Everyone present in the living room, including Dongfang Zhengyi, raised their heads. They gazed at Yingyue's face. The girl seemed absolutely sure of what she had just said.
"Is she the woman you saw in the car yesterday?" With super serious faces, their dage stared at the girl. Evidently, he was trying to emphasize it was really what the girl meant.
"Right. This is the woman I saw here in the car!" The girl's tone of voice was full of confidence.
Zhengyi clasped his hands together. For a moment, he closed his eyes.
If those two things were related to each other, this was definitely not one of Songfei's mystery games. But is it true that these two things were related?
Zhengyi opened his eyes. He shook his head. "But, there's something odd."
"Yes, Yige is right! They shouldn't even be too similar," said Yiren.
Yingyue looked at Yiren and Zhengyi. Apparently, she did not understand the direction of the conversation between the two Shanquan friends.
Shanquan smiled. "Let me explain." He looked straight at the girl. "This photo is an old photo. So the people in this photo should be old by now. While the woman you saw yesterday is the same age as the woman in this photo. So it seems unlikely that they are the same person."
Yingyue was stunned to hear Shanquan's words. "That's right. Usually, I'm always aware of things like that. Somehow this time, I didn't even think about such a simple thing."
"It okay." Shanquan's voice was very soft. "You think so much about it, so there were some details you forgot. That kind of reaction is spontaneous. So it's only natural."
The girl nodded slowly. It was clear that she still had doubts.
"Of course, there is always the possibility that this photo is actually a new photo, which, because of certain techniques, can look like an old photo," said Shanquan.
"Or maybe the woman you saw yesterday is actually old. He looks young because he underwent health therapy that can rejuvenate the skin. Or maybe he has had plastic surgery," said Yixiong.
"But..." Yingyue muttered. "I know they may not be the same person. But the woman in this photo really does look like the woman from yesterday."
From the tone of her voice and the look on her face, Zhengyi judged that the girl still believed that the woman she saw yesterday was identical to the person in the photo. Maybe, at this time, the girl was confused, so it was only natural that her thoughts and feelings were going in the opposite direction.
"It is possible that the two of them are very similar. It's not impossible that there are two people who are exactly the same in this world." Shanquan patted Yingyue's shoulder. He might have been just comforting the girl.
"Has Dage ever seen two people who were exactly the same even though they weren't related by blood?" Yiren asked.
"Yeah, roughly so. I recently met someone who physically looked exactly the same as someone I knew more than twenty years ago. Not only her face but also her skin color, body shape, even the way she walked." Shanquan said with a face as if he was remembering something. "In any case, we can't rule out the notion that the kidnapping incident has something to do with what Songfei is currently dealing with. We can use this incident as a clue."
Zhengyi noticed Shanquan was frowning in such a way that he looked older than usual. Their dage was racking his brains.
Zhengyi raised his right hand. "Perhaps we should go to the Dafeisi Tower to find any other clues Songfei might have in store. It could be that he didn't realize he was keeping something important. These notebooks, photographs and maps are not enough for us to start our investigation."
"After all, the location shown on this map is most likely not far from the Dafeisi Tower," Yixiong said.
"When Songfei called me yesterday, he seemed to be hiding. I mean, he really doesn't have the freedom to go anywhere. So if he stays in hiding, I don't think anything bad will happen to him in the near future," said Shanquan.
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"What if those thugs find his hiding place?" Yixiong asked.
"About that matter." Shanquan stopped talking for a while. "We can only hope that the thugs won't find Songfei so quickly." After looking around him, he continued his speech. "Tomorrow morning, we go to the Dafeisi Tower to see if there are any other clues scattered in the unit that Songfei rented. Things I might not have noticed yesterday."
Everyone presented there agreed with Shanquan's decision.
