My daily mountain driving, I met a fox at the beginning and got married

"That's it."

Fu Rong pointed to a tall tower and said, "That's the tower in your photo. It's very dilapidated, but compare them and see if they are the same."

Hao Xie took out the photo and compared it, and they were indeed the same.

The photos of the sky taken in the mountains are usually very blue, but now the sky is gray, as if covered by a layer of fog.

"There's not a single cloud in this weather."

Hao Xie's words were filled with disappointment that he couldn't hide.

"It doesn't matter if there are no clouds. We will definitely find clues here. Let's ask around, ask the elderly in the village, and see if they have seen anyone taking pictures here."

Zhang Hao comforted everyone.

As soon as he finished speaking, a hunchbacked old man came over.

"Who are you looking for?"

Turning around and seeing Fu Rong, the old man nodded.

"I have seen the Heavenly Master, but I didn't expect that he would come to our poor place."

Fu Rong didn't know him, but he was famous in the area, so he nodded slightly and signaled Zhang Hao to talk to him.

Zhang Hao stepped forward and said, "Uncle, have you always lived in this village?"

"Yeah, why are you asking? What do you do?"

"We want to ask you something." Zhang Hao said, turning around and pointing at the tower behind him. "We have a group of photos taken here in the 1990s. We want to ask if you knew about this at the time, or if you know the person who took the photos."

"Taking pictures...there were very few cameras in the 1990s." The uncle frowned and thought seriously.

Zhang Hao was not in a hurry and just stood aside looking at the photos.

After several minutes, the uncle suddenly clapped his hands.

"I remember now! In the 1990s, there was indeed a weirdo standing here!"

When he said this, everyone became excited, as if they saw hope.

The uncle continued to scratch his head, thinking seriously.

"I forgot whether it was September 3 or September 4... Anyway, the man was dressed in black and held a big camera to take pictures of the sky every day. When we asked him what he was taking pictures of, he wouldn't tell us."

"At that time, we all thought he was crazy, so we set up a tent under the tower and ate, drank, defecated and urinated next to the tent. He ate dry food and drank cold water every day. I was the village chief at that time, and I was afraid that this weirdo would cause trouble in our village, so I sent him some food."

When talking about this, the uncle talked incessantly, as if he had opened the floodgates of his memory and couldn't close it.

"That day was his last day here. He probably felt that what he was going to do was hopeless, so he told me his true purpose."

Zhang Hao and others couldn't help but take a step forward, fearing to miss any details.

"He said that if you can take pictures of two identical clouds, you can enter a place called the Tower!"

"What the hell??"

Fatty Wang finally couldn't help it and asked a question.

What is this talking about? It's the same as saying nothing!
Zhang Hao glared at Fatty Wang, telling him to stop making noise, and then continued to ask the uncle: "What tower is that? Is it the one behind you?"

"No, no, he said it was some Arctic Tower..." The uncle frowned and thought carefully.

After a long while, I suddenly slapped my thigh and remembered.

"It seems to be called the Polar Tower! I asked him who asked him to take pictures, and he said it was from the bureau, and then he ignored me. He left the next day, and I haven't seen that young man since then. I don't know if he is still taking pictures of clouds now."

At this point, a woman came over, grabbed the uncle's ear and took him away. After they walked away, she heard him say something like "Don't talk so much to strangers."

This seemed to be all the information that could be obtained.

"Just now he said that the man came to take pictures as a task assigned by the bureau? What bureau is that? Is it the Natural Bureau?"

Fatty Wang expressed his guess first, and everyone else nodded in agreement.

“That is to say, this matter is still related to Third Uncle…” Hao Xie lowered his head, his eyes were unreadable.

Now this matter seems to have reached a dead end, and everything is related to Uncle San.

My third uncle is missing now. I wanted to follow the clues to find him, but the end of the clues was still my third uncle. It's a vicious cycle, it never ends!
With a ding-dong sound, Hao Xie's phone rang. When he saw the sender of the text message, he was stunned.

"What's wrong?" Fatty Wang came over to take a look and immediately became excited. "Wow, it's a text message from your uncle! Does he know you're looking for him?"

"No, Uncle San's phone is still at home. Who used his phone?"

Hao Xie was full of doubts and clicked on the text message with a serious expression.

The message read: "Hao Xie, when you see this message, you must have found those photos. Go find a man named Sun Pingkuan, he has the answers."

