Chapter 165

The serial killer had been lying low ever since Captain Yan brought Su Jianan and her colleagues to this small town. The results of the previous autopsies had been unsatisfactory with lots of missing information. When Su Jianan arrived much later, the circumstances no longer allowed for further autopsies to be conducted despite Su Jianan’s demands.

Now that the killer had struck again today, Su Jianan thought it was the best opportunity for her to uncover important evidence.

She immersed herself in the autopsy. She could not even remember the fact that she was now all alone in a barren mountain, let alone notice the darkening and overcast sky above her head.

When a strong gust of wind blew all her tools away and huge raindrops began to fall, Su Jianan finally glanced above her head. Only then did she see the heavy clouds hanging low in the horizon, ready to fall off the sky onto the ground.

“Oh crap!” she thought.

From the looks of it, a thunderstorm was about to hit the entire mountain.

Panicking, Su Jianan quickly packed her things so that she could start making her way down the mountain. But she had barely taken a few steps when she heard a thunderous “kaboom” beside her ear. A bolt of lightning streaked before her eyes across the sky like a sharp blade. It was as if the bolt was trying to slice the entire mountain in half.

“Ah!”

Su Jianan cried out instinctively, crouching down to the ground, hugging her trembling body.

Just then, the rain became heavier and the wind picked up speed; a barrage of raindrops assaulted her skin, and the ensuing pain felt very much like a bunch of whips lashing her skin.

Su Jianan fumbled a plastic raincoat from her bag and then put it on. The raincoat did not help much at all. Raindrops bombarded her face to the point where she could barely keep her eyes open. Rainwater trailed down her neck and flowed into her body, bringing chilly sensations to her skin.

That was not even the worst part.

The worst part was the complicated mountain roads. Although she would be able to recognize the right trail to get off the mountain, she had no idea which direction would take her downhill.

Glancing around in the white fog, she saw the protrusions and dips of the mountain ranges as well as the endless expanse of lush greeneries. Dressed only in jeans and a white T-Shirt, Su Jianan stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the mountain; she became an outlier, small and alone.

Then again, that was not entirely the case, considering the dead body of the female victim not far behind her.

Su Jianan turned around and glanced at the body; a girl in her youth, probably about seventeen or eighteen years old, lay there stiffly in a white dress.

Su Jianan felt a sudden coldness. Following that was a seemingly bottomless fear.

Here she was, all alone in such a huge mountain, with only a corpse as company.

Run. That was the only thought occupying her mind right then. She did not want to linger here for a second longer. She had to get off this mountain. She wanted to go home.

Su Jianan placed all her belongings under a tree, taking only a bottle of water with her. After that, she decided to take a chance on her hazy memory as well as her intuition to search for the trail that would lead her off the mountain.

She knew she could not remain where she was, because nobody would come find her if she did. Captain Yan and the entire squad had gone out to perform their duties, and it was uncertain when they would make it back. Even if they did return and realized that she was still on the mountain, it was not necessarily possible for them to come looking for her considering the worsening weather conditions.

That was why finding her own way down was the wisest option.

The heavy rain poured down from the sky vigorously. A deluge of rainwater streamed along the narrow, shoulder width pathway. The ground became even more slippery than it already was, making the pathway much harder to tread along. Water kept trailing down her neck and under her clothes, making Su Jianan’s jeans and white T-shirt cling tightly to her body. The state of her clothes rendered every step she took even more difficult.

She made her way downhill using the little trees along the path for support, though she would still slip on occasions due to her shoes’ lack of anti-slip properties.

Whenever she slipped, she did not bother to stop and check her wound, nor did she bother to cry out in pain. Instead, she would get back up and continue her journey downhill.

The rain became heavier and heavier just as the gale became stronger. If she could not get off the mountain before the typhoon hit… She dared not imagine how she was supposed to weather out a frigging typhoon while being on top of this mountain.

She continued her journey, keeping her head low. Her drenched clothes brought chills all over her body, yet she somehow felt a sudden rush of heat welling up in her eyes.

For reasons unknown to her, she suddenly found herself missing Lu Boyan like crazy.

How nice it would be if Lu Boyan was beside her right now! With him here, she would not be this scared, nor would she be this clueless.

The only problem was that he was still in City A, which was about three thousand kilometers away from her. They might not even have anything to do with each other in the future. She could never hope for him to show up whenever she was in danger.

“Kaboom-”

All of a sudden, the booming roar of thunder sounded once again. A bolt of lightning lit up the sky.

From the barren mountain, the sound of thunder seemed deeper and louder, rendering it an even more terrifying phenomenon than it already was. Every flash of lightning felt as if it had occurred before Su Jianan’s very eyes. In the first place, Su Jianan was already someone who was terrified of thunder. Now, the present circumstances had intensified the terror in her heart by countless times.

She instinctively withdrew the hand from the tree that she had been using to support herself. She crouched down in fear and then curled up her body into a tiny lump.

She had heard about this type of posture being a sign of self-preservation and self-defense.

A slight tremor shook her body. In the end, she failed to contain her tears, though she did not know if she was actually crying due to the fact that her tears were mixing with the raindrops on her cheeks. To be honest, she did not even want to know.

She had to get off the mountain first if she wanted to go home.

Steeling her resolve, she forced herself back to her feet and kept moving.

She stopped for a break without an inkling on how much distance she had covered. It was then that she suddenly realized something; she did not recognize her surroundings at all. Everything seemed completely unfamiliar.

At the start of her journey downhill, she was sure that she had taken the path that she had used when climbed up the mountain. But she had clearly taken a wrong turn along the way.

In an instant, Su Jianan went into a daze. She stood there in the middle of the rain, feeling more helpless than ever.

To make things worse, the typhoon had chosen that moment to hit. Due to the fact that Su Jianan was not holding on to anything, her slender body keeled over as a gust of wind assaulted her. She ended up losing her footing and sliding down the pathway.

“Ah!”

She could only cry out when she realized what was happening.

Her body rolled past weeds, a bunch of thorny vines, and then past the young shoots of trees. Pain of varying intensities spread all over her body. For all she knew, it might have been due to broken bones, bumps, or just the pelting of the rain against her body…

Su Jianan could not identify the source of her pain. All she knew was that she was in pain. She wanted to grab onto something in order to stop her fall. Reaching out helplessly, her hands only managed to grab a bunch of weeds, which ended up cutting into the skin of her palms. In the end, the weeds were uprooted as she tumbled downwards further.

Through her pain, she thought of Lu Boyan.

Oh, how she regretted everything!

She regretted her own sulking, which had caused her to lie to Lu Boyan about having feelings for Jiang Shaokai. If she were to die today, she would forever lose the chance to tell Lu Boyan who she really loved.

No! She would not allow their story to end like this!

The will to live surged in Su Jianan’s mind. Reaching out again, she managed to grab hold of a vine about as thick as a child’s wrist. Still, she was unable to stop her fall; she rolled further down, taking the whole vine with her. In the end, she felt her head crashing hard into something. Something was jabbing into her waist, too. She could not move a muscle.

Pain. Her entire body was in pain, right down to every inch of her bones. Raindrops battered her face and neck. Her vision was starting to blur. Even her pain was starting to turn into a distant sensation…

Her eyes fell close just as Lu Boyan’s face popped into her mind. Shortly, even her consciousness was starting to slip as her thoughts slowly lost clarity.

At that moment, Su Jianan thought that this was how her life would end.

She had imagined her own death before, though she never expected it to come this early in her life. She still had not told Lu Boyan that she lo-

No! She would not give up like this!

Somehow, Su Jianan summoned up another surge of strength which allowed her to open her eyes. She checked out her surroundings and saw that there was a small cave about five meters to her left. She would at least be sheltered from rain if she hid inside it.

She was unable to stand up, so her only option was to crawl her way across with everything she got. Her waist and legs were killing her, and her head was so heavy that it did not even feel like her own. After crawling for God knows how long, she made it into the humid cave where she curled herself up. Finally, her body was free from the raindrops’ assault.

But crawling towards the cave had exhausted her strength, so she finally conked out and lose consciousness.

At the same time, a second gust of strong wind swept across the area as the lightning and thunder became even more terrifying. The strong wind brought the rain into the cave. Drops of rainwater fell upon her face and body, though she did not feel a thing; perhaps she was just unable to feel it.

Su Jianan had woken up a few times after that. Amidst her haze, all she could hear was the howling of the wind and the patter of the rain. She saw bursts of lightning before her eyes and felt the damp coldness in her body. She could not see Lu Boyan, nor could she see any hope for survival.

Perhaps this really was the end of her life. Perhaps this was where a period would be added to the sentence of her life.

The storm gradually diminished as the afternoon crept by. At the same time, the sky was darkening as well.

According to the weather forecast, there would be another thunderstorm tonight. If they failed to find Su Jianan before nightfall, she would no doubt be in grave danger tonight.

The police station had sent out all the youngsters in town who were familiar with the mountain’s geography, thus increasing the size of the search party by more than ten members. Still, to locate a person in a barren mountain was akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. The search effort dragged on until 5 pm in the evening, and yet they had yet to find a single lead.

Lu Boyan’s high-performance flashlight left no stone unturned and no corner unsearched. Despite his calm exterior, deep down, Lu Boyan was overwhelmed with anguish.

He could live with the loss of anything, even Lu Enterprises. But he could not lose Su Jianan. She was the one thing in his life that he could not bear to lose.

For the past decade, he had taken Su Jianan into account in every single decision he had made. In fact, the reason he had risked exposing himself by setting up the headquarters of his company in City A was precisely that he knew that she would return to the country after her graduation.

Whatever that he had strived to achieve, or whatever that he had decided to give up, they were all because of Su Jianan.

He had so many things he had yet to say to her. He would not lose her today no matter what.

“We didn’t find anything over here.” The walkie-talkie crackled with Wang Yang’s voice. “Captain Long and his team got nothing either. The same goes for the search and rescue choppers. I’m worried that… Sir, what if sister-in-law ran into the serial killer?”

Lu Boyan had heard about the killer’s vicious modus operandi. If Su Jianan was unlucky enough to run into him…

“Call in all men stationed near A City.” Lu Boyan’s order bore no room for arguments. “Ask them to get here as fast as possible!” He would find Su Jianan before sundown even if he had to flip over this goddamn mountain.

“Yes, sir!”

While Wang Yang carried out the order, Lu Boyan increased his pace.

The rain was gradually subsiding, so Lu Boyan decided to remove the offending raincoat he was wearing. He dialed the flashlight’s intensity up a notch and kept looking. Still, he failed to find any traces of Su Jianan. All he could discern were the shouts and yells of other members of the search and rescue team as well as the light beams emerging from their flashlights.

Unless he was mistaken, he would reach the corpse’s location if he walked further up. If Su Jianan decided to leave after she noticed the weather, this would be the starting point of her journey downhill.

Just then, Wang Yang had reached the same spot as well. When Wang Yang saw the girl dressed in white lying not far away from where he stood, he gasped and nearly fell over.

“This mountain is scary enough without the storm,” Wang Yang said, his voice practically trembling. “I can’t believe sister-in-law had stayed here alone for the autopsy. Her bravery is commendable.”

Lu Boyan ignored the comment and began making his way downhill.