The Missing Person

Jay flew home as fast as he could, a frantic whirlwind rushing through the open window into the living room. The lights in the living room were still on, and Mrs. Reynolds sat on the sofa with red eyes, her gaze filled with anxiety and exhaustion.

Seeing Jay enter, she didn't say a word. She walked over and gave him a big hug.

"It's okay, it's okay, Mom," Jay said, patting her back to comfort her. "Whatever happened, I promise I'll fix it, alright? Tell me what's going on."

It took Mrs. Reynolds a while to calm her agitated emotions before she told Jay the whole story. In fact, what she knew was quite simple: close to midnight, Mrs. Reynolds had called her saying she would be back soon, but she was still nowhere to be seen after one o'clock. During that time, Mrs. Reynolds tried calling her several more times, but no one answered. Considering her husband's recent unusual behavior and the airplane crash that had recently occurred, she instinctively sensed that something bad had happened, so she called the police.

"The police found his phone a few blocks away, just on the empty sidewalk," Mrs. Reynolds said, her voice trembling slightly. She held Jay tightly and said, "Oh God, I can't imagine what Charles himself is like right now. What if he..."

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

His baseless comfort seemed to have some effect. Mrs. Reynolds took a deep breath, steadied her emotions again, and pointed to the coffee table. "The police were just here and asked me some questions. The detective in charge was quite nice. What was his name again? I can't quite remember, but he left me his business card and said I could contact him if I remembered anything."

She pulled out the small white card and handed it to Jay. Jay glanced at it, and it read: "Detective Martin Jones."

Four in the morning, Metropolitan Police Department.

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

His partner, John, was stunned. "What's going on? I thought we still had a missing person case to investigate."

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

"Again?" John frowned. "You know, Martin, every time they call and say to hand a case over to 'relevant authorities,' how many of those cases actually get solved? This is practically a direct order for us to throw the case files into the cold case archive, and we haven't even started the investigation yet!"

Detective Jones said helplessly, "Rules are rules, you know. In this city, in this world, you and I are just two insignificant pawns. There's very little we can do. There are many things, many aspects that you and I cannot reach. Since they said so, it's equivalent to drawing a forbidden zone for us. There's nothing we can do."

John sighed heavily. "Of course, of course, I understand. I just find it hard to accept. I guess I just haven't been doing this long enough to get used to it."

"You might never get used to it," Detective Jones paused for a moment and said, "The missing person this time, Charles Reynolds, a reporter for The Daily Planet, I remember him."

"You know him?"

"I interacted with him a few times when I was younger. He was a good person, a good reporter, a shame..." Detective Jones sighed softly. "He also has a wife and a child who just came of age."

"That's terrible."

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

The atmosphere became heavy. The two detectives fell silent for a moment until Jones tidied up his things and stood up. "Alright, that's it for today. I'm heading back. I think I need to get some good sleep. Remember to lock the door and turn off the lights when you leave."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Neither of the detectives noticed that Jay had been crouching on the rooftop directly opposite the police station the entire time, using his keen hearing to absorb the entire conversation without missing a single word.

He had vaguely suspected that what Mr. Reynolds was involved in might be extraordinary, but he hadn't expected the enemy to be so powerful, capable of pressuring the police and forcing them to drop an investigation. The scale of their influence was immense.

Perhaps things would be more difficult than he imagined, but even so, he would not back down. Charles Reynolds, his father, was his irreplaceable family. He would bring him back at all costs, no matter what opponent he had to face.

Jay had never been a detective and had no similar investigative experience. However, he thought that if his dad's investigation led to this outcome, then starting with what he was investigating would be a good choice.

With that thought, Jay flew to Mr. Reynolds's office at The Daily Planet. Naturally, the building was long deserted at this hour. He entered through the storage room window and, with his bare hands, pried open the lock on Mr. Reynolds's office door—considering the current special circumstances, Jay thought he wouldn't mind.

Mr. Reynolds's desk was tidily arranged, looking very organized. Jay briefly flipped through the files stacked on his desk and found that most of them were trivial matters from the lifestyle section, nothing particularly noteworthy. At least, he didn't think anyone would try to cause a reporter's plane to crash just because an article about "a husband's infidelity" was published in The Daily Planet.

Then his gaze shifted to the small rectangular cabinet on the left side of the desk, which had a delicate padlock on it.

As far as he remembered, the last time this cabinet was locked was many years ago. The bottom of this cabinet concealed a hidden compartment. In the past, whenever Mr. Reynolds was investigating particularly sensitive matters, he would hide all those documents in this compartment for safety. He had told almost no one about this, but Jay had noticed it with his X-Sight the first time he visited this office, he just never said anything.

He broke the padlock and revealed the hidden compartment. Inside, a light blue folder lay quietly. He placed the folder on the desk and opened it, revealing a massive case analysis chart. To his surprise, he discovered that what his dad was investigating was even more extensive than he had imagined. According to the two pages spread out horizontally, the origin of the entire investigation seemed to be the disturbance in the Underground Mall not long ago. Mr. Reynolds had clearly sensed a hidden force covering up the truth, and the vast network of investigations that stemmed from it left him stunned. He saw the mystery of a government official's disappearance from two years ago, the cold case of a reporter from a certain newspaper vanishing into thin air, and even some terrifying rumors from online forums, some true and some false, suggesting that a top-secret department hidden in the shadows was secretly creating some kind of monster.

Jay couldn't help but think of the white monster he encountered in the Underground Mall, and suddenly felt that this rumor might not be entirely baseless.

Seeing this, he seemed to understand why his dad found it so hard to stop. These scattered pieces of information, when put together, made him feel as if the entire society was trapped in an incredibly vast spiderweb. Every bizarre rumor, every unsolved cold case was a part of this web. They were all deeply trapped in the center of this network, surrounded by mist.

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

At the end of the analysis chart Mr. Reynolds had created, he integrated all the information. The clues seemed to point to a common center—an international company called "Kairi Technology Creative," with branches all over the world, but its headquarters seemed to be in Chicago.

So that was the reason Mr. Reynolds wanted to fly to Chicago.

It seemed he would have to make a trip there as well.