Disappearance

"Sent by Brother Bing?"

Zhang Yuanqing frowned after reading the contents of the letter.

What did he mean by "changing one's life"? What did he mean by "impossible to control"?

Seriously, he couldn't even explain himself clearly. He turned his gaze back to the black card, observing it repeatedly to confirm it was just an unremarkable piece of plastic. If he had to point out anything unusual, it was the texture—it felt quite premium, and the material seemed rare.

Could it be a VIP card for some top-tier club? Surely, only a man of my caliber could handle a 36D goddess.

Lei Yibing was his childhood best friend, nicknamed A-Bing, two years his senior. Before his Grandfather and Grandmother bought their new home, the two families had lived in the same alleyway.

Lei Yibing had A-rank strength and speed, with C-rank intelligence. He had always looked out for him since they were kids—charging to the front in a fight and staying behind to cover his retreat. If anyone mocked Zhang Yuanqing for being a fatherless child, Lei Yibing would be the one to stand up for him.

That was why Zhang Yuanqing had always called him Brother Bing.

A-Bing's grades in high school weren't ideal, so he went to university in neighboring Jiangnan Province. Since then, the two had drifted apart as they lived in different places.

Zhang Yuanqing tucked the black card into his windbreaker pocket while picking up his phone to send a teasing message to Brother Bing:

"Which club is this VIP card for? At least give me the address or contact info."

Half an hour passed after sending the message, but he received no reply.

Zhang Yuanqing decided to just call Brother Bing directly.

After two rings, the call connected, and a man's deep voice came through the speaker:

"Hello! This is Lei Yibing's father."

"Uncle Lei?" Zhang Yuanqing was taken aback, then said happily:

"Is Brother Bing back in Songhai this week? Let him take the phone; I have something to ask him."

There was a silence on the other end, followed by a pained voice:

"Yuanzi, I'm in Jiangnan Province. A-Bing... he's gone missing."

Brother Bing was missing?! Zhang Yuanqing stood frozen on the spot. After a few seconds, he asked in a daze, his voice laced with urgency:

"What happened?"

How could Brother Bing go missing? He just sent me a package.

"He went missing the night before last. Your Aunt Zhou and I received a notification from the school yesterday and rushed over immediately," Uncle Lei said, his mood heavy.

"Did you call the police? What did the Public Security Bureau say?" Zhang Yuanqing asked in a low, serious voice.

Uncle Lei remained silent for a long time before saying with some hesitation:

"It's hard to explain. A-Bing's disappearance is... strange."

Strange? What does that mean? Zhang Yuanqing was stunned.

Uncle Lei continued:

"A-Bing went missing from his dorm room the night before last. The police checked the surveillance footage from the dormitory hallway and found that A-Bing never left his room all night, yet he was gone by the next morning.

"His roommates said they saw him before they went to sleep, but when they woke up, he was gone. They just assumed he had stepped out."

Zhang Yuanqing blurted out: "How is that possible?"

Can a person just vanish into thin air? A three-year-old wouldn't even believe that.

Zhang Yuanqing suppressed his anxiety and lowered his voice:

"Uncle Lei, did Brother Bing offend anyone at school?"

His first thought was that Brother Bing had offended someone with local influence, which would explain why the surveillance footage showed nothing—as that often implied a cover-up by the school administration.

In this age of information overload, anyone who had spent time online had heard of similar cases.

"The school leaders said they would cooperate with the police as much as possible, and the police told us to go back and wait for news while they investigate. Your Aunt and I haven't slept all night."

Uncle Lei's tone was filled with frustration and worry.

Just as I thought. Damn it. Zhang Yuanqing took a deep breath and comforted him:

"Don't panic yet. You know my Grandfather and Cousin work at the Public Security Bureau. I'll ask them how to handle this and what we should look out for. If you have any questions or need advice, don't hesitate to call me.

"Also, you must ask his classmates. If Brother Bing offended someone, someone in his class is bound to know."

Uncle Lei felt slightly relieved and said:

"Understood, Yuanzi. Don't you worry either; I'll let you know the moment I hear anything."

After hanging up, Zhang Yuanqing felt restless, pacing back and forth in his room while worrying about Brother Bing's safety.

People don't just go missing for no reason. If the cameras didn't catch it, the footage must have been tampered with. He just didn't know who Brother Bing could have offended.

But what kind of trouble could a junior in college possibly get into?

Wait, he went missing the night before last.

The night before last?!

Zhang Yuanqing was suddenly shocked. It takes two to three days for a package to travel from Jiangnan Province to Songhai. Based on the timeline, Brother Bing went missing the very night he sent the package to me.

Is this a coincidence? Or is there some connection?

Thinking of this, he instinctively reached for the black card in his pocket, but as his hand slipped inside, he suddenly froze.

The black card was gone.

Did it fall on the floor? Zhang Yuanqing lowered his head in a hurry, his gaze sweeping rapidly across the bedroom floor.

Nothing!

He crawled onto the floor to look under the bed. The underside was covered in a layer of dust, along with some coins, pens, buttons, and other debris, but no black card.

The card had vanished, and he remembered quite clearly that he had put it into his pocket.

How could it just disappear into thin air?

Connecting this to the mysterious disappearance of Brother Bing, the strange content of the letter, and the eerily vanished black card, Zhang Yuanqing felt an inexplicable sense of terror and bewilderment.

Could the black card be related to Brother Bing's disappearance? Or is it an important clue?

Taking a deep breath, Zhang Yuanqing decided to use his "old ailment" to reboot his memory.

He first poured cold water into a glass, took the medicine bottle from the nightstand, unscrewed it, and then took off his shoes and lay on the bed.

After doing all this, he closed his eyes, remained motionless, and visualized his father's face in his mind.

The condition to actively trigger his old ailment was to calm his mind and imagine an image—preferably one he had seen before but could not recall clearly.

This would stimulate brain activity, slowly warming it up until his mental power reached a boiling point.

After many years, his father's face had long since become blurred, making it the perfect subject.

Time ticked by second by second. His father's face gradually shifted from blurry to clear, and finally, every detail became distinct. Zhang Yuanqing's heart began to beat violently, like an overloaded engine.

At this moment, time seemed to flow backward. The scenes from an hour ago flashed by frame by frame, like a movie.

He saw himself opening the express package, reading the letter, and putting the black card into the pocket of his windbreaker. Next came sending a message to Brother Bing.

From there, for the next half hour, he sat at the table without moving, scrolling through short videos for over ten minutes and exchanging a few lewd pictures with the perverts in his gaming group.

He saved a few high-quality images.

Then he read a novel for a few minutes, but because he kept thinking about the card, he called Brother Bing.

After the call, the critical moment arrived. He paced around the room in anxiety; this was the time when the card was most likely to have fallen.

In the memory, he saw himself pacing the room with a furrowed brow, then reaching out to touch the black card, only to find it gone.

Zhang Yuanqing snapped his eyes open, his face full of terror.

Gone?!

The black card was just gone, vanished into thin air.

What the hell did Brother Bing send me? For a moment, his scalp tingled.

Before he could think further, chaotic noise rang in his ears, like the voices of countless people overlapping. Fragmented images in his mind surged forth like an erupting volcano.

Warm liquid flowed from Zhang Yuanqing's nose, and his head felt as if a steel nail had been driven into it.

With a twisted expression, he crawled toward the nightstand, tremblingly poured five small blue pills into his mouth, then tremblingly picked up the water glass and tilted his head back to swallow the pills and water together.

A moment later, Zhang Yuanqing sat on the edge of the bed, gasping for air with a pale face.

At this point, he could basically confirm that Brother Bing's disappearance and the black card were connected.

Brother Bing disappeared after mailing me the black card, and that card is bizarre—clearly not an ordinary object.

This forced one to wonder if he had been under some kind of threat, forcing him to offload the item.

But why didn't he hand it over to the local police, instead mailing it to me?

Could it be that I, a college student who has never even killed a chicken or slept with a woman, am more reliable than the police?

Zhang Yuanqing suddenly thought of the detail that "the surveillance and dormitory staff didn't notice anything unusual."

To achieve that level of concealment, one must possess a certain degree of power.

Did Brother Bing not hand the black card to the local police because the police themselves weren't trustworthy?

Or perhaps, the person or force that caused his disappearance had influence reaching the local police.

He mailed the black card to me because he knew Grandfather is a retired police chief and Cousin is a police captain, giving me quite deep connections in Songhai City. People from Jiangnan Province can't influence me?

I have to tell Cousin about this.

"Ding-dong~"

At this moment, he heard the doorbell—the doorbell from the entryway.

Grandmother's footsteps sounded immediately, crossing the living room to the entryway, and she turned the doorknob.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Hello, we are investigators from the Kangyang District Public Security Bureau. Is Zhang Yuanqing home?"

The person outside the door replied.

PS: Please, my lords, add this to your favorites. There will be another chapter tonight.