CHAPTER 477: 286 CHAPTER THE STARTLING NUMBER OF DISAPPEARANCES_2

This time, the connection was quick. After Dean said he had arrived, a scruffy, bearded white man in his twenties opened the mill door and waved to him.

"Dean?"

The white man enthusiastically welcomed Dean into the dilapidated mill.

As Dean surveyed his surroundings, he frowned and said, "Yes, but are you sure you can help me? This place doesn’t look like a very good workplace."

The place looked neglected. The air was filled not only with the smell of rotting wood but also a faint stench of animal feces, making one suspect it had previously been used to raise poultry.

The young man shrugged and made a thought-provoking statement, "Because it’s sufficiently dilapidated and inconspicuous, we can be the light in the darkness, instead of being swallowed by it!"

Having said that, he waved to Dean, signaling him to follow him upstairs.

CREAK.

The decayed wooden staircase made one worry that stepping on it could cause a collapse.

Dean, solidly built with a muscular, well-proportioned figure, actually weighed around two hundred thirty to two hundred forty pounds. Stepping onto the wooden stairs, he could clearly feel them sagging, as if they were about to give way under his weight.

However, the dreaded collapse didn’t happen. Dean followed the young white man, Wade, safely up to the second floor.

It was equally primitive here, though it seemed to have been somewhat renovated. A row of computers stood by the windows, where a man and a woman were intently typing. Near the wall were a sofa and a coffee table, and a few folding chairs were visible in a corner. It appeared that these three—two men and one woman—usually slept in this cramped, simple room.

Wade clapped his hands, interrupting his two companions. "Jenny, Stefan, pause your work; the client has arrived."

Jenny and Stefan also looked young.

Wade seemed to be the leader here.

At Wade’s direction, the four of them sat on the sofa around the coffee table. Wade poured Dean a glass of water. "Alright, Mr. Dean, you can tell us about your situation now."

Under the watchful eyes of the other three, Dean picked up the glass, took a light sip, and began his story.

He explained that his brother, Thompson, had gone on a trip with a companion. Shortly after entering the mountains, both he and his companion had lost contact.

After hearing Dean’s story, Wade and his companions exchanged a look of confusion.

"Mr. Dean, are you saying the missing persons are your brother and his companion—two people in total?"

"Is there something wrong?"

Dean tilted his head up slightly, his face sincere, though he didn’t know where he had shown a flaw.

"It’s not that there’s anything wrong, it’s just..." Wade trailed off, then waved to Jenny beside him.

Jenny stood up, pulled a hefty laptop from a pile of tangled wires, and set it in front of Dean.

Dean looked over, slightly startled.

On the laptop screen was the local police station’s internal website!

What was this about? Could these three people not be scammers?

Wade slowly stood up and explained, "Mr. Dean, after receiving your call, we accessed the police websites of several nearby towns and searched for recent missing persons. The records show that in the past month, only our town had a couple go missing. The report was filed yesterday by the front desk of the XX Hotel. It seems you might be lying?"

As Wade spoke, Stefan, the other young man who hadn’t said anything yet, moved his hand toward his waist, giving Dean an unfriendly look.

Dean, ignoring Stefan’s threatening gesture, tilted his head. "So, you’re actually not fraudsters?"

This odd reaction made Wade uneasy.

He suddenly lunged toward Dean, shouting, "Stefan, move!"

The next moment, a slender hand—acting later but arriving first—accurately grabbed Wade’s collar.

Wade felt an irresistible force lift him into mid-air. His vision spun, and then Jenny’s gasp and Stefan’s scream flooded his ears...

Holding Wade by the collar with one hand, Dean knocked over Stefan, who was attempting to draw a gun.

Dean slowly stood up, approached the screaming Jenny, covered her mouth with his hand, and whispered in her ear, "Shh, be quiet!"

Jenny wanted to run, but under Dean’s gaze, her legs, for some reason, wouldn’t obey. She could only nod tremblingly, her voice choked with tears. "What... what do you want?"

...

The three of them—two men and one woman—knelt in a row, their hands bound. Dean, fiddling with the stun gun he’d snatched from Stefan’s waist, pondered for a moment, then looked up. "So, you’re really conducting business, just hiding out here because it’s dangerous?"

"Yes!" Wade said dejectedly. "We mostly handle some illegal online business, so we set up our office in this abandoned barn. As for local work, like finding people, it’s just to help out the tourists here and make some quick cash on the side."

"Talk about the nearby disappearances!"

Dean remained noncommittal about Wade’s explanation.

"If we tell you, will you let us go?"

The three of them looked pitifully at Dean.

Dean waved the stun gun. "Of course. After all, I’m a good guy. I came to you without even bringing a gun. Truth be told, if you hadn’t attacked me first, I wouldn’t have laid a hand on you."

They considered his words. Indeed, they couldn’t find any fault with his statement.

Wade resignedly said: