Chapter 54: Magical Girls Don’t Need to Take the Mountain Path

In the cloud backup of the dashcam footage, Ke Xin made a discovery and immediately called over Investigator Guan, who was still tinkering with some equipment beside the vehicle.

“Investigator Guan, I think you’d better take a look at this.”

“What is it?”

Hearing Ke Xin’s call, Investigator Guan quickly came over. The technician scrubbed the video back a few minutes.

At first, the vehicle was driving normally along a mountain road. It was a sparsely populated area, with only two lanes—one in each direction. Beyond the guardrail on the left was a stream running through the valley, though the road itself didn’t seem particularly dangerous.

After all, the car wasn’t going fast. According to the vehicle data synchronized in the video, even on the straightest parts of the road, the speed never exceeded sixty kilometers per hour. The driver was clearly being cautious.

“I remember this section of road—but it should be in the opposite direction from here.” Investigator Guan compared the footage with the car’s GPS records. The straight-line distance wasn’t far, but since this was a mountainous area, getting from there to here would require detouring through the nearest county town, which—even at top speed—would take several hours.

And yet, none of the nearby surveillance cameras had caught any sign of the vehicle passing by.

The video continued playing. Inside the car, the two occupants were chatting casually—nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Since there wasn’t much of interest in that segment, the technician pulled up a case file on the screen.

“Section Chief Guan, we got the information from the car rental company about who rented the vehicle. Comparing it with the biological samples found inside, we’ve confirmed the driver’s identity: Zhang Xuyang, an employee at a biopharmaceutical company in Muzhou City. He graduated from university two years ago and has worked at the company ever since. Stable employment, no criminal record.”

The technician began reporting Zhang’s background in detail—even down to incidents from his elementary school days.

“What about the other person in the car?”

Investigator Guan interrupted him, steering the conversation elsewhere.

Despite her young age, Guan was actually the Section Chief of the Second Field Operations Division under the Special Investigation Department of Muzhou’s Special Search Bureau. As for the rest of her division—practically all of them were already on-site.

“The rental company has no record of a second person, but based on Zhang’s spending history, we can infer that his companion was his girlfriend. The two had planned to stay at the Juyunjian Guesthouse in Yunqi Village for five days, starting the first day of their vacation.”

Another tech from the intelligence division marked the related locations on a map. The village lay further ahead along the same road—and at its very end.

“Yunqi Village… that’s at the foot of Mount Yunqi, isn’t it?” Investigator Guan said, as if thinking aloud, her gaze slowly drifting toward Ke Xin.

“I don’t know. I’ve never paid attention to stuff like that.”

After all, these mountains didn’t look much different from those near her hometown—ordinary peaks she’d long grown tired of seeing. A quick search showed that Mount Yunqi was just a regular mountain, a bit over a thousand meters tall. Back where Ke Xin came from, there were several peaks of that height—not exactly impressive.

The only notable difference was that this area was much closer to Muzhou City—no more than a four-hour drive along the highway.

“Pull up all available data on Yunqi Village,” Guan instructed. “Don’t overlook a single detail.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Though they weren’t from the same department, the Special Investigation Department had higher authority during active operations. The Intelligence Division’s role was to provide support anyway.

Besides, Investigator Guan was quite popular within the Bureau.

Ke Xin didn’t notice any of that. Her expression grew tense as Guan issued her orders—because the crucial part of the footage was about to begin.

“Skip ahead a bit,” Ke Xin said.

The technician fast-forwarded about twenty minutes. The scenery sped past until a large roadside sign appeared, reading Yunqi Village.

In these mountains, most villages were built along valleys, and Yunqi Village was no exception. The first thing visible upon entering was a small creek flowing down from the deep mountains. The flat land on both sides—rare in these parts—had long been developed into farmland.

It was hard to tell from the footage what exactly was planted there, but Ke Xin guessed it was probably corn—almost ready for harvest.

