Alive, Not Seen; Dead, Not Found

"An early-stage Body Tempering realm practitioner is considered quite the figure here in Sea City."

Zhang Yining smacked his lips and continued.

"My dad said if I could ever reach the Body Tempering realm, our family's ancestral graves would practically explode with pride."

Gu Yuan had long since developed an immunity to Zhang Yining's linguistic patterns, so he withdrew his gaze.

The Body Tempering realm was indeed nothing to sneeze at.

His own cousin was at this level, and she was already a newly appointed captain at the local branch of the Destiny Bureau.

Seeing Zhang Yining still lost in his own thoughts, Gu Yuan stepped forward and patted him on the back.

"Alright, stop staring. Even if you stare all day, you still won't be able to lift those stone locks made of black iron."

"Are you done warming up? Hurry it up; I have to head to the Destiny Bureau after I finish with you."

"Whoa, look at you getting all impatient!" Zhang Yining let out a strange cry and performed a nimble flip, leaping onto the sparring platform.

"Come on, come on! Today, Brother Ning is going to properly test whether you've been slacking off these past ten days!"

Seeing this, Gu Yuan followed him onto the platform.

"Be careful, Old Gu!"

Zhang Yining let out a low shout, his footwork shifting as he lunged forward like an arrow released from a bow, a fierce straight punch aimed directly at Gu Yuan's face.

Gu Yuan didn't even look; he sidestepped, easily dodging the punch while simultaneously thrusting his elbow forward to strike at the soft ribs under Zhang Yining's arm.

"Damn it!"

Zhang Yining was startled, not expecting Gu Yuan's reaction to be so swift. He forcibly halted his momentum, twisted his body, and narrowly avoided the elbow strike.

The two of them instantly put some distance between each other.

Zhang Yining rubbed his waist, which had nearly been strained, his face full of astonishment.

"What kind of miracle elixir did you take these past ten days? Your reaction speed and strength feel like they've surpassed mine!"

The effects of [Saint Hand Pulse Clearing] were indeed immediate; not only did it improve his blood and qi, but all of his body's functions had seen a significant boost.

"No, are you staying up too late again? How did you manage to strain your waist just by starting?"

Gu Yuan rubbed his chin, looking at Zhang Yining, who was still clutching his waist, and spoke casually.

"Bullshit!"

Zhang Yining's fighting spirit was instantly ignited.

"I was just careless earlier. I'm going to get serious now!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Yining launched another offensive. With his blood and qi circulating throughout his body, he unleashed the Tiger Leopard Fist, his punches and kicks flying with the faint sound of a tiger's roar accompanying every strike.

Seeing Zhang Yining charging at him, Gu Yuan didn't even bother circulating his blood and qi, relying solely on his body's instincts and footwork. He wanted to test just how much of a boost he had gained over the last ten days.

For a time, the sound of whistling wind filled the sparring platform as the two traded blows, thoroughly enjoying the exchange.

Ten minutes later, a panting Zhang Yining looked at Gu Yuan, who still appeared calm and composed, and gave up on the sparring session right then and there.

"No more, no more!"

Zhang Yining sat down on the ground with a thud, waving his hands and gasping for air.

"What's the point of fighting? I haven't landed a single hit on you; this is pointless!"

"Before the break, we were pretty much on the same level. Now look at you—you didn't even use any martial arts or circulate your blood and qi, and I still couldn't touch you at all!"

Seeing this, Gu Yuan nodded in satisfaction. Being in the same realm, he was able to suppress his opponent even without circulating his blood and qi.

He walked to the edge of the platform, picked up the water Zhang Yining had brought, unscrewed a bottle, and tossed it over.

"Your stamina is just too poor. Stay up less often."

"Get lost!" Zhang Yining took a large gulp of water, caught his breath, and then leaned in, looking mysterious.

"Old Gu, have you heard? Something happened at our school."

"Hm?" Gu Yuan paused mid-drink. "What happened?"

"Just two days ago, a girl from our school went missing!"

Zhang Yining lowered his voice.

"She was from the class next door, and I heard she was quite pretty, too."

Missing? Gu Yuan's brows furrowed slightly.

"What exactly happened?"

"I heard she came to school two days ago, saying she wanted to use the training hall to practice, and then she never came out." Zhang Yining recounted the story vividly.

"The school turned the surveillance footage upside down. They only saw her enter the school and enter the training hall, but there was no footage of her leaving. She just vanished—no sign of her, dead or alive."

The training hall? He knew that place; it was a facility specifically built by the school for the convenience of martial arts students, containing some basic auxiliary equipment.

"Do you think... could some kind of ferocious beast have snuck into Sea City?"

Zhang Yining clearly had a rich imagination; as he said this, he couldn't help but shiver.

Gu Yuan nearly spat out the water in his mouth upon hearing this.

"Give it a rest, have you been reading too many novels?" He looked at Zhang Yining, that eccentric genius with the overactive imagination, with a speechless expression.

"I'd believe you if you said a serial killer had appeared in Sea City, but a ferocious beast? How is that even possible? Do you think our city's early warning systems and the Destiny Bureau are just for show?"

As a vital coastal city in the east, Sea City possessed a formidable defense system, maintained and monitored year-round by the sorcerers of the Destiny Bureau.

Let alone a ferocious beast, even a mutated mouse would find it harder than ascending to heaven to sneak inside.

"Why are you overthinking this?" Gu Yuan patted him on the shoulder.

"Maybe she just had a falling out with her family and decided to run away from home."

"Our school's security cameras aren't exactly 360-degree coverage without blind spots, are they? I remember you doing the same thing back in the day, didn't you? You hid in an internet cafe for a week, your parents even called the police, and the surveillance didn't catch you either, right?"

"Ahem!" Zhang Yining's face flushed red, and he hurriedly defended himself.

"What kind of talk is that, what do you mean I did the same thing! How could my situation be the same? I didn't alert the Destiny Bureau back then!"

Hm?

Gu Yuan fell into deep thought upon hearing this.

"It alerted the Destiny Bureau?"

"You bet it did!" Zhang Yining immediately perked up.

"This case was big enough to alert the Destiny Bureau! Just think about it, shouldn't a normal missing person case be handled by our city's regular law enforcement team? When would it ever be the Destiny Bureau's turn to step in personally?"

These words served as a reminder to Gu Yuan.

Indeed, the Destiny Bureau was a special department responsible for handling ferocious beasts and crimes involving martial artists; ordinary civil cases would never catch their eye.

For a campus disappearance case to be reported directly to the Destiny Bureau, this incident was indeed somewhat bizarre.

However...

Gu Yuan's cousin, Shen Tingxue, flashed through his mind.

If something truly major had happened in Sea City, such as a ferocious beast infiltrating or a high-level martial artist causing chaos, given his cousin's personality, it was impossible that she wouldn't have warned him to stay safe.

Since there was no movement from her side, it meant the situation was still within a controllable range, or perhaps, the nature of this incident was quite specific?

Thinking of this, Gu Yuan patted Zhang Yining and said:

"Rest assured, it definitely won't be anything major."

"This isn't major? My brother, you must not be awake yet!" Zhang Yining's eyes widened.