Chapter 2677: Where to Start?

In the afternoon local time in the United States, Li Yalin packed some simple clothing and daily necessities, boarded a Gulfstream business jet sent by the An family, and took off from Houston for New York.

An Chongqiu had already arranged for a plane to take off from New York to Jin Ling in the evening. After Li Yalin landed in New York, he could directly transfer to the An family's large passenger plane to Jin Ling.

This time, although only An Qishan and his wife, as well as the eldest son An Chongqiu, were going to Jin Ling, they were accompanied by many housekeepers, assistants, servants, and nearly a hundred well-trained bodyguards.

Therefore, the plane An Chongqiu arranged this time was a private jet converted from a Boeing 748. This large wide-body passenger plane was divided into two floors at the nose of the plane. The upper floor had a small living room and two bedrooms, while the lower floor had more than a hundred standard business class seats and a rest room for the shift crew.

When Li Yalin landed in New York, the An family and their entourage had just finished boarding in the hangar exclusive to their own shipping company. The Gulfstream business jet taxied directly into the hangar and stopped slowly at the parking space next to the 748.

Immediately after, the cabin door opened, and a crew member took Li Yalin off the plane, while another crew member helped him carry his suitcase and sent him all the way to the Boeing 748 next door.

The crew member took him directly to the second floor of the 748. At this time, An Chongqiu was chatting with his parents on the sofa seats in the living room. Seeing the crew member bringing Li Yalin up, he hurriedly waved to Li Yalin, "Come, come, Old Li, sit down quickly, we've been waiting for you."

Li Yalin smiled slightly, first greeted the two elders, called Uncle An and Aunt An, and then said to An Chongqiu, "Chongqiu, your itinerary is too tight. Why fly in the middle of the night? It would be better to let Uncle An and Aunt An have a good rest for a night and fly again tomorrow morning!"

An Chongqiu smiled helplessly, "It's not up to me what time to fly."

The old lady on the side smiled, "Yalin, we fly at night, and we'll arrive after a sleep. Besides, we definitely won't sleep soundly on the plane. We'll be sleeping and waking up. It will still be night when we arrive. The journey is exhausting, and we won't sleep soundly. After landing, we can just make up for a sleep. When we wake up, it will be dawn, so we don't have to deal with jet lag. If we fly in the morning, we'll fly to Jin Ling with special energy, and it will still be morning when we arrive in Jin Ling. Then I'm afraid we won't be able to do anything that day, and jet lag won't be easy to deal with."

An Chongqiu said with admiration, "Aunt, if you want to talk about it, it has to be you. After hearing what you said, this matter immediately becomes much more reasonable. You considered it more comprehensively than I did."

The old lady said with a smile, "Don't flatter me here. If you want to talk about comprehensive consideration, who can compare with you."

An Qishan on the side looked out the window in silence, and then asked the old lady, "Huiyin, where are we going by plane?"

The old lady said patiently, "Didn't I tell you just now? We are going to Jin Ling to find Chen'er."

"Looking for Chen'er..." An Qishan murmured, and then asked, "How old is Chen'er this year? Is he an adult?"

The old lady said, "Chen'er is twenty-eight this year. Maybe when we find him, we can even find our great-grandson together."

An Qishan was stunned, nodded, and looked out the window blankly again, no longer speaking.

Li Yalin asked the old lady in a low voice, "Aunt, is Uncle's condition getting worse again?"

The old lady nodded and said, "It's worse than before. In the time he is awake every day, more than half of the time is spent repeatedly explaining the situation to him, but most of the time he forgets it as soon as he turns his head."

Saying that, the old lady added, "The reason why I am in a hurry to go to Jin Ling is also because of this reason. If I drag it on, even if I see Chen'er, I'm afraid he won't remember it."

"Hey..." Li Yalin sighed and thought to himself, "Ye Chen has the magical power to save me. Treating the old master's Alzheimer's must be easy for him. This time going to Jin Ling, even if he really doesn't want to see the two old people, he must at least find a way to let him cure the old master's illness..."

Just when Li Yalin was thinking about things, the old lady said, "By the way, Yalin, you have solved cases for so many years. Tell me, based on your experience, where should we start looking for Chen'er's whereabouts?"

"This..." Li Yalin looked like he was thinking, but actually he was thinking to himself, "The An family has already turned the world upside down, but they haven't turned Jin Ling upside down properly. If I didn't know Ye Chen, and you asked me to find his whereabouts, I would definitely find a way to turn Jin Ling upside down. Let alone a person, even a dog couldn't be let go, especially in relatively closed environments like welfare homes... But how can I say that now?"

