Chapter 440 - Padded Floor (1/2)

Chapter 440 - Padded Floor

TL: LifeisaJourney

“Okay, so I found information regarding Wan'er. The girlfriend of the couple said Wan'er was searching for the restroom. Wan'er was pointed in that direction,” Star Yu reported quickly.

“Okay, then we should maintain traveling in that direction to see if we can find anymore new clues!” Liu Gan nodded. The four of them were now a team, and they headed in the direction pointed out by the girlfriend. The new path led them out of the forest.

Following the path, it led them to a playground area of small eco-friendly equipment. Most of the playground equipment was constructed from recycled plastics, and the padding on the ground was interlocked with different colors and shapes.

Liu Gan warned others to be aware of their surroundings before letting them wander off to look for clues. They were looking for the symbol of a public restroom. As of now, their only clue was that Wan'er should be heading to the restroom.

After a short period of searching, Liu Gan found the symbol for the public restroom on an eroded metal pole. The white paint for the arrowhead was peeling off, but even if it was faint, it was still possible to distinguish the direction.

Liu Gan led the three people to where the arrowhead was pointing. After leaving the padded playground, the path headed north, covered now in moss and weeds. By now, it was hard to figure out what the original path had looked like. They only knew which way to go because of the rows of trees on both sides that served as guidance. The weeds in between the trees atop the buried concrete path were relatively shorter than the weeds growing by the tree.

These weeds are resilient to the cold, and it didn’t require much sunlight. The sunlight rarely reached the weeds, so most of them had dried up. Only a small portion of the weeds were still struggling to survive and there were no signs of new plants growing. It seemed the weeds wouldn’t survive much longer.

At the end of the path lay the public restroom. Liu Gan led the way with the other three tailing behind. While walking, they were looking for any clues about Wan’er along the route. When they reached the end of the path, they found a well-camouflaged restroom.

The public restroom wasn’t eye-catching. The walls were covered in all types of vines and moss. Perhaps, it is due to the lack of sunlight in the area, that benefited the growth of moss over plants.

Walking up to the restroom door, it was hard to tell which side was for male or female at first glance. The task of searching inside the female restroom was assigned to Ana. If it was performed by any other gender, that would be immoral.

“Wan'er! Wan'er!” Ana shouted as she propped open the restroom door. No response so she was forced to check every stall. A slight push was enough to make stall doors come crashing down.

After every stall was checked out, Ana was able to confirm that Wan'er wasn’t there. There were no traces of Wan'er having been there at all.

When Ana was done searching through the women’s restroom, Liu Gan had also finished with his search through the men’s restroom, just in case the young girl had mistaken the symbol for men with women, due to urgency.

Where could the problem have stemmed from? Could there be more than one public restroom? The whole way there, it felt as if this was the closest public restroom to the swinging chairs. If Wan'er had asked for directions from anyone, they would all point her to this restroom.

So what went wrong? Was she given wrong information by a third party? If so, then they had to find the third party and get more information.

Returning empty-handed, Liu Gan and the other three people returned along the path they came from. They went all the way back to the recycled playground for children. They hadn’t searched the area when they walked by, so now they took the time to search through the nearby deteriorated buildings. Just like before, their search was fruitless. They couldn’t find any new NPC.

Where could this young girl be? Once again they had to return to square one! What a depressing day...