Never Left

"After this video captured Ye Ting, has she appeared anywhere else?" Hong Anjie asked with a look of concern.

"No." Although he had already guessed this result, Shen Xing put his phone away with a hint of disappointment. "This is the last video of her. After this, the surveillance footage facing the main gate of Ivy Apartments didn't show her leaving; she just vanished like that."

"Could she have left in disguise?" Fake Hong Bin speculated.

"Right, if that were the case, if she left the complex at night and immediately got into a car parked on the street, there's a high probability she wouldn't have been spotted," Hong Anjie added, nodding.

Shen Xing shook his head. "I've already checked the surveillance. During that time, no one on the street outside the complex got into a car and left immediately after exiting. There were people whose faces weren't clear, but after the peacekeepers carefully identified them, they matched other residents of the complex. They weren't strangers."

"Then is it possible she disguised herself as someone else from the complex before leaving?" Hong Anjie continued to guess.

After experiencing the bizarre incident involving his father, it must be said that Hong Anjie felt he was becoming more and more like Sherlock Holmes himself.

Regardless, as long as the possibility existed, he would guess boldly. He was now very clear that certain things in this world were already bizarre enough to far exceed his own imagination.

Shen Xing did not refute this, instead lowering his head into deep thought.

To be honest, he didn't rule out that possibility, but if Ye Ting had really done that, what was her motive? Why hide herself? Why was she afraid of being discovered?

After the three of them discussed it, Shen Xing's doubts were not resolved; instead, they only seemed to grow.

The atmosphere of the meal turned stagnant.

To break the heavy mood, Shen Xing took out the wrapped bust wood carving, opened it in front of Hong Bin, and said, "My craftsmanship isn't refined, please bear with me, Uncle Hong!"

However, upon seeing the carving, the eyes of both Hong Bin and Hong Anjie lit up simultaneously.

"Good!" Hong Bin blurted out.

Hong Anjie exclaimed, "It's so lifelike! It feels much more realistic than when I saw it before!"

Shen Xing smiled. "I did some fine-tuning later on."

"Impressive!" Hong Bin gave a thumbs up. "I really like it!"

Hong Anjie transferred the money to Shen Xing on the spot, even adding an extra thousand beyond the original price.

Shen Xing was slightly stunned after seeing the notification. Just as he looked up to speak, Hong Anjie had already said, "I really need to thank you for what happened with my dad. This is just a small token, don't decline it."

Although this kid lived in the suburbs, he not only had a job but also had several empty rooms at home to rent out. Honestly, his financial resources were much stronger than those of Shen Xing, an outsider.

Shen Xing nodded and said nothing more.

The meal lasted until nearly ten o'clock at night. All three were slightly tipsy, so they called a designated driver. Hong Anjie and his father left with the bust, while Shen Xing walked alone toward the Ivy Apartments across the street.

Battered by the cool night breeze, he felt much clearer-headed and his thinking became calm.

Walking to the main gate of Ivy Apartments near the street, he looked up at a slightly elevated spot. In his memory, there was a camera in front of the Liang Doupi Distribution Store across the way facing this spot, and a Sky Eye probe on the street by the complex gate also pointed here.

Currently, both cameras were still there and operating normally, but after reviewing the footage back then, he hadn't seen Ye Ting leave through the gate.

Did she leave the complex from somewhere else? Or was it as Hong Anjie said, she disguised herself as another resident and walked out? Or perhaps...

Shen Xing looked up, standing at the gate, his gaze piercing through the iron bars to stare into the complex. "Or... she never left at all!"

Returning to his rental, he took a shower and then compulsively checked the doors and windows again before heading to the bedroom.

Ever since the Blood Pupil incident, his obsessive-compulsive symptoms seemed to have become more severe than before.

However, upon closer reflection, this was because he had become more vigilant, and the manifestation of this was the layering of obsessive thoughts. Now, he would even check the door lock three times before he felt at ease when coming home at night.

He closed the bedroom door, pressed the deadbolt, and then checked every corner of the room where someone could hide before finally lying down on the bed.

Shen Xing knew one thing about himself that was good: once he performed his compulsive rituals, he would feel very at ease and sleep until dawn without continuing to harbor suspicions.

He woke up early the next day. After breakfast, Shen Xing arrived at the "Tingwu" shop on Chunyu Street at his usual time and opened the doors early for business.

Currently, the number of wood carvings in the shop was quite large, but apart from the new products he had discovered since his rebirth—namely, the anime-style wood carvings which sold well—the other works remained sluggish.

Of course, the profit from anime-style carvings wasn't huge; it relied mainly on volume. The truly exquisite works were still the current Blood Pupil and Fake Hong Bin pieces.

The slightly better works from before were mostly focused on natural landscapes, Buddha statues, or carvings with symbolic meanings.

Not a single carving was sold all morning. By noon, Shen Xing temporarily closed the shop, returned home to gather the documents needed for the adoption process, and went downstairs to make copies of everything.

After putting the originals and copies into a paper file folder, he went to the Civil Affairs Office at City Hall right at the start of the afternoon shift. He submitted the copies, printed out the application according to the unified format on the spot, signed it, pressed his thumbprint, and submitted that as well.

He had decided that, regardless of the outcome, he would submit the application to adopt Lin Feifei first. As for whether it would be approved, he would leave that to fate.

But since such cases were rare, Shen Xing guessed that it would likely not be approved.

As he walked out of the Civil Affairs Office, his phone rang. He pulled it out and saw it was a landline number, which the phone's smart ID identified as "Qiguang Orphanage."

Shen Xing was stunned. It passed already? It can't be that fast, right? And they're contacting me directly—how eager are they to get the child out?

He answered the phone, and a strange man's voice came through: "Hello, is this Mr. Shen Xing?"

"Yes, it is."

"Please wait a moment, Lin Feifei wants to say a few words to you." The man seemed to be a staff member from the orphanage office.

After saying this, he handed the receiver to Feifei, who had been waiting on the side.

A familiar, childish voice soon came from the other end of the line: "Uncle Shen, where are you right now?"

Shen Xing heard that her tone seemed a bit off, so he replied with a puzzled expression, "I'm on the street. What's wrong? Are you not feeling well?"

"No." Feifei suddenly lowered her voice, as if she were deliberately avoiding someone nearby, before whispering, "Do you have time? Can you come here? I feel like Sister Song Xiaoyu is acting a bit strange..."

"Who?" Shen Xing paused for a moment before it clicked. "Are you talking about that volunteer, Song Xiaoyu? Hmm, is today her volunteer day again?"

"No, it wasn't supposed to be her today, but she showed up, and she's acting very strangely..." Feifei sounded somewhat terrified on the other end of the line. "They don't believe what I just saw. Can you come over?"

"Alright, I'm on my way." Shen Xing nodded.

After hanging up the phone, he hailed a taxi on the side of the road and headed straight toward Qiguang Orphanage.