Zheng Miaojia half-understood, but she still racked her brains, and then carefully circled each of those numbers: If the first term, A1, is 6, the second term, A2, is 26, then the third term, A3, is A1 + A2 = 6 + 26 = 32, the fourth term is A2 + A3 = 26 + 32 = 58… and so on, A5 is 90, A10 is 1010, A15 is 11200, A20 is 124210.
Each term ends with a zero, and 10, 15, and 20 are all multiples of 5…
So the message Yu Miaomiao passed to Qiao Qiao is about a five-term cycle resetting to zero?
Liang Mei immediately pulled up the route for Bus 58 on her phone and gradually caught up with the train of thought: “But there are fourteen stops on Bus 58’s line. The first stop is the Farmers’ Market, and the last stop is Little Painting Town. It almost runs through the entire Fengtan County. How do we know which stop he’s near?”
Li Yingqiao was also thinking, pen clipped to her nose, falling into deep thought again as she murmured, “Yeah, how do we figure out which stop Miaomiao is being held near?”
Li Yingqiao couldn’t help biting her lip, the pen slipping onto the desk and rolling onto the floor.
She didn’t bother to pick it up, her eyes fixed on the draft paper crammed with numbers, starting to reorganize her thoughts.
Teacher Zhu once said that a lot of things in life are arranged according to mathematical theorems.
For example, traffic lights are actually an equation problem—if you can find the optimal solution, you can avoid every red light perfectly.
Or how when waiting in line, it always feels like the other line moves faster—that’s also a math problem, though she’d forgotten exactly how Teacher Zhu explained it.
The atmosphere was tense. Liang Mei had no choice but to knock on the table, reminding them, “No matter what, you two must go to bed at eleven. The rest, Teacher Zhu will keep thinking about.”
Zheng Miaojia nodded obediently, but Li Yingqiao didn’t respond, staring intently at the draft paper, clearly not listening at all.
Liang Mei was about to continue lecturing when Zhu Xiaoliang interrupted gravely, “I just checked the current bus system in Fengtan. There’s more than just five trips a day on Bus 58. If the second group of numbers locks onto Bus 58, could it be that the number 58 appears in the fourth position, referring to the fourth stop on the route—Fengtan Mall?”
At the same time, the police reached the same conclusion, focusing on Fengtan Mall near Bus 58, but quickly ruled it out just like Zhu Xiaoliang did, only leaving one or two plainclothes officers to keep an eye out. Any unusual activity would be reported immediately.
Besides, Fengtan Mall is crowded during the day, a bustling business district.
Forget a kidnapping—even tying a shoelace would be difficult in that crowd. It’s definitely not the best place for a kidnapper to hide a hostage.
Zhu Xiaoliang added, “The next stop is the Public Security Bureau. If the kidnappers held the hostage here, wouldn’t that be too blatant? After so many days, the police would have found something by now…”
“If it’s a cycle of five resetting to zero—”
Li Yingqiao muttered to herself, “are there any buses that depart at five o’clock?”
Zhu Xiaoliang replied, “The train station? I remember there are special night and early morning buses there.”
As soon as he finished, the two of them almost simultaneously noticed the timetable for a special bus: “Teacher Liang! Quick! Call Uncle Yu, we know where Miaomiao is!”
Zhu Xiaoliang blurted out at the same time, “It’s the train station!”
“Could it be that abandoned wooden toy factory!”
Zheng Miaojia clapped her hands, “Uncle Yu used to run a wooden toy factory near the train station, but it was shut down after someone reported it for dust pollution.”
Liang Mei’s breath caught, and before she could think, her hands moved on their own, grabbing her phone from the table, fingers trembling as if a surge of electricity shot from her feet to her head, like being pricked by needles.
She hadn’t held out much hope, but if they actually found him, this would probably make the news.
Li Yingqiao, however, was getting calmer, methodically eliminating unrelated answers, confidently saying, “Yes! The bus that goes by the train station has its first departure at 5:06 and the last at 23:26, which matches the first two terms of the Fibonacci sequence Miaomiao gave us. 3364 is exactly 58 squared, which is the fourth term in the Fibonacci sequence. It should be the No. 4 workshop in his dad’s factory, or maybe Building 4, or even the fourth trash can. Anyway, check every corner, in case he’s starving and rummaging through the trash for food.”
****
If there’s a next life—
Yu Jinyang thought.
If there’s another life, he never wants to be the son of some outstanding figure—especially not someone named Renjie, and even worse if it’s Yu Renjie.
The pressure is huge and it just makes people hate you.
Especially that Yu Renjie—after so many days, he acted like he’d never even owned a toy factory, couldn’t remember a thing about it.
Yu Jinyang’s memories of this place from childhood weren’t deep, but the first day he was brought here by the kidnappers, he roughly guessed his location based on vague memories.
