I am a super cop

Chapter 2906: Guide Lao Zhang
Gu Chen saw that the female receptionist knew Zhao Wenli, so he quickly asked, "Did Zhuang Qing say anything more about this hiking partner?"

"Uh..." After hesitating for a while, the female receptionist said slowly:
"She seemed to have said that this person was someone she had just met. Of course, every time she went out to play, she would meet some new friends, and Zhuang Qing liked to add friends everywhere."

"As for what she said? I don't think she said anything. She just said that this was her companion for this trip, that's all. Besides, I didn't ask any more questions."

"Did she have any unusual reactions a few days before she left? Did she have any unusual behaviors?"

"It seems that this is not available." said the female receptionist.

"Okay, thank you." Seeing that the female receptionist couldn't find many clues, Lu Weiwei and Gu Chen went into the bar to ask other staff.

After all, Zhuang Qing works here, so the staff here all have more or less their own insights and opinions about her.

But after asking around, Gu Chen and Lu Weiwei could only find very few clues.

Back in the car, Lu Weiwei fastened her seat belt and took a deep breath, "Why do I feel like there's something very wrong with Zhuang Qing?"

"From her past experience, she should have made an appointment with Zhao Wenli alone this time, but it's hard to say whether she will make an appointment with other people."

"If you want to know the situation, you need to investigate Zhuang Qing further," said Gu Chen.

Lu Weiwei sighed: "Didn't you hear what the female receptionist said? This Zhuang Qing seems to have a complicated social circle."

"It seems like she's always dating different men under the guise of making friends. This kind of chaotic relationship is not good."

"Yeah." Gu Chen nodded slightly, started the car directly, and expressed his opinion while driving:

"As it stands, if we don't conduct on-site investigations, it may be difficult to get new clues."

"Including the road that Zhuang Qing and Zhao Wenli walked, how many people have come into contact with them?"

"The two girls were walking on the hiking route with heavy gear. Would they have met other hikers? Would they have walked other routes together? This needs to be verified."

"It's actually very difficult to do anything with the clues we have now."

"Yeah." After hearing what Gu Chen said, Lu Weiwei couldn't help but say:

"Then after we return, we will immediately form a team to go to Wufeng Mountain and cooperate with their search and rescue team to investigate this missing case."

After a brief communication in the car, the two drove directly to Furong Branch.

After returning to the office, Gu Chen also reminded Officer Wang and Yuan Shasha that everyone should pack up their things and then gather at the door of the police dormitory.

Afterwards, Gu Chen drove everyone directly to the Wufeng Mountain Scenic Area.

Since Zhao Wenli's mother, who called the police, had already gone to Wufeng Mountain Scenic Area in advance, Gu Chen and his friends planned to meet her there.

After 3 and a half hours of high-speed driving, Gu Chen finally drove the car to the Wufeng Mountain Scenic Area.

However, since this place is some distance from the entrance of the Wufeng Mountain hiking route, Gu Chen decided to go to the scenic area management office first to find Lao Zhang to verify the situation.

Especially now the situation of the search and rescue team is very important.

The vehicle slowly drove into the compound of the management office. After Gu Chen parked the car, a tall and thin middle-aged man immediately walked out of the office.

Seeing Gu Chen and his companions coming out, the middle-aged man quickly introduced himself: "Director Gu, I'm Lao Zhang."

"Lao Zhang, we have communicated on the phone several times." Gu Chen also responded quickly.

Afterwards, Gu Chen introduced his colleagues to Lao Zhang one by one.

Then Zhao Wenli's mother came over from behind and quickly greeted Gu Chen: "Officer Gu."

"Hello, have you arrived?" Gu Chen said.

"Yes." Zhao Wenli's mother sighed and said slowly: "I have to come here. I want to know the whereabouts of my daughter every moment now."

"Her disappearance has made my husband extremely worried."

"By the way, is your wife working in another place?" Officer Wang asked quickly.

"Yes." Zhao Wenli's mother quickly responded: "My husband works at a port abroad and usually only comes back once a year."

"This time when I heard that my daughter was missing, I was extremely anxious, so I was asked to keep an eye on this place."

