Chapter 19 Hotel Investigation
Chapter 19: Restaurant Investigation
One month's time, for Zhou Ming, was neither long nor short.
Since there was no similarity between the special missing persons and the ordinary missing persons, the reason must be hidden among the witnesses.
The law of large numbers tells us that any seemingly random phenomenon, if scaled up to a certain quantity, will inevitably yield a probability.
Similarly, as long as he could know all the recent actions of the witnesses, he could find the reason why they saw the missing persons.
If there truly was a certain action that could trigger the strange phenomenon of missing persons being seen, then by overlapping and filtering all action intelligence, the unique answer could be found.
...
For the next three days, Zhou Ming acted entirely according to his plan, conducting a brief investigation of the entire town.
Although he encountered some uncooperative people during this period, under Zhou Ming's "friendly" communication, everyone expressed understanding and, afterwards, actively cooperated with Zhou Ming to complete the investigation.
Ultimately, he obtained a list of residents who could see the special missing persons.
Interestingly, the witness-to-missing person correspondence on this list showed a peculiar phenomenon.
Zhou Ming discovered that witnesses could not see all the special missing persons; they could only see a portion of them.
Even more interesting was that in many families, all family members could see a particular special missing person, and this phenomenon was very common, with dozens of households in the town experiencing this situation where the entire family could see a certain missing person.
Zhou Ming believed this was the most valuable pattern intelligence he had obtained so far.
There must be a reason why a family was more likely to see a particular special missing person together.
Zhou Ming guessed that this strange ability could be transmitted through some channel, but what kind of transmission behavior made family members more susceptible to infection than strangers?
Could it be the time spent together?
Generally, family members spend more time together than others, so this reason could be valid, but...
Zhou Ming picked up the data, quickly scanned the date information, and shook his head, ruling out this guess.
If time spent together was the decisive factor, then the number of witnesses for the first special missing person should far exceed that of other special missing persons.
But in fact, the number of witnesses for special persons had no pattern, so time spent together could not be the cause of the sightings.
"What else can a family do together? Hmm... During the day, they work, and spouses are separated, but a family of three sleeps together, and often eats breakfast and dinner together," Zhou Ming muttered to himself.
Suddenly, Zhou Ming's expression changed slightly, and a flash of inspiration passed through his mind.
He reconsidered the conjecture he had previously dismissed.
"Is it food?"
...
Catering was one of Senma Town's biggest businesses.
After all, the wandering outsiders passing through were the foundation of the town's commerce, so it was not surprising that there were more restaurants here.
The days right after graduating from school coincided with the beginning of summer, and the high temperatures in the wasteland made people feel stuffy and dizzy. The airless restaurants were even more sweltering, and the dining customers felt as if they were in an oven, each like they were in a sauna.
The few wobbly electric fans in the restaurant did nothing to cool it down, and the only heat-relief tool for diners was ice-cold beer.
Zhou Ming found it quite strange that there was ice-cold beer in a place without air conditioning.
Zhou Ming, wearing a mask, walked into the restaurant. Wanderers and local residents glanced at him with slight surprise, then continued their conversations and meals.
From their reactions, it was clear that masked Hidden Ones were a very common sight in the wasteland.
Zhou Ming looked around, walked through the tables, and went directly into the busy back kitchen.
The chef in the back kitchen was shirtless, flipping a wok and sweating profusely. He controlled two stoves, working simultaneously on two dishes, extremely busy.
But his flustered appearance proved that he was not capable of simultaneously preparing two dishes.
The chef was startled when he saw Zhou Ming walk in, immediately gave a look to the apprentice assisting him, and the apprentice walked towards a small room at the end of the kitchen.
The temperature in the cooking kitchen was even higher than outside. Zhou Ming loosened his collar, walked through the employees, and headed straight for the small room at the end.
No one stopped him along the way; everyone politely made way and went about their own business.
Such convenient treatment must have been due to the prestige accumulated by countless Hidden Ones predecessors wandering the wasteland through violence and unethical means. Although Zhou Ming did not approve of his predecessors' violent methods, the semi-cooperative attitude displayed by these people made him feel quite good.
As Zhou Ming reached the door of the small room, the door opened automatically, and a stout man in a vest squeezed out of the narrow gap, his movements surprisingly agile for his build.
He stood at the doorway, wiping his neck with a wet towel, his thick, dark eyebrows tightly furrowed, nervously scrutinizing Zhou Ming.
His mental state seemed poor; his emotions seemed to switch between tension and anxiety.
He would sometimes focus his attention on Zhou Ming, and the next moment, as if he had thought of other unsettling things, his attention would instantly scatter, and his expression would show a strange sense of daze.
Zhou Ming saw that the man was not only very nervous but also experiencing thought-drift.
"Are you alright?" Zhou Ming asked.
"Oh, very well! Green Mask, old friend, is there anything I can help you with?" The stout boss was even more direct than Zhou Ming, clearly someone who knew the rules.
If only those families who had refused his interviews earlier had been this cooperative, Zhou Ming thought.
However, Zhou Ming also knew that the other party's cooperation was not out of fear of the Hidden Ones, but because the town's administrator was gone.
Every outpost in the wasteland had its own administrator, a presence that maintained local order.
In outposts with an administrator backing them, residents generally treated Hidden Ones with more hostility.
Zhou Ming felt that the reason those residents could so firmly refuse him was likely due to this psychology.
As for why this restaurant owner was so cooperative, it was probably because he had perceived the fact that the administrator might have disappeared. After all, as a business owner, he was more perceptive of changes in the town's atmosphere than ordinary working local residents.
Furthermore, judging by his current restless demeanor, the disappearance phenomenon seemed to have had a significant impact on him as well.