Chapter 135: Unusual Footprints

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“There’s more?!” Chen Hao truly had no idea how to describe his feelings at that moment. This time, he had learned his lesson and simply kept his mouth shut. He decided to wait until Zhuge Taxue had finished speaking before he began complaining.

After talking for quite some time, Zhuge Taxue naturally felt thirsty. Without the slightest hesitation, she picked up the tea Chen Hao had not finished, lifted the cup to her lips, and gulped it down.

Chen Hao opened his mouth, but in the end said nothing. Since Zhuge Taxue herself did not mind, there was no point in making a fuss over it.

After finishing the tea, Zhuge Taxue wiped her mouth. “Because my adoptive mother had disappeared as well, I was frantic at the time. How could a perfectly healthy adult simply vanish without warning? I went out to look for her that very day. First, I searched the entire house, of course without finding anything.

“Then I went from door to door throughout the village, asking whether anyone had seen my adoptive mother. Unfortunately, no one in the village had. In the end, everyone realized that something was wrong. A person with impaired mobility could not possibly disappear without leaving behind even the slightest clue.

“With no other choice, I reported the news to the officer in charge of the troops who had not yet fully withdrawn from Kestall. The officer sent most of the soldiers to help with the search. They even extended their investigation to the edge of the forest.

“Finally, near the forest’s edge, they discovered some clues...”

“She went into the forest on her own?” Gu Yunhai asked in astonishment.

Zhuge Taxue shook her head. “That remains unclear even now. The soldiers merely found signs that someone had entered the forest. It had rained heavily two days earlier, leaving the soil near the forest edge soft and yielding. As a result, footprints had been left on the ground.

“Because of my adoptive father’s disappearance, everyone in the village had been explicitly forbidden from approaching the Great Forest. So during that period, it was impossible for anyone else from the village to have entered it.”

“Could those footprints have been left by the foreigners?” Chen Hao asked.

Zhuge Taxue dismissed the possibility. “Probably not. The foreigners would never enter the forest on foot. Besides, they would never use the route on the village side. They had a special passage into the forest, and normally drove in by car.

“According to the investigators from the troops, the size and depth of the footprints suggested that they were very likely my adoptive mother’s. Because of her impaired mobility, the footprints she left while walking should have been uneven, one deep and one shallow.

“And judging from the footprints on the ground, one of the pairs was very likely hers.”

Chen Hao nodded at first, then suddenly realized something. “You said one of the pairs? Does that mean there was another set of footprints?”

“Yes!” Zhuge Taxue replied. “There was indeed another pair. At the time, they discovered two different sets of footprints. The smaller pair should have belonged to my adoptive mother, while there was also another, larger pair.”

“Could your adoptive mother have been kidnapped and taken into the Great Forest?” Chen Hao asked.

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Zhuge Taxue sighed. “At first, the villagers and I thought the same thing, and we asked the investigator in charge of the case.

“But the investigator told us that it might not have happened that way. At the very least, she had definitely not been abducted by force. First, judging from the depth of the footprints, my adoptive mother should have been walking of her own accord. Besides the footprints, there were marks on the ground where a stick had been used for support. They were probably the impressions left by a thick branch or something similar that my adoptive mother had used as a cane.

“If she had been forcibly abducted or threatened, there should have been signs of a struggle. There might also have been marks from someone dragging her away. But none of those traces existed. The investigator concluded that there was a very high possibility my adoptive mother had gone into the forest willingly.

“As for the kidnapping you mentioned, Chen Hao, the investigator speculated that, even if that was what happened, it could only have been an act of luring her away. For example, someone might have deceived my adoptive mother by telling her that something in the Great Forest would interest her, persuading her to follow them there of her own free will.

“And under the circumstances at the time, the only thing in the Great Forest that could possibly have interested my adoptive mother was my missing adoptive father. Since he had disappeared in the Great Forest, it would have been perfectly natural to use that as a reason to bring her to its edge...”

After saying this, Zhuge Taxue fell silent again, sinking into deep self-reproach. “First my adoptive father went into the Great Forest and disappeared. Then my adoptive mother disappeared while trying to find him. Both incidents happened because of me. If I had not been so curious, if I had not wanted to see the villas of those legendary foreigners, none of this would have happened. It is all my fault!”

