Chapter 134: The Bizarre Disappearance

This was the first time Guo Yunhai had heard Zhuge Taxue speak about her foster parents. Whenever he had asked her about them in the past, she would always give vague, evasive answers and brush the topic aside. A deeply curious man, Guo was fascinated by Zhuge Taxue, a woman whose beauty was as bewitching as a demon’s; naturally, he was intrigued to know what kind of people could have raised such a creature.

Given his family’s connections, investigating a person’s background and the identity of their parents was a simple task. However, conducting such an investigation without her permission would have been impolite. Initially, Guo had tried asking her directly, but she never gave him a straight answer. Driven by his own curiosity, he eventually resorted to a private investigation, only to be met with both surprise and disappointment. Zhuge Taxue was an orphan, adopted by a couple who ran a tea house in Kestral. Both of them had passed away when she was in her teens.

Fortunately, life in Kestral was not overly difficult, and Zhuge Taxue was able to sustain herself through the family business. Furthermore, given her striking appearance, there was no shortage of young men in the small town who harbored secret affections for her. It was common for them to show their devotion by bringing her gifts. Yet, Zhuge Taxue never took advantage of them. If someone brought her something she didn't need, she would refuse to accept it. Even if they left items and notes at her door in secret, she would return them exactly as they were. If an offered item happened to be something she needed, she would accept it only after paying the sender its fair market value. If the person refused to take the money, she would return the item.

In this regard, Zhuge Taxue was far superior to the gold-diggers who used their beauty to mooch off others. But these were not the things that concerned Guo Yunhai. From the moment he first met her, he knew she was not the type of person who needed his protection. Even if he hadn't stepped in to save her from those thugs back then, she would have found a way out. Later, after being brought back to the tea house, he had seen her cast a few subtle glances at the surroundings, and he noticed several young men holding broomsticks and wooden clubs slip away from various hiding spots. It was easy to guess that they were her admirers, constantly watching over her safety. Had those thugs gone any further, they would likely have been met with the clubs of Zhuge Taxue’s self-appointed guard.

When Guo followed her into the tea house, she dropped her heavy backpack onto the table with a loud thud. It was indeed heavy, and as she took the items out one by one, Guo realized that his interference had been entirely unnecessary. The bag was filled with all sorts of self-defense tools—sprays, powders, projectiles, and even a small stun gun.

This only piqued his curiosity about her parents further. However, his investigation had revealed not only that she was an orphan, but that her foster parents had both vanished. What was most puzzling was that for such ordinary, simple people, their records were remarkably sparse. The report on their lives was frustratingly vague, containing only two words: "Missing." There was no date, no location, no reason, and eventually, not even a body was ever found. The report simply ended there, with no further documentation. To someone as accustomed to investigation reports as Guo, this was highly irregular. Although he had tried to inquire about it through various channels, too much time had passed, and the person responsible for the initial report had since died. He had reached a dead end.

Eventually, Guo stopped paying attention to it. Since Zhuge Taxue herself didn't seem to care, he felt that digging deeper would be meddlesome. Moreover, whenever he had probed her, he sensed that she knew at least something about their disappearance, but she refused to divulge it. Back then, they weren't close enough for him to press, and as time passed, the matter faded from his mind.

He never expected that Chen Hao’s news today would bring it all up again—and that there might be a connection. Was it true that her foster father had disappeared because he entered the Great Forest of Kestral? Chen Hao was also puzzled. What could have caused his disappearance? Was he attacked by unknown enemies, or had he discovered a secret deep in the forest and been detained by foreigners? The latter seemed unlikely; this was their own country, and no matter how powerful the outsiders were, they wouldn't dare commit such a serious crime. An attack? But hadn't those incidents ended long ago? There had been no similar reports from the many researchers working in the forest.

Judging by Zhuge Taxue’s demeanor, she likely didn't know either. She had been at home when her foster father entered the forest, and his disappearance was only discovered later.

"What about your foster mother, Taxue? What happened to her?" Guo asked. "You never would tell me before. If your father disappeared into the forest, what about her?"

"My foster mother..." Zhuge Taxue sank into her memories. "She disappeared fifteen days after my father was confirmed missing. And her disappearance was even more bizarre. At least with my father, we could pinpoint a location. With her, we couldn't even determine where she went." She shook her head. "No, that’s not right. It’s that it’s completely incomprehensible. She disappeared right here, in this tea house, in the room she shared with my father."

"What?" Chen Hao and Guo Yunhai exclaimed in unison.

"You don't understand?" Seeing their bewildered expressions, she explained, "I mean that I was certain she had gone into her room to rest that night, but the next morning, she was simply gone!"

Chen Hao and Guo exhaled in relief. "Is that it? That’s nothing! That doesn't mean she disappeared from inside the room!"

Guo added, "You said you saw her go to her room to sleep, but you can't be sure she didn't leave later. Maybe she got up in the morning and left!"

Zhuge Taxue shook her head. "Big guy, you’re oversimplifying things. There is one thing you don't know: my foster mother suffered a leg injury when she was young and relied on a cane to move. Without it, she couldn't even stand. That’s why my father worked the fields while she managed the tea house. She even needed help getting into bed because her leg couldn't support her weight. My father used to help her, and after he went missing, I took over that duty.

"On the night she disappeared, I remember clearly that after I helped her into bed, I placed her cane in the corner of the room rather than by her bedside. Regardless, she needed help to get up, so the placement didn't matter. If she needed to use the restroom, she would have called me. I had set up a bed for myself in her room for convenience, so I should have noticed any movement. But the night was quiet. I wasn't woken by a single sound. Yet, when I woke up the next morning, she wasn't in her bed. The bedding was empty and ice-cold, as if no one had slept there at all."

As she spoke, Chen Hao and Guo Yunhai looked at each other, confused.

"Don't be in such a hurry to be surprised! The stranger part is yet to come!" Zhuge Taxue waved her hand. "I don't know how she left the room. Even if her leg had suddenly healed and she left without waking me, there is one thing: the door was bolted from the inside. You’ve seen the house; it’s an old-fashioned courtyard style. The doors and windows are wood, and they don't use modern locks—just sliding bolts on the inside. If someone leaves a room, they can't bolt the door from the outside. So, how could she have bolted it from the inside after leaving? And she couldn't have gone through the window, because those were also latched from the inside."

Chen Hao and Guo Yunhai stared at each other in silence; the situation was completely beyond their comprehension.

As they sat in stunned silence, Zhuge Taxue spoke again. "And I haven't even told you the strangest part yet..."