Those Classmates who Suddenly Disappeared
Chapter 512: The Same Position

Chapter 512: Chapter 512: The Same Position

Early in the morning, Gu Fan appeared spiritless, as if he hadn’t woken up properly. He was reluctant to face his parents so soon, and after everything that happened, he was unsure how to face them.

Gu Fan wondered if he would question his parents about their secrecy or if he would be blamed by them for bringing trouble home.

As he strolled aimlessly, he found himself at the city’s historical museum. The museum was just opening, and he recalled having visited it once before with an elderly person from an old town.

"Why am I here again?" Gu Fan didn’t think much of it. Just when he was about to walk away, he remembered something about his previous visit. Hadn’t this city initially been established by six families who traveled from the sea and set up a fishing village?

"Six families?" Gu Fan thought the coincidence was rather striking. He looked suddenly back at the city history museum and remembered the peculiar behavior of the old man from the old town. The last time he was invited for a visit seemed like a deliberate act to lead him here.

Could the answer lie within this museum? Gu Fan quickly made his way inside, becoming the museum’s first guest of the day.

This time, Gu Fan was thoroughly meticulous during his visit, carefully studying every image and painting from the beginning. He had a hunch that he would uncover many clues to solve this mystery.

After nearly an hour, he realized that apart from the initial information about the six families who established the fishing village, the rest of the data only detailed the city’s growth from a village to its current scale.

After spending half the day going through all the exhibits, he found himself back at square one with no useful information.

However, Gu Fan didn’t give up. He suspected he might have overlooked something crucial. He decided to look deeper and sifted through more materials in the archives room.

Gu Fan surmised that the city’s development process wasn’t as important as the origins of the six families.

After much effort, Gu Fan found a vital piece of information. The original families’ surnames were Gu, Zhang, Liu, Luo, Zhu, and another unknown family.

"Can’t be a coincidence, right? They have the same surnames as us? With everything I’ve gone through, I don’t believe in coincidences anymore," Gu Fan thought in disbelief.

He scoured for more information and finally found an old map showing the initial settlement of the fishing village. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual, but upon closer inspection, he realized something wasn’t right. He was taken aback.

"What’s going on with this map?" Gu Fan compared it to his memory of the area. The original fishing village seemed to be near the sea, but he remembered there was quite a distance to travel to reach the coast from its location.

Wait, Gu Fan compared the old map with a new one and observed a significant change in the topography.

He was right. The old and new maps differed in physical size. The newer map seemed to indicate that land reclamation had expanded the area.

Gu Fan wondered if the location of the fishing village was indeed significant. Keeping his discoveries to himself, he took a picture of the old map and left the museum. He then had the picture printed at a photocopy shop.

"Let’s get started." Using a marker, Gu Fan started tracing the current city layout on the old map. He was eager to compare the two and figure out where the original fishing village would have been located in present times.

Lastly, Gu Fan compared his sketch with his old house’s location on his phone’s map. To his shock, the two locations were remarkably similar. Surely, this wasn’t just a coincidence?

"God, what enormous secret have I stumbled upon?" Gu Fan wondered. The six families that were initially established in the village had the same surnames as the six families that lived in the old house. This was quite a coincidence.

Fine, even if this turned out to be an extraordinary coincidence, could the six families have resided in the same place for hundreds of years? Not only did they refuse to move, but they insisted on living in that same old house.

"What is going on?" Gu Fan started to suspect that there was more to the old house than met the eye. He also pondered why only the Gu family had remained when the other five families had moved away, and to such faraway places.

Gu Fan wondered if something had happened that caused the other families to move. But why did the Gu family stay? There were too many inconsistencies, and he wondered what it was about the Gu family that made them different.

Speaking of differences, Gu Fan thought of Gu Ling and felt a sense of foreboding: "Could it be because of Xiaoling’s psychic abilities? But that doesn’t seem right..."

Scratching his head, he ruled out that conjecture. The Zhang family had moved away before Xiaoling was born. Hence, their relocation couldn’t be due to Xiaoling’s special abilities. There surely must have been some other reason, perhaps there was someone with extraordinary talent in the Gu family before Xiaoling was born.

He immediately thought of his father, but in his knowledge, his father was always an ordinary man, unlike Gu Ling who possessed a remarkable talent.

Next, he considered his grandfather. The five families had moved away only after his grandfather’s birth during the time his great-grandfather was alive.

Just when Gu Fan was deep in thought, he received a message from Lu Yi stating that his family had received an invitation from the third grandfather to visit a faraway place, and so they wouldn’t be in the city for a few days.

Gu Fan paid little heed. Such visits were not uncommon.

Hold on, he suddenly realized something. It seemed like he had very few relatives on his father’s side.

In the past, having many children was the norm. Was it possible that his great grandfather only had one child, his paternal grandfather? Didn’t he have a second granduncle or a third grandfather?

As far as he could remember, he had only ever met his grandfather at the old house. He had never seen any of his grandfather’s siblings, and neither his father nor his grandfather ever mentioned them. This resulted in Gu Fan’s family only visiting his mother’s relatives for family gatherings.

Gu Fan knew for sure that his grandfather was an only child. However, during his great-grandfather’s era, the idea of having only one child was uncommon. Had his great-grandfather also only had one child?

"Where are my relatives?" Gu Fan started pondering in this direction, uncertain if he was heading in the right track.