"If there is any news, be sure to tell him immediately. I am responding to the progress of the search every moment now."

"How's the progress?" Lu Weiwei glanced at Lao Zhang.

Old Zhang sighed and said helplessly: "So far, we have only found Zhao Wenli's bag. There is nothing else in it except a camera and some daily necessities."

"What about the search and rescue team?" Yuan Shasha asked quickly.

Lao Zhang continued to explain: "Our search and rescue team is divided into two teams, one team enters from the hiking entrance, and the other team enters from the trail to the waterfall."

"Currently, only the search and rescue team that entered through the waterfall trail has found the bag. As for the others, there are no clues yet."

"Can you take us to the mountains?" Gu Chen said quickly after hearing this.

"You mean, you want to go into the mountains?" Old Zhang was stunned and asked hurriedly.

Gu Chen nodded silently and said, "We need to go into the mountains and need a guide."

"Well, how about I go up the mountain with you? I am familiar with the situation here. I have lived here since I was a child." Lao Zhang hesitated for a moment before offering to be a guide.

Gu Chen thought for a moment and asked hurriedly, "Do you have the stamina to keep up?"

"No problem." Lao Zhang patted his chest and said with a smile:
"I have good physical strength. I often climbed mountains when I was young, and I still climb mountains now. It's no problem."

"That's good." Seeing that Lao Zhang was willing to be everyone's guide, Gu Chen quickly asked, "What do we need to bring? We have all prepared our own luggage for climbing the mountain. Except for the tent, we have brought everything we need."

"Well, I'll go clean up as well. My office and dormitory are right here. Please wait for me for a moment."

Seeing that Gu Chen and the others were ready, Lao Zhang left a word and started to turn back.

Soon, Lao Zhang came out of his dormitory, carrying a mountaineering bag, and said to everyone:

"Everything is ready. We can set off. I'll take you to find the search and rescue team."

"Okay, thank you." Gu Chen said gratefully.

Seeing this, Zhao Wenli's mother also hurriedly thanked him and said, "Thank you, Lao Zhang. Thank you so much."

"Of course, of course. Time is running out. Let's set off now."

Also at Lao Zhang's request, everyone immediately got in the car and drove towards the waterfall path according to Lao Zhang's instructions.

To get to the waterfall path from the Wufeng Mountain Scenic Area, it takes nearly an hour and a half of driving through the mountains to reach the destination.

The final parking location is the village at the foot of the mountain.

The mountain roads here are very narrow, and two lanes in both directions are already very difficult to pass, and the slightly wider areas are the private plots of the villagers.

Lao Zhang asked Gu Chen to park the car on a wasteland. After getting off the car, he communicated with the villager and then explained to Gu Chen: "This is their land. Their car will not come here recently. It's okay for us to park here."

After a pause, Lao Zhang pointed to another parked car and said:
"That car over there is the rescue team's. Their car is also parked here."

"Yeah." Hearing Lao Zhang's words, Gu Chen just nodded silently, and then asked:

"Old Zhang, help me find out who has seen Zhao Wenli and Zhuang Qing."

"Okay, sure." Seeing Gu Chen say this, Lao Zhang also began to communicate with the owner of the house in the local dialect.

After some negotiation, Lao Zhang quickly said, "She had seen it. She said that Zhao Wenli and Zhuang Qing had shared a car to get here."

"Then we took a short break and went straight up the mountain. Both of us were carrying very heavy backpacks."

"Were there any other people around them at that time?" Gu Chen asked again.

The old lady shook her head and said, "No, it's not the peak season for hiking now. The grass in the mountains is not green yet."

“So there aren’t many people coming here to hike now, and they come sporadically.”

"When they came here, there were only two of them, and this is not a true hiking entrance because the hiking entrance requires walking over there, paying a sanitation fee, and registering."

"As for those going this way, we are not blocking them at the moment because there are not many people going this way, so we are not stopping them and charging them."

"But if more and more people come here to hike into the mountains, we will consider charging a sanitation fee. After all, there is already a lot of garbage on the road that needs to be cleaned up."