Mainly, the train whistles near the station were too shrill, especially at night during this season when you could also hear the metallic clangs from the rails expanding and contracting, and the daily sounds of workers inspecting the tracks.
That meant he was definitely within five hundred meters of the railway.
When he was little, his mom brought him here to find his dad. His dad was afraid his mom would run off to Hainan without a word, so he kept Yu Jinyang by his side as a hostage.
He had to work, so he set up a camp bed for him in the factory director’s office, letting him quietly read and sleep, but rarely spoke to him.
At that time, they weren’t close at all and didn’t try to get to know each other’s interests.
There’s just nothing to talk about between a man and a little boy—especially a man pretending to be young.
His dad especially liked to ask him at mealtimes if he could eat spicy food, cilantro, or garlic sprouts.
It all sounded like the names of his old kindergarten classmates—how was he supposed to eat that stuff?
Besides, he’d long stopped using baby talk, but Yu Renjie, in his forties, still enjoyed it.
Back then, Yu Jinyang loved listening to train whistles.
Later, he heard them so much he could tell which were for arrivals, which for departures, and which were alarms for train problems.
So the first night he was brought here, he heard the clear train whistle and the sound of workers repairing the tracks at dawn.
If he remembered right, it was around four in the morning, when the train station workers always did track maintenance.
He couldn’t tell exactly which room or spot in the abandoned factory he was in, but he was sure the maintenance sounds were just like those he heard as a child in his dad’s office.
So he figured—he was either in his dad’s office or in the staff dormitory.
Only those two places faced the train station and got the clearest sound of the rails.
He tried to calm down and think about how to get a phone and send a signal. It was risky, but he felt he had little chance anyway, so he might as well take a shot.
At that moment, he suddenly remembered a couple of days ago when he and Li Yingqiao were under the bus stop sign, and she was rummaging through his backpack for money.
He didn’t bother arguing, just looked away out of habit and, with nothing else to do, checked the timetable on the bus stop sign.
That’s when he noticed the bus that passed the train station had a unique schedule—the first bus at 5:06, the last at 23:26, while all the other routes started on the hour or half-hour.
Only this one had those odd times.
The answer was actually simple—
626 referred to the bus running from 5:06 to 23:26.
He didn’t dare report the bus number, afraid the kidnappers would catch on before Li Yingqiao did.
So he gave the times for the train station bus, just the unusual minutes after the first and last runs, not the full times, in case the kidnappers Googled it.
It was a bit cryptic, but since Li Yingqiao waited at that stop every day, she should spot the clue easily.
As for 3364, it really was 58 squared.
Nothing else—just 58, my dad; 58 squared, my dad.
Is that so hard to get!
Train station, my dad! Wooden toy factory! Is that so hard to guess!
Li Yingqiao! What are you doing! Are you marrying the Fibonacci sequence or something!
He saw the kidnapper’s dumb face almost figure it out, then heard the tattooed guy slap his thigh and blurt out, “You mean 3364 is 58 squared, so what does 58 stand for? I know—58.com!”
“Screw your dad!” the man in the jacket cursed, “Call Brother Tao and cancel the deal.”
Tattooed guy was stunned, “Why!”
Jacket guy insisted, “Idiot! I told you not to talk to him! You just wouldn’t listen… The provincial road next to us is Highway 58!”
Come on! He really doesn’t know!
And anyway, how could anyone pinpoint a location with just a highway?
He’s not a hundred-kilometer-long snake draping himself along the road!
Tattooed guy thought the same, “Just a coincidence. Besides, the road’s so long, could the police really find us here? I only let him use numbers to avoid word games.”
Yu Jinyang nodded sincerely.
Jacket guy pointed at the two of them, “Are you two in cahoots? Now I’m starting to think I’m the one who’s been kidnapped!”
Tattooed guy finally lost it, “What’s wrong with you? Paranoid much? Why not call your brother and see when the deal’s happening.”
That Brother Tao’s phone was never on, always powered off.
Jacket guy threw the phone down, kicked tattooed guy out of the way, angrily snapped on his prosthetic arm, and gritted his teeth, “Something’s wrong. My brother must have been caught. Move, I’m going to kill him.”
There he goes again, acting like he’s RoboCop just because he’s got a mechanical arm.
Yu Jinyang felt like a dried sausage, blood and sweat crusted into mottled, cracked patches of dark red, his whole body stiff and dry.
Every movement hurt and itched, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to take the exam properly anyway.
He straightened up in despair, imagining himself as an unyielding sausage, refusing to die.
Exhausted in body and mind, Yu Jinyang slumped in the chair, blindfolded, the corners of his bloodied mouth twitching with a cold calmness as he said, “If you’re still human, just end it with one knife. If you cut me again, I’ll haunt you as a ghost.”
Bang!