"Did you start looking everywhere right away?"
"We did. We searched our own yard first. We looked through all the rooms. We hadn't thought she'd run outside, so we searched the yard first. When we couldn't find her there, we started looking outside. The yard gate had been opened, so we knew she'd gone out. We called her, but her phone was switched off. Then we went to the village supermarket to look for her, but she wasn't there. I was starting to panic. My sister-in-law had lived here for years and said there was nothing to worry about, that there were no bad people around and she'd probably just gone for a walk. We searched for ages and even asked people in the village to help, but we still couldn't find her. When day broke, we had no choice but to report it to the police and search the woods together. Then... then someone spotted that puddle. It hadn't been there a few days earlier. But it wasn't... We kept looking for several more days, and the police helped too, but we still couldn't find her. She didn't come home, and she didn't go see her classmates or friends. She was just gone. I... I heard people say there are no kidnappers around here, but maybe..."
"Before Miss Zhou went missing, did she show any unusual behavior?"
"What? Oh... The police asked me that too. I don't think so. It's impossible. She wouldn't run away from home. We hadn't even argued before. She'd said she was going to some kind of comic convention in Minqing and had made plans with her college friends. Everything was fine. She... she didn't act strangely."
"Did you see anything strange in the village? Or notice any unusual phenomena?"
"No. I've been so busy...