Star City Isn't Peaceful Either

San Gou, who was never one to sit still, wanted to discuss the strange events of last night with Jiang Yue. However, he felt it was inconvenient with others present and was extremely uncomfortable.

The driver, Boss Zhou, was also from Star City. He usually delivered goods, traveling all over, and was very glib-tongued. He spewed all sorts of jokes during the drive, mostly crude ones, and didn't care if San Gou was underage. He drove with his hands and "drove" with his mouth, two vehicles running in parallel, showing the excellent skills of an old driver.

People who drove for a living were particularly superstitious about discussing strange things on the road. The entire journey took two to three hours, and Boss Zhou's mouth barely stopped, yet he didn't mention the incident on yesterday's bus once.

Jiang Yue's home was in the east of the city, and Boss Zhou's was in the north. They could only drop the two brothers off at a fork in the road.

They flagged down a taxi by the roadside. The brothers hopped in and directly gave the name of their residential complex.

"To New Moon Bay."

New Moon Bay was twenty to thirty years old. When it was first developed, it was very popular and quite famous in Star City. Taxi drivers would naturally be familiar with it.

Drivers in the taxi business had a mental map in their heads. As soon as they heard it was New Moon Bay, their route planning kicked in automatically.

"Bro, we'll have to take a detour today. There's traffic control on Lotus Leaf Avenue near Star City Second Hospital."

"Traffic control on that stretch?" Jiang Yue sounded a little skeptical.

Lotus Leaf Avenue was one of Star City's main roads, especially the section by Star City Second Hospital, which was often congested even outside of peak hours. At this time of day, if there was traffic control, who knew how bad the surrounding roads would be.

"Isn't it weird? I've been driving a taxi for eleven years, and I've only encountered traffic control on Lotus Leaf Avenue twice. The last time was years ago when a leader came to Star City for an inspection."

"Another leader is here these days?"

"Not this time, apparently. They say it's temporary control. I just picked someone up from the Second Hospital half an hour ago. I heard from colleagues that something happened at the hospital."

"What happened?" Jiang Yue's eyelids twitched at the mention of something happening.

"They say a patient in the ICU ward jumped off the building."

"Traffic control for someone jumping off a building?" Even a kid San Gou's age wouldn't be fooled by that excuse.

Jiang Yue, however, fell silent.

Never mind that the taxi driver's words were likely second or third-hand information. Even if it were first-hand, the story was full of suspicious details.

Patients in the ICU lacked the ability to care for themselves.

Besides, anyone who had been to a hospital knew how sturdy the windows were. Even a strong man in good health might not be able to open them, let alone a patient in the ICU. If they had the ability, why would they be in the ICU?

And even if the news were true, it wouldn't warrant controlling the entire road.

The taxi driver's tone was somewhat exaggerated as he spoke animatedly, "They say it's really bizarre."

"How bizarre?"

"The ICU ward door wasn't opened. The patient forced the window open and jumped. The ICU is on the top floor, and the building is eighteen stories high. They say the concrete ground was even dented."

"Jumping from the eighteenth floor and not denting the ground would be bizarre."

"Denting the ground isn't the bizarre part. The bizarre part is that there was no blood, no body... nothing but a crater! That's what's bizarre!"

At this point, the taxi driver himself felt a little spooked and nervously glanced at his rearview mirror.

If Jiang Yue's physics teacher were present, they would undoubtedly cite formulas to calculate the potential energy and impact force of a fall from eighteen stories, leading to a scientific conclusion—

Not only would the person be dead, but their death would be quite gruesome.

Eighteen stories...

Jiang Yue couldn't help but wonder how peculiar the architect's thought process must have been to set the total number of floors at eighteen.

Of course, some taxi drivers had a habit of hearsay, embellishing it themselves, and enjoying shocking people with sensational stories.

Jiang Yue took it as just a story.

Even as a story, there were too many details that didn't hold up to scrutiny.

Jiang Yue naturally didn't intend to argue about it.

The car stopped at the entrance of the complex, the fare showing twenty-eight yuan. Jiang Yue, being a student, didn't use mobile payment often and preferred cash.

He handed over thirty yuan, and the driver skillfully produced two coins as change.

As Jiang Yue took the change, he suddenly grabbed the driver's wrist. His eyes fixed on the driver's palm, a look of slight surprise on his face.

The driver was startled by Jiang Yue's sudden action. "Bro, I'm not into that!"

The man was plump and greasy, but that didn't stop his mind from wandering. He thought Jiang Yue was making a pass at him.

Jiang Yue immediately let go and gave a barely perceptible smile. "You're overthinking it."

Then he added, "Just one more thing, you're in big trouble."

The taxi driver grinned, revealing a mouth full of yellow teeth. "What? Are you trying to scare me, bro? I might not have been in the Jianghu for years, but I can still call eighty to a hundred guys with one phone call, believe it or not?"