"So that's how it is." After listening to the explanation of the owner of the house, Gu Chen nodded silently. After saying thank you, he let Lao Zhang follow everyone into the mountains.

After everyone used the toilet at the owner's house, they started walking into the mountains.

As soon as we entered the woods, the cell phone signal quickly became intermittent.

But soon, everyone could hear the sound of a waterfall.

Lao Zhang quickly said, "The waterfall you saw on the Internet is right here. The waterfall here is quite big. Especially recently there has been a lot of rainfall in the mountains, so the water in the waterfall is also very big."

"It seems like someone is nearby." At this time, Gu Chen had already heard the sound of talking.

Lao Zhang smiled and said, "He must have come here to hike."

Everyone was chatting and laughing as they started walking towards the waterfall.

Soon, everyone saw a group of hikers with backpacks, checking in and taking photos at the bottom of the waterfall.

It looked like they came as a team, seven people in total, four men and three women.

So Gu Chen took the initiative to walk over and talk to everyone: "Excuse me, are you coming down from the mountain or preparing to go up the mountain?"

"We came down from the mountain," said a young man.

"Have you seen these two people?" Gu Chen quickly showed the photos of Zhao Wenli and Zhuang Qing.

The young man narrowed his eyes and shook his head: "I haven't seen it."

"So how many days will you be in the mountains?" Lu Weiwei also hurried over and asked.

"It's been three days. We came here from the scenic area, stayed in the mountains for a few days, and played for a few days." said a young woman at the foot of the waterfall.

"Okay, thank you." I saw that the few people had just come here for hiking in the past few days, and they had never seen these two people.

Gu Chen could only say thank you, then let Lao Zhang lead the way, and everyone continued walking into the mountains.

After passing the waterfall, we arrived deep into the mountains.

At this moment, everyone clearly felt a chill, and there were bamboo forests all around.

The road also began to become rugged.

Lao Zhang led the way and said with a wry smile: "The roads here are not easy to walk on. They are all pristine dirt roads, and much more difficult to walk on than the hiking entrance."

"Usually it's an inn in the mountains that needs to transport supplies, and taking this mountain road will shorten the journey a lot."

"So, the horse caravans would use mules to carry supplies and go up from here."

"That's because there are so many animal feces here." Lu Weiwei was already a little disgusted with the feces here.

Lao Zhang smiled slightly: "It's okay, just don't step on it. Next, we will keep climbing. Today we may need to climb more than a thousand meters quickly, which will be a bit tiring."

"No problem." Lu Weiwei sighed and said slowly, "Can I stay at the inn in the mountains?"

"Well, it should be possible, but it also depends on luck." While climbing with a trekking pole, Lao Zhang continued to explain:
“Because it’s not the peak season for hiking, there won’t be many supplies along the way.”

"And many of those inns will close, but of course, some will remain open."

"Whether we can find the inn depends on luck."

"But we can pass two inn camps before dark."

"That's good." Upon hearing this, Yuan Shasha also sighed and said:

"Just a place to stay at night."

In this way, everyone walked and stopped, and walked tiredly on this steep mountain road.

As the sky gradually darkened, we finally reached the ridge.

At this moment, a strong wind blew from the ridgeline, and everyone became unstable for a moment.

The weather began to become complicated, the clouds were blown away by the strong wind, and soon everyone could see the spectacular scene of the sea of ​​clouds on the ridgeline.

"Look, it's a sea of ​​clouds. We are lucky." Lao Zhang, as everyone's guide, quickly reminded everyone.

But at this time everyone was looking for Zhao Wenli and Zhuang Qing, and had no time to pay attention to these beautiful scenery.

Gu Chen also took a step forward and continued to ask: "Lao Zhang, can you help contact the search and rescue team?"

"Okay." Seeing Gu Chen say this, Lao Zhang picked up his phone and started looking for a cell phone signal.

After a moment, Lao Zhang pointed to one of the locations and said, "Let's go over there. There is a signal tower over there, which is also the camping site."

"We can try over there."

"Okay." Seeing what Lao Zhang said, Gu Chen also agreed.

Because Gu Chen had walked this ridge before, he knew that there was a large open area ahead with many inns.

Many people hike here to restock supplies.

……