Chapter 2

"Is it from Bingge?"

After reading the content of the letter, Zhang Yuanqing frowned.

What does it mean to change one's life? What does it mean to be unable to control?

Really, he didn’t explain clearly... He looked at the black card again, examining it repeatedly, confirming that it was just an ordinary card. If there was anything unusual, it was the good feel and the seemingly rare material.

Could it be a VIP card from some top club? 36D beauties indeed can only be handled by a man like me.

Lei Yibing was his childhood friend, nicknamed Ah Bing, two years older than him. Before his grandparents bought a new house, both families lived in the same alley.

Lei Yibing was always the one who protected him, leading the charge in fights and staying behind to take the hits. If anyone mocked Zhang Yuanqing for not having a father, Lei Yibing would stand up for him.

So Zhang Yuanqing always called him Bingge.

Ah Bing’s high school grades were not ideal, so he went to college in the neighboring province of Jiangnan. Since then, with the distance between them, their contact became less frequent.

Zhang Yuanqing put the black card in his jacket pocket and picked up his phone to send a teasing message to Bingge:

"Which club's VIP card is it? At least give me the address or contact information."

After sending the message, he didn’t receive a reply for half an hour.

Zhang Yuanqing decided to call Bingge directly.

After two beeps, the call connected, and a deep male voice came from the speaker:

"Hello! This is Lei Yibing’s father."

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

"Is Bingge back in Songhai this week? Have him answer the phone, I need to talk to him."

There was a moment of silence on the other end, followed by a heavy voice:

"Yuanzi, I’m in Jiangnan. Ah Bing has gone missing..."

Bingge is missing?! Zhang Yuanqing stood there in shock, a few seconds later, he asked in a daze and urgency:

"What happened?"

How could Bingge be missing? He even sent me something.

"He went missing the night before last. Your Aunt Zhou and I received a notice from the school yesterday and immediately rushed over." Uncle Lei’s mood was low.

"Did you report it to the police? What did they say?" Zhang Yuanqing asked in a serious tone.

Uncle Lei was silent for a long time, then said hesitantly:

"This is a bit hard to explain. Ah Bing’s disappearance is quite strange..."

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

Uncle Lei explained:

"Ah Bing went missing from his dorm room the night before last. The police checked the surveillance footage in the dormitory hallway and found that Ah Bing didn’t leave the room all night, but he was gone the next morning."

"The students in the same dorm said they saw him before going to bed, but he was gone when they woke up. They thought he had just gone out."

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

Could someone just vanish into thin air? No one would believe such a story, not even a three-year-old.

Zhang Yuanqing suppressed his anxiety and lowered his voice:

"Uncle Lei, did Bingge offend someone at school?"

He first thought that Bingge might have offended someone at school, someone with power in the area, which is why the surveillance showed no issues, often indicating that the school was covering up.

In the age of information explosion, anyone who has been online has heard of similar incidents.

"The school leaders said they would cooperate with the police as much as possible, and the police said to wait for news, that they would investigate... Your aunt and I haven’t slept all night."

Uncle Lei’s voice was filled with despair and worry.

Sure enough, that’s the kind of response... Zhang Yuanqing took a deep breath and comforted him:

"Don’t worry, my grandfather and cousin both work at the police station, you know that. I’ll ask them how to handle this and what to pay attention to. If you have any questions or need advice, just call me.

"Also, you should ask the students at the school. If Bingge offended someone, there must be students who know."

Uncle Lei felt a bit relieved and said:

"Got it, Yuanzi. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know as soon as I have any news."

After hanging up, Zhang Yuanqing was restless, pacing back and forth in the room, worried about Bingge’s safety.

People don’t just disappear for no reason. If the surveillance didn’t capture anything, it must have been tampered with. But who did Bingge offend?

But a third-year student, who could he have offended?

Wait, he went missing the night before last...

The night before last?!

Zhang Yuanqing was startled. It takes 2-3 days for a package to travel from Jiangnan to Songhai. According to the timeline, Bingge went missing the night he sent the package...

Is this a coincidence? Or is there a connection?

Thinking about this, he instinctively reached for the black card in his pocket, but when he put his hand in, he suddenly froze.

The black card was gone.

Did it fall on the floor? Zhang Yuanqing quickly looked around the room, but it wasn’t there.

He got down on the floor and looked under the bed. The floor was covered in dust, coins, pens, buttons, and other debris, but no black card.

The card was gone, and he remembered clearly putting it in his pocket.

How could it just disappear?

Considering Bingge’s mysterious disappearance, the strange letter, and the bizarre disappearance of the black card, Zhang Yuanqing felt a sense of fear and confusion.

"Is the black card related to Bingge’s disappearance? Or is it an important clue?"

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

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

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

The condition for his old ailment to activate is to calmly imagine a scene, preferably one he had seen before but couldn’t remember clearly.

This would stimulate brain activity, gradually warming it up until it boiled.

After many years, his father’s face had become blurry, making it the perfect object to visualize.

Time passed, and his father’s face gradually became clearer, finally showing every detail, while his heart raced like an overloaded engine.

At that moment, time seemed to reverse, and the scenes from an hour ago flashed by like a movie.

He saw himself opening the package, reading the letter, putting