About ten minutes later, Xinxiu returned with a water hose. The hose, which was about thirty meters long, was dark blue. About nine months ago, Shanquan bought it at a shop not far from their house. It was a replacement for the old water hose. As far as Zhengyi remembered, the old hose was not lost or damaged. Someone borrowed it and forgot to return it. The person who borrowed the hose was their neighbor who lived across the street. The borrower said he would immediately return the hose. However, after one week, he had not returned it. Zhengyi visited him to ask for their hose. However, it turned out that the person who lived across the street was not the same person who had borrowed it a week earlier. The house's occupant said that he had just moved into the house two days before. He had rented it from the house owner, who lived a few kilometers away. When Zhengyi contacted the landlord to inquire about the previous tenants, the landlord explained that the former tenants had been in arrears for several months, so he had no other choice but to kick them out. The house owner was also angry because it turned out that the arrears had just left the house and brought some of the owner's belongings. Responding to this, as usual, Shanquan only said that luckily the only thing he took away from them was a water hose, not other more important or expensive items.
They were still gathered in the living room when Xinxiu accompanied Yingyue to the backyard to water the plants. Zhengyi didn't know why everyone was silent. They said nothing. Zhengyi looked at his friends one by one. They all seemed to contemplate.
"Because we have nothing else to do today. Shouldn't we move some of our belongings into the lockers at the station?" Zhengyi broke the silence.
Yiren turned to him. He nods. "Yige is right. Tomorrow we all have to go to Dafeisi Tower. So today we better move some things."
"We can do two things tomorrow. In the morning, we will take our things to the locker. After that, take the train to Dafeisi Tower," said Yixiong.
"That's not what I meant," said Zhengyi. "Now we take things there. Tomorrow we also do the same thing. So, in these two days, we moved more stuff there!"
Shanquan then joined in the conversation. "That's right. We have to move things whenever we get the chance. We have little time left. I don't want it if it turns out there's still a lot of stuff that we haven't had time to get there on our last day in this house."
"Okay then. Now Zhengyi and I will go to the station," said Yiren.
"No," said Shanquan. "Zhengyi and Xinxiu better go there."
Yiren looked at Shanquan. He raised his palms as a sign of asking for an explanation.
"Zhengyi is the biggest one among us. Xinxiu is the youngest. They are both more powerful than me, you or Yixiong. I want more stuff that we can move to the station this time. We have two big backpacks. put our things in there. For the time being, we'll just put them in Zhengyi's locker."
"Okay," said Yiren.
Zhengyi wasn't sure that Shanquan's explanation satisfied Yiren. But because Yiren chose to obey Shanquan, Zhengyi was relieved.
I hope something trivial like this won't become a big problem in the future.
Just then, Xinxiu, who had just returned from the backyard, put his ass on the sofa in the living room. He had to get up again as soon as Shanquan told him of the decision they had just made. Zhengyi asked him to prepare the things they would move to a locker at the mall in the subway station.
Dongfang Zhengyi was four years younger than Yixiong. Apart from being the tallest person among them, his body weight was the heaviest. He also held the other "most" titles in their group. Among them were the most cheerful nature, darkest skin tone, the least hair on the head, had the most things, and liked to exercise the most.
Zhengyi met Shanquan twelve years ago. At that time, there was a former student of Shanquan who was writing a book. He contacted many people to become sources in the book he wrote. Shanquan and Zhengyi were two of the interviewees who were consulted on the book's writing. Shanquan was consulted in his capacity as a historian, while Zhengyi was an expert in ancient languages and scripts. They met at the book launch event. The author of the book invited all speakers to attend the event. On that occasion, Zhengyi and Shanquan engaged in an exciting conversation. Apart from the fact that both of them share an interest in ancient history, it was also because their ancestors happened to be aboard the same colony ship during the great migration from the old world to the new world.
Zhengyi and Shanquan didn't live in the same city, so they rarely saw each other after that. Communication between them occurs through letters. More letters from Zhengyi to Shanquan than Shanquan letters to Zhengyi because Shanquan was an indolent person to write letters. So Zhengyi was surprised when Shanquan wrote him a very long letter two years ago. In the letter, Shanquan told of his intention to travel the world.
At that moment, Zhengyi thought it was a crazy idea. Maybe this was the so-called midlife crisis. But after it turned out that Shanquan was not joking and actually carried out his intentions, Zhengyi then evaluated his own life. He agreed that the search for identity was not only for teenagers. Adults like him have the right to do that too. So he decided to try the same thing.
Eighteen months ago, Zhengyi started his journey. Then four months later he met Shanquan in a small beautiful town located on a mountainside. Then, thirteen months ago, together, Shanquan arrived in this city. After that, together with some other Shanquan friends, Zhengyi and Shanquan settled in this city.