Communication between people was indeed a strenuous effort.

Jiang Yue swallowed the words he was about to say. Seeing that the other person didn't seem like a pushover, why bother with such thankless work?

He opened the car door and got out.

"Idiot!" the driver cursed and sped away.

"Second Brother, what's going on?" Based on San Gou's understanding of his Second Brother, he wouldn't cause trouble for no reason. There must have been a reason for his actions just now.

"This driver has probably encountered something evil, or maybe he just did something wicked. There's a black line clearly devouring his lifeline."

"What does this mean?" San Gou asked curiously.

"It means nothing else, but based on my calculations, he's likely to lose twenty years of his life."

"It's that mystical?" San Gou was surprised.

"This stuff is truly that mystical. I can only tell it to those who are fated to hear it; most people wouldn't believe it anyway. That's why I didn't reveal it earlier."

"It's best you didn't. Listening to that guy's tone was already annoying. If you had told him, he might have asked you for a way to break it. Then you might have been mocked by him."

"Everyone has their own fate, you can't force it. However, this matter is indeed a bit strange." Jiang Yue frowned slightly.

"What else is strange?"

"That black line is very strange. Usually, these black lines are faint and intermittent, not so easily seen. His black line looked like an earthworm burrowing into his palm, fierce, rapid, and very obvious. This indicates that his calamity came very suddenly..."

"Could something happen on the road?"

"It doesn't seem like it's going to manifest as a car accident; there are no signs of bloodshed."

"Then it's a disease?"

"That doesn't seem likely either. That's why I find it strange."

Jiang Yue couldn't figure it out. He had never seen such a palmistry reading before.

They entered the residential compound. It was noon, and it was raining, so there weren't many people strolling outside.

Jiang Yue's home was on the eleventh floor of a small high-rise building, with four units per floor and two elevators. His apartment was 801, on the east side.

As soon as the door opened, San Gou rushed into the house before Jiang Yue could even pull out his key. Just as he was about to flop onto the sofa, Jiang Yue stopped him.

"San Gou, wait a moment."

Jiang Yue felt something was off. He quickly stepped forward, turned behind San Gou, and stared at San Gou's backside, his expression changing.

"Second Brother, why are you staring at my butt?"

"What's wrong with your pants? They're torn like this? Where did you pick them up?"

"How is that possible? These are pants I bought for the New Year. I just put them on this morning," San Gou complained indignantly.

Jiang Yue gestured for him to take them off and see.

Seeing the holes in the back of the pants, San Gou was also dumbfounded. He held the pants, staring blankly. He had put on these pants before leaving the house, and they were perfectly fine then.

It wasn't unusual for pants to have two holes.

What was unusual was that judging by the wear and tear of the fabric in that area, and the degree of fading, it would take at least ten years of accumulation to get them this worn out.

The problem was, these were clearly new pants bought at the beginning of the year.

It felt as if someone had deliberately aged the pants in the butt area.

This was because, in contrast, the other areas of the pants were clearly intact, with at least ninety percent of their original color and fabric still remaining.

The same pair of pants showed such a bizarre contrast!

Jiang Yue remained silent.

Using his powerful memory, he began to retrace his steps from the morning until he entered the house.

When San Gou left the house, his pants were indeed fine.

There was no doubt about that.

He went out, rode in Boss Zhou's car, got out, took a taxi home, got out, and walked into the house.

After reviewing all the steps, a point of suspicion surfaced. Jiang Yue let out a soft gasp: "That taxi."

A corresponding piece of detail evidence was the strange black line on the taxi driver's palm...

Vaguely, an answer was about to emerge.

Jiang Yue hurriedly grabbed San Gou's palm and observed it carefully for a moment, but saw nothing unusual.

He checked San Gou all over again, but found no abnormalities.

"Second Brother? Was that taxi unclean?"

Jiang Yue pondered, "I remember him mentioning something at the time, that he had just picked up a fare from Star City Second Hospital a few tens of minutes prior?"

"Could he have brought something unclean out of the hospital?" San Gou's face turned a little pale.

"Based on the timing, that should have been our previous fare."

Recalling what the taxi driver had said about the suicide incident, Jiang Yue couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine.

Before the suicide incident, Jiang Yue had dismissed it as a story.

Now, after this incident, Jiang Yue actually believed it by thirty percent.

Of course, if the taxi driver hadn't exaggerated and it was the absolute truth, this matter would certainly have further developments.

As for whether the suicide incident was related to the driver's fare, Jiang Yue currently had no strong evidence to deduce it.

Fortunately, San Gou hadn't directly encountered the evil, but had only experienced a minor ripple. But even a ripple was extremely bizarre.

Without any artificial aging methods, to turn perfectly good pants into this state, what kind of trick was this?

This was already beyond Jiang Yue's scope of understanding.