Helplessly, Li Yalin could only say vaguely, "I think because so many years have passed, if we really want to return to the scene to investigate, the chance of finding him should be very slim. As you said, Ye Chen should be twenty-eight years old now. There are very few twenty-eight-year-old adults who have lived in one place all the time. Even if he really stayed in Jin Ling after Chengxi's accident, twenty years have passed, and the possibility of him staying in Jin Ling all the time is not high."

"That's true..." The old lady sighed, "Whether rich or poor, in this social environment, there are very few young people who can stay in one place for twenty consecutive years without moving..."

Saying that, she said helplessly, "It's just that we really don't know where to start, so we can only return to the scene of the accident and trace the source from the beginning."

Li Yalin felt depressed and thought to himself, "If I swear to the old lady that Ye Chen is probably not in Jin Ling, and later when Ye Chen recognizes the old lady, the two grandparents and grandchildren hold hands and talk about their experiences over the past twenty years, and Ye Chen says he has been in Jin Ling for twenty years, wouldn't that be a slap in my face? I am a Chinese detective after all, and I can't afford to lose this face..."

Thinking of this, he hurriedly added a sentence, "Aunt, I think this matter also depends on the person. Different people will have different decisions regarding this kind of thing:"

After a pause, Li Yalin added, "If it's an ordinary person, and their parents were killed in this place, and they are not old, then they will definitely have psychological shadows about this place, and may even try their best to get rid of this place and never come back;"

"But if it's someone who values relationships very much, they might also feel that their parents were killed here, and only by staying here can they be closer to their parents;"

"There is also a kind of very far-sighted person. After their parents were killed, they knew their situation was not safe. Adhering to the logic that the most dangerous place is the safest, they might also stay in this place all the time;"

Speaking of this, Li Yalin added, "Oh, by the way, there is another kind, which is arranged by others behind the scenes. In this case, it is not up to them to decide."

The old lady was silent for a moment and asked, "You must have encountered similar cases, right? In the cases you handled, if the child's family was killed and the child's whereabouts were unknown, where would the child most likely be?"

Li Yalin thought for a while and said truthfully, "Aunt, to be honest, I have indeed handled many similar cases. Most of the surviving children will contact other relatives after hiding for a period of time, such as grandparents, uncles, and aunts. They generally won't disappear for a long time;"

"In cases where they have been missing for a long time, in most cases, the surviving child has become a homeless person, sleeping in ruins or under bridges every night, with no fixed place to live. During the day, they either steal or beg for relief food everywhere, and some even join gangs or get addicted to drugs. Many don't even live past twenty. After they die, the police will sample their DNA according to the process, and then put it into the DNA database to find clues about their family. Only then did they find out that this person was the only surviving child in a certain murder case."

The old lady was a little dazed, and after a while, she said in a low voice, "After Chengxi and Changying had an accident, Chen'er never contacted anyone. He never contacted the An family, nor the Ye family. But Chen'er was very smart since he was a child. He was already eight years old at that time. He must remember the contact information of the An family and the Ye family in his mind. If he wanted to contact us, there must be many ways to contact us, but he didn't do so..."

Saying that, the old lady sighed and said faintly, "I think he might have blamed our two families because of his parents' death."

Li Yalin said noncommittally, "This... I don't know the specific situation, so I can't confirm it."

The old lady added, "Chen'er is very smart and has been well-educated since he was a child. If he is still alive, he shouldn't go astray like those children you mentioned. So I think there are only two biggest possibilities. One is that he is hiding and doesn't want to see us, and the other is that someone is hiding him and doesn't want us to know. I am more inclined to the latter because so many people were looking for his whereabouts at the beginning and couldn't find him. How could an eight-year-old child hide from everyone?"

An Chongqiu couldn't help but ask, "Mom, who would hide Chen'er?"

The old lady said with a serious expression, "Who would, I don't know, but it's nothing more than two possibilities, one good and one bad. The good one might be Chengxi and Changying's subordinates, and the bad one might be their enemies or other people with ulterior motives."

An Chongqiu frowned, "Mom, we have already looked for all of my brother-in-law's subordinates in the country at that time. They don't know Chen'er's whereabouts, and they are as anxious as we are."

"Yes." The old lady nodded, "The feeling it gave me at that time was indeed like this, but so many years have passed, now think about it carefully, if any of them lied, we have no way to verify it."

An Chongqiu asked, "Then should we ask them about the situation again?"

"We have to ask." The old lady said with a firm expression, "This time, I must find Chen'er's whereabouts. If I can't find him in Jin Ling, I will continue to look all over the world!" ===== CHAPTER 2678 =====