Unable to bear seeing her like this, Gu Yunhai walked over and patted her on the shoulder. “Enough, Taxue. You cannot take all the blame for this. After all, it is only natural for young people to be curious about new and unfamiliar things. If those young people had not shown off in front of you, you would never have become interested in those villas. You merely made the same choice any young person might have made.”

Gu Yunhai’s comfort did little to help. For one thing, the argument was not particularly convincing. For another, Zhuge Taxue had heard the same explanation from others countless times. She had long since grown numb to it.

At that moment, Chen Hao asked another question, perhaps intending to divert Zhuge Taxue’s attention. “By the way, you said there were two pairs of footprints, and one of them was probably your adoptive mother’s. What about the other pair? Were they compared with anyone’s? Did you find any possible match?”

Zhuge Taxue’s attention was indeed drawn away from her guilt and self-reproach. She immediately answered, “Of course. Everyone in the village, including the soldiers stationed there, was checked, but not a single person’s footprints matched those left in the mud. There were not even many people whose footprints were particularly similar. Some foreigners who often came to the village to shop and eat also cooperated with the investigation, but the result was the same. We could essentially rule out the possibility that someone from the village or the troops had accompanied my adoptive mother into the forest.”

“Did you overlook one possible candidate?” Chen Hao asked.

“You mean my adoptive father, right?” Zhuge Taxue had already guessed whom Chen Hao meant and spoke directly. “You suspect that my adoptive father might have suddenly returned, then taken my adoptive mother back to the forest for some special reason, don’t you? After all, judging from the footprints, my adoptive mother was very likely acquainted with the person beside her and trusted him deeply.”

Chen Hao did not deny it. He nodded. “Exactly. I mean your adoptive father. But since you have already guessed it, I assume you must have considered that possibility at the time and investigated it. What was the result?”

“You are right. We did compare them. We took measurements based on the size of the footprints and compared them with the shoes my adoptive father had left at home. In terms of size, they were indeed quite similar. However, judging from the depth of the footprints and the force and manner in which the feet had landed, they did not resemble my adoptive father’s.

“This person was clearly lighter than my adoptive father. In fact, he might not even have weighed as much as my adoptive mother,” Zhuge Taxue replied.

“Oh? Then does that mean the person accompanying your adoptive mother was a child?” Chen Hao guessed instinctively.

Gu Yunhai shook his head repeatedly and sighed. “Chen Hao, what exactly is going on inside your head? Just because someone weighs less, you assume they are a child?”

“Uh...” Chen Hao looked confused. “What’s wrong with that?”

“There’s plenty wrong with it!” Gu Yunhai said. “First, if the other set of footprints was roughly the same size as your adoptive father’s shoes, then this person’s height and build should also have been approximately the same as your adoptive father’s.

“Given someone of that height and build, how much could their weight really vary? They should have weighed at least about as much as your adoptive father, shouldn’t they?

“Although I have never met him, a man who has spent years doing farmwork could hardly be light. So how could someone with roughly the same height and build as your adoptive father weigh less than your adoptive mother? That makes no sense at all.

“The only possibility I can think of is that the person who accompanied your adoptive mother into the forest was not a man, but a woman. Only a woman could weigh considerably less than a man of the same build.

“But then again, your adoptive mother was also a woman, and her footprints were smaller than the other person’s. If they were both women, why would the one with the larger footprints weigh less, while the one with the smaller footprints weighed more?”

“Exactly!” Chen Hao slapped his hands together, looking utterly bewildered. “Why is that?”

Gu Yunhai did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked at Zhuge Taxue. “Taxue, did the investigator who handled the case ever analyze the situation for you?”

Zhuge Taxue nodded. “He made the same analysis you just did, but he never reached any conclusion. He became trapped in a cycle of contradictions. No matter how he reasoned it out, something failed to make sense or contradicted itself. It was the first time he had ever encountered a situation like that.

“That was also why the investigation into my adoptive parents’ disappearance never made any progress. From that day onward, I truly became an orphan...

“From what you just said, Big Guy, it sounds as though you have some idea. Have you thought of a reasonable explanation? Or have you figured out why my adoptive parents disappeared?”

Gu Yunhai gave an embarrassed laugh. “How could that be possible? You think too highly of me. So many years have passed. I have never seen the files or any evidence. I have only heard your account. How could I reach a conclusion directly?

“I may simply have figured out why those footprints were so unusual...”

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