Missing

Jay flew home as fast as he could, sweeping through the open window into the living room like an impatient tornado. The lights were still on. Mrs. Reynolds sat on the sofa with red-rimmed eyes, her face full of anxiety and exhaustion.

The moment she saw Jay come in, she said nothing. She simply walked over and gave him a tight hug.

"It's okay, mom, it's okay," Jay said, patting her back. "No matter what happened, I promise I'll fix it, all right? Tell me what's going on."

It took Mrs. Reynolds quite a while to calm down enough to explain everything to Jay. In truth, what she knew was very simple. Near midnight, Charles had called her and said he would be home soon, but even after midnight, there was still no sign of him. She had tried calling him several more times, but no one answered. Considering her husband's recent strange behavior and the plane crash not long ago, she instinctively sensed that something bad had happened and called the police.

"The police found his phone a few streets away, just lying on an empty sidewalk." Mrs. Reynolds's voice choked up as she spoke. She held Jay tightly and said, "Oh God, I can't even imagine what Charles is going through right now. What if he—"

"Don't think like that. He'll be fine," Jay interrupted. "I'll bring him back. I promise."

His baseless reassurance seemed to help somewhat. Mrs. Reynolds took a deep breath and steadied herself again, then pointed at the coffee table. "The police came by earlier and asked me some questions. The detective in charge seemed like a nice man. What was his name again? I can't remember right now, but he left me his card and said I could contact him if I remembered anything."

She found the small white card and handed it to Jay. He glanced at it. It read: "Detective Martin Jones."

Four in the morning, Metropolitan Police Department.

When Detective Martin Jones's partner set a steaming cup of coffee beside his desk, he said dejectedly, "Thanks for the coffee, John, but I don't think we'll need it tonight. Overtime's canceled. We can go home and get some sleep."

His partner, John, froze. "What happened? I thought we still had a missing persons case to investigate."

"Not anymore." Detective Jones sighed. "We just got a call from upstairs. They told us to drop the case. They said it's a special case and has already been handed over to another organization."

"Again?" John frowned. "You know, Martin, every time they call and say a case has been handed to the 'relevant department,' how often does it actually get solved? They might as well be ordering us to toss the file straight into the unsolved cases archive, and we haven't even started investigating!"

Detective Jones said helplessly, "Rules are rules. You know that. In this city, in this world, you and I are just two insignificant pieces on the board. There's only so much we can do. There are many things, many areas, that are beyond our reach. If the higher-ups say so, then they've marked it off-limits for us. There's nothing we can do."

John let out a long sigh. "Of course. Of course, I understand. It's just hard to accept. I guess I haven't been doing this long enough to get used to it."

"You may never get used to it." Detective Jones paused for a long while before saying, "This missing man, Charles Reynolds, a reporter for The Daily Planet... I remember him."

"You knew him?"

"We crossed paths a few times when I was younger. He was a good man, a good reporter. It's a shame..." Detective Jones sighed softly. "He has a wife, and a child who just came of age."

"That's awful."

"Yeah, it's awful." Detective Jones said, "But what else can I say? We live in a world like this. Maybe this city's hope died six years ago."

The atmosphere grew heavy without anyone noticing. Neither detective spoke for a while, until Jones packed up his things and stood. "All right, that's it for today. I'm heading home. I think I need a good night's sleep. Remember to lock the door and turn off the lights when you leave."

"Okay. Good night."

"Good night."

Neither detective noticed that Jay had been crouching on the rooftop directly across from the police station the entire time, listening to every word of their conversation with his sharp hearing.

He had already vaguely suspected that what Mr. Reynolds had gotten involved in was no ordinary matter, but he had not expected the enemy to be this powerful. They had actually pressured the police department into forcing the detectives to abandon their investigation. Their influence was unimaginable.

Maybe this would be even harder than he had imagined, but even so, he would not back down. Charles Reynolds was his father, his irreplaceable family. He would bring him back at any cost, no matter what kind of opponent he had to face.

Jay had never been a detective and had no experience with this kind of investigation. But he thought that if whatever his father had been looking into had led to this outcome, then starting with his father's investigation would be a good choice.

With that in mind, Jay flew to Mr. Reynolds's office at The Daily Planet. At this hour, the building was naturally deserted. He entered through a storage room window and manually pulled open the lock on Mr. Reynolds's office door. Given the circumstances, Jay was sure his father would not mind.

Mr. Reynolds's desk was neatly arranged and well organized. Jay briefly looked through the documents stacked on the desktop and found that most of them were trivial lifestyle-column matters. There was nothing particularly noteworthy. At least, he did not think anyone would make a reporter's plane crash just because "husband cheats on wife" had been published in The Daily Planet.

Then his gaze shifted to the small rectangular cabinet on the left side of the desk. A delicate padlock hung from it.

As he remembered, the last time this cabinet had been locked was years ago. A hidden compartment lay at the bottom of the cabinet. Whenever Mr. Reynolds investigated more sensitive matters, he would hide all the materials there just in case. He had told almost no one about it, but Jay had noticed it with his X-Sight from the first time he came to this office. He had simply never said anything.

He tore off the padlock and opened the hidden compartment. Sure enough, a light-blue folder lay quietly inside. He placed it on the desk and opened it, revealing a huge case analysis chart. To his surprise, what his father had been investigating was far bigger than he had imagined. According to the two sheets spread out side by side, the whole investigation appeared to have begun with the disturbance at the Underground Mall some time ago. Mr. Reynolds had clearly realized that some force was covering up the truth, and the enormous network uncovered by his investigation left Jay stunned. He saw the mystery of a government official's disappearance two years ago, the unsolved case of a newspaper reporter vanishing without a trace, and even all kinds of frightening, half-true rumors from online forums claiming that some top-secret department hidden in the shadows was secretly creating monsters.

Jay could not help thinking of the white monster he had encountered in the Underground Mall. Suddenly, he felt that rumor might not have been entirely groundless.

Seeing this, he seemed to understand why his father had found it so difficult to stop. Pieced together, these scattered bits of information made him feel as though society itself had fallen into an enormous spiderweb. Every strange rumor and every unsolved mystery was part of that web. All of them were trapped at its center, surrounded by mist.

He thought again of what Batman had told him earlier—the world was only getting worse, every day.

At the end of Mr. Reynolds's analysis chart, he had consolidated all the information. The clues seemed to point toward one shared center—an international company called Kairi Technology Creative. Its branches were spread across the world, but its headquarters appeared to be in Chicago.

So that was why Mr. Reynolds had wanted to fly to Chicago.

It looked like Jay would have to make a trip there too.

(Thanks to reader Life's Void 1 for the 50,000 Qidian Coins reward!

Reader Half a Love Letter for the 2,000 Qidian Coins reward!

Reader Missing a Screw for the 1,000 Qidian Coins reward!

Reader kabuto555 for the 500 Qidian Coins reward!)