This is a delayed text message, and the date it was sent was the day when Uncle San disappeared!
It seems that Wu Sansheng may have anticipated that he would have an accident, so he prepared this delayed text message in advance.

The text message contained a lot of information, which was enough to prove that Wu Sansheng was several steps ahead of Hao Xie and had planned everything perfectly.

Sun Pingkuan is the owner of the diary in prison.

Everyone fell silent. Fu Rong stood aside, not knowing what was going on. He could only wait quietly.

After several minutes of silence, Zhang Hao spoke up: "I want to know now, when Uncle San left us this message, did he expect that we had obtained Sun Pingkuan's diary?"

There is obviously no answer to this question.

Zhang Hao and Fatty Wang became more confused, but Hao Xie felt a little more at ease.

"The fact that he left this thing behind at least shows that he left voluntarily, and was not kidnapped or encountered any danger..."

Zhang Hao went on to say: "This also proves that Third Uncle is much ahead of us. He has always been ahead of us."

Hao Xie couldn’t understand. If Third Uncle had included him in the plan from the beginning, why didn’t he give him more clues?
Now that they have the clue of Sun Pingkuan, they can no longer stand still and must take the initiative to find more information.

Hao Xie used his connections and, without mentioning the Natural Resources Bureau, asked them to find a man named Sun Pingkuan who had had an interaction with his uncle in the 1990s.

This person was easy to find, and was found in less than a day.

Sun Pingkuan is in a mental hospital in a small town not far from the prison.

Was he sent to a mental hospital right after he got out of prison? Or was he mentally ill from the beginning?

With these doubts, everyone came to the mental hospital where Sun Pingkuan was.

It is called a mental hospital, but in fact it is a place where family members who are unable to send their patients to a large hospital spend two thousand yuan a month to find a place to lock up the patients and save themselves the trouble.

The walls of the courtyard were high, comparable to those of the prison, and the air was filled with an indescribable foul smell, like the smell of many people who had not showered for a long time gathered together. "Oh my God, he was in prison before, and now he is in a mental hospital? What's wrong with this guy?"

Fatty Wang stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the high wall and couldn't help complaining.

Zhang Hao was also curious, and he noticed two points from the diary.

The first point is the role of the "father" in the article. Because of his father, he does not have to go to the "prison" upstairs where the conditions are even worse.

Second, he seems to be different from the other "prisoners". He is the only one that can be found, and Uncle San knows him. Could it be that the truth of what happened back then lies with Sun Pingkuan?
"Let's go."

Hao Xie sighed deeply and walked forward with the other two.

The hospital's security guard was a thin old man who trembled every two steps. The security uniform looked like a sack on him. If something really happened, he wouldn't be able to run.

"Where are you from?" the guard asked in dialect when he saw three big men approaching.

"We're here to meet a friend," said Zhang Hao.

"Friends? Can people who live here have friends?"

The guard sneered, obviously not believing them, and moved closer to the guard room, as if ready to run away at any time.

"There is a patient's father here who has a very good relationship with my third uncle. I came here at the request of my senior, and it took me a long time to find him."

He didn't lie, he just didn't tell it all. And he did look for a long time. If it weren't for Huo Xiuxiu's help, it would be very difficult for ordinary people to find someone who had been locked up in a mental hospital from the beginning and might have been transferred frequently.

Seeing that the old man still didn't believe him, Fatty Wang took out a few red bills from his wallet and stuffed them into his pocket, saying with a big smile on his face, "Brother, we are really here to look for him. All of us are your people. There are only three of us. What are you afraid of?"

They finally stepped into the door of the mental hospital.

There really wasn't any "surprise" inside. It looked as messy from the outside as it did from the inside. If it weren't for the occasional medical staff passing through, Zhang Hao would have really doubted whether there were no living people here.

They walked in the empty yard, occasionally hearing screams and strange cries coming from nowhere.

Even someone who had seen ghosts felt a chill on his back when walking in this insane asylum.

"Why do I always feel that this place is weird?" Fatty Wang scratched his arm and walked forward muttering.

"Maybe what's in their heads is different from ours. We can't understand it. Humans are always afraid of unknown things." Zhang Hao's words made Fatty Wang laugh.

Fatty Wang patted Zhang Hao on the shoulder and said, "Why are you talking about life philosophy? Hurry up and find where Sun Pingkuan is."

"Yeah." Zhang Hao replied.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Just as they were about to walk towards the ward building, a female voice shouted from behind.