“There’s no one in the village?”

Investigator Guan noticed something odd. For a village known for tourism, Yunqi Village looked far too quiet. There were no tourists, not even the usual groups of elderly villagers chatting at the entrance.

The driver, Zhang, seemed to notice too. He pulled into the parking area at the village entrance, where a few other cars were parked—but again, not a soul in sight.

Before long, someone appeared, walking toward the parking lot. Then more and more people emerged from the village, stepping straight over the carefully tended flowerbeds, heading directly toward the camera.

Zhang told his girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat, to stay in the car while he went to ask what was going on.

He got out and walked ahead, waving to the approaching crowd.

That’s when it happened—the people, who had been moving slowly, suddenly exploded into motion, sprinting toward him with the speed of Olympic runners.

The sudden change caught Zhang completely off guard. As he turned to run back to the car, the frenzied crowd reached him. They pounced like a pack of starving wolves.

In moments, Zhang disappeared beneath the mass of bodies. His screams pierced through the car windows. His girlfriend, panicking, seemed about to get out—but she too was targeted. More people swarmed around the vehicle, pounding at it wildly with hands and feet.

Civilian cars were never meant to withstand that kind of assault. The windshield soon shattered under the relentless blows, and the dashcam connection cut out—the image froze, leaving only the audio.

“That’s enough.”

Investigator Guan removed her headset. Even with her experience handling numerous bizarre cases, she couldn’t keep listening. Her lips tightened, her brows knit. Her mind raced, processing what she’d just seen.

“Investigator Guan, what’s our next move? Should we launch a raid on the area?” Judging by what they’d seen, the behavior of those people fit perfectly with the characteristics of a “Corpse Mother” case.

Anyone killed by the Corpse Mother would become a puppet under its control—literally a walking corpse. And the infection was contagious: those bitten by its thralls often turned as well.

That’s why some small countries didn’t hesitate to conduct military strikes in such situations. Left unchecked, it could escalate into a massive catastrophe, leaving no time to distinguish victims from the infected.

“We can’t rush in just yet,” Guan said firmly. “You need thorough preparation to deal with something like a Corpse Mother. But we must lock down the area immediately—no one else goes in.”

Ke Xin thought that was reasonable. Before any direct engagement, reconnaissance was essential.

At that moment, Qi Si walked over. She glanced toward the direction they had come from, a hint of confusion in her voice. “Sister Mengyao, have you noticed there are fewer police officers around?”

“That’s normal. The Bureau probably coordinated with the local police. Keeping too many officers here would just waste manpower,” Guan replied, looking toward the cordoned-off area. Sure enough, there were far fewer people now—only the Special Search Bureau’s own agents remained.

From the look of things earlier, Ke Xin was convinced that Deputy Director Chen had only come here to cause trouble.

“I don’t think that’s it,” Qi Si said quietly. “I overheard them saying they were heading to some village for field investigation.”

“What village?”

“Something with ‘Yun’ in it…” Qi Si tried to recall, but couldn’t remember the exact name.

That was enough to set off Guan’s alarm bells. She immediately looked at Ke Xin, who shook her head. The two technicians also confirmed that none of this information had been reported yet.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Ke Xin said quickly.

She had even put up a sound barrier while they talked—no one outside could have overheard.

“Then how—” Guan’s phone buzzed. A new message had arrived from the Bureau’s Intelligence Division: “Police officers report sighting the missing persons from this case in Yunqi Village.”

That made no sense at all.

Ke Xin was baffled. The investigation details hadn’t even been released to the media, and there were no civilians who could’ve provided clues. How could there be officers in Yunqi Village already?

Worse still, Deputy Director Chen was reportedly leading a team there right now.

“That old fool never learns… We’ll have to get there first and stop them.”

In the mountains, the winding roads added countless kilometers to any trip—but if you could fly, you could take the shortest path.

And that just happened to be something magical girls could do.