iron bars at the extraordinary young man before him.

He found himself most troubled by such mentally ill individuals, because not only could their words be lies, but their logic was erratic and unpredictable, rendering most interrogation techniques useless.

If the suspect provided no leads, then one had to approach the case from another angle.

He unlocked Li Huowang’s phone and quickly searched through it, then opened the contact list.

When he saw the timestamp of today’s call log, he immediately dialed the number.

"Hello? Li Huowang, why did you hang up on me just now? Oh, sorry, may I ask what happened to Li Huowang? I'm his attending physician."

"What's unusual? He did indeed call me today asking if he suffered from persecution delusion."

Upon hearing that, Sun Jianye nodded knowingly, forming an initial judgment in his mind.

After carefully questioning Yi Donglai for more details, Sun Jianye entered the mediation room and sat across from Li Huowang, asking, "Student Li, can you tell me where these two fingers came from?"

"How many times do I have to say it? They belonged to the kidnappers on the car!" Li Huowang patiently explained to the man before him.

Hearing this, Sun Jianye took out his phone and held it before him. "Really? But the surveillance footage from the residential complex doesn't show the car you mentioned, nor does it show the kidnapper you described."

"How could there be none!" Li Huowang leaned forward, staring intently at the video content.

In the upper right corner of the video, the date was clearly displayed—today's date.

In the video, Li Huowang saw himself behaving strangely, walking toward a woman with an umbrella.

Yet in the surveillance footage, there was no such woman—only himself.

As he walked further, the Li Huowang in the video suddenly stopped, as if pulling at something invisible, staggering into a blind spot in the surveillance area.

"This is impossible! This absolutely cannot be true! I definitely saw them, definitely felt them! It couldn’t possibly be fake."

Hearing this, Sun Jianye leaned back in his chair with a headache. “Could it be that those things were all hallucinations?”

"Do you even know my medical records! First, I’ve been discharged! I’m cured! Second, there are many types of mental illness! The symptoms I had before are completely different from this!" Li Huowang suddenly stood up from his seat.

The two police officers flanking him, trying to avoid provoking Li Huowang, gently placed their hands on his shoulders, coaxing him back down.

"Student Li, you’re certainly not crazy—I know that—but we police work based on evidence. The surveillance clearly shows no kidnapper like you described. That’s a fact, isn’t it?"

"Then maybe, the surveillance video was tampered with!"

At this, Li Huowang froze, as if remembering something, his eyes filled with shock.

"From when you called the police to when we retrieved the surveillance, that’s too short a time frame. It’s impossible. How about this—so as to prevent those bandits from targeting you again, how about you stay at our station for a few days? We’ll protect you."

"Wait! You want proof, right? What about these two fingers? They’re proof! And..."

At this point, Li Huowang removed his blood-stained shirt. "There’s their blood on this—it can be tested for DNA! Find them!"

Li Huowang was certain—those kidnappers were real, not figments of his imagination. Someone truly wanted to harm him!

No matter which faction they came from, he was now caught in some kind of danger. His life was in peril at any moment.

Since they’d struck once, they would surely strike again. If there was a first, there would be a second.

Those people had spent so much effort watching over him before—they wouldn’t give up easily.

At this moment, Li Huowang’s heart was beginning to race—not from the mysterious figures appearing out of nowhere, but because the strange words that Qian Fu had spoken earlier seemed to be coming true.

"Who are they?"

"Aliens from the Lion constellation! Their technology is advanced! They can monitor easily! I didn’t put a needle in your food—it was them! They’re trying to sow discord!"

———

The wheels of the carriage rolled slowly over the dry yellow grass. Yang Xiaohai held a whip, gazing at the endless prairie around him.

He hesitated slightly, taking out the Qingqiu map he had bought. His youthful face carried a hint of uncertainty. "Should I go this way? Am I going in the right direction?"

Although he had a map, the entire Qingqiu region was covered in grass with no landmarks to guide him. Yang Xiaohai wasn’t sure whether he was heading correctly.

Just then, he noticed a tall hill rising from afar.

From a distance, the hill, wrapped in dry yellow grass, looked like a yellow steamed bun.

These things occasionally emerged from the grass, and Yang Xiaohai had seen many of them over the past few days.

But this one had a particularly distinctive shape, which is why he remembered it so well.

"When I came here with Senior Brother Li, I think I saw this thing before. Shouldn’t we be close to Sun Baolu’s house now?"

As he said this, the sight of a convertible in the distance made Yang Xiaohai excited.

"Go! Go faster!" He whipped the horse rapidly, urging the horses to gallop.

Inside the tent on the grassland, people with dark, lean skin moved back and forth, but among them were also some fair-skinned individuals—Sun Baolu among them.

Seeing it was Yang Xiaohai, Sun Baolu, who hadn’t seen him in a long time, became excited.

They hadn’t met since that day, and never expected to see each other again.

"Brother Baolu! Gao Zhijian has become emperor! Gouwa is married and has children! Senior Brother Li’s illness is cured!"

Yang Xiaohai excitedly reported the recent good news to him.

As Sun Baolu asked detailed questions, Yang Xiaohai recounted everything that had happened after leaving Qingqiu.

"Yes? Everyone is doing so well, that’s wonderful," Sun Baolu sincerely rejoiced for his companions, simply because they were once brothers-in-arms.

"Oh, by the way, Xiaohai, what brings you to Qingqiu?"

"Gao Zhijian helped me find my parents. They're from the post-Shu region—the Tandian people. I want to meet them," Yang Xiaohai revealed his purpose.

"Post-Shu?!" Upon hearing this, Sun Baolu’s expression turned tense, and he quickly grabbed him by the arm.

"No, you must not go! Post-Shu is currently at war with the newly risen Yuer Kingdom. It’s said to be a fierce battle. Going to Post-Shu now is like walking straight to your death!"