Looking back, I saw a big and strong female nurse. It was obvious that she was capable of dealing with sick patients.

At this moment, she looked at Zhang Hao and others with unfriendly eyes.

"Looking for someone?" asked the nurse.

"Yes, let's look for Sun Pingkuan." Zhang Hao replied.

"Sun Pingkuan? Are you his family members?" The nurse looked at Zhang Hao. His accent didn't sound like a local. Even local relatives rarely came here. Why did three foreign men suddenly come? Did they have any intentions?

"We are his friends." Zhang Hao saw her doubts and stepped forward and said, "My uncle and Sun Pingkuan's father are old acquaintances. We came to find him according to the agreement our fathers made many years ago to see if he needs help."

"Of course we need it!" The nurse suddenly raised her voice and pointed to the room at the back. "Since you are here, please settle his medical bills. It has been several months and no one has paid. If he continues to owe money, we will not be able to take care of him anymore!"

Owe medical bills?
Is there no one to pay Sun Pingkuan's medical expenses now? Did something happen to his family, or is there another reason?

Thinking about his uncle's recent affairs, Hao Xie felt that this matter might be related to the thing that his uncle was obsessed with.

"Okay, I'll go pay the money, you two go and ask." Fatty Wang took the wallet out of Hao Xie's pocket and followed the nurse.

“Fatty, you only know how to spend my money!” Although Hao Xie complained, he did not stop him.

If they want the nurse to let them see Sun Pingkuan, they probably have to pay the bill.

Another nurse led them to a room at the end of the second floor.

As he walked along, Zhang Hao noticed that the ward area on the first floor was equipped with railings, while the rooms on the second floor seemed to be doctors' offices and treatment rooms. The room at the end had no railings and was not locked.

"There are no protective measures here. What if he runs away?" Zhang Hao asked.

The young nurse sneered, "If only he knew how to run, we wouldn't have to keep him for months in vain. He hasn't said a word since he came here. He just sits by the window every day, looking at the sky outside. I don't know what he's looking at."

Through the small glass window on the door, Zhang Hao saw a man in a striped hospital gown with his back to the door, looking up at the sky outside the window, motionless, like a sculpture.

"What disease does he have?" Zhang Hao asked the nurse.

"I don't know. It is said that the big hospital couldn't find the cause of his illness, so they sent him here. We also tried to communicate with him, but it was useless. He ate and drank normally, as if he was not sick, but he just stared out the window and didn't talk to anyone."

After that, the nurse opened the door and said, "Don't worry about him running away, but after you go in, try not to disturb him looking out the window, otherwise he will go crazy. That's all. I'm in the office next door, call me if you need anything."

Walking into the room, Zhang Hao saw all kinds of strange patterns painted on the walls.

Triangles, circles, squares... Some of these patterns were drawn with chalk, some with gel pens, and some were red with fingerprints, which must have been drawn with fingers dipped in blood.

The two of them made some noise when they entered the room, but Sun Pingkuan didn't seem to care at all and continued to stare out the window.

Hao Xie followed his gaze and found that he was staring at the sky.

Why is it the sky again?

Zhang Hao poked Hao Xie and said, "Do you think he is looking at the clouds in the sky?"

There were so many photos of clouds in the Natural Resources Bureau before. Could this be related to those photos?
"Let's go and take a look." Hao Xie said.

After seeing Sun Pingkuan's front face, Hao Xie was really shocked.

——Is this still a human being?

His cheeks were deeply sunken, he had almost no flesh on his body, his skin was pale, he had dark circles under his eyes, and his lips were chapped with dead skin sticking out.

He stared at the sky with deep and calm eyes, as if he was waiting for something, or as if he was just looking.

Zhang Hao gently sat down next to Sun Pingkuan.

Hao Xie quickly reminded softly: "Old Zhang, be careful!"

He still remembered clearly what the nurse had said before. If Sun Pingkuan was disturbed, he might go crazy. Although they didn't know how to calm him down, it was better not to act rashly before knowing more about the situation.

Zhang Hao turned around and made a gesture to Hao Xie to keep quiet, then moved closer to Sun Pingkuan and looked at his face carefully.

His eyes were sharper than Hao Xie's and he seemed to see more things.

He realized that… there seemed to be a frenzied soul imprisoned in Sun Pingkuan’s body, struggling madly and wailing in pain in that lifeless body. (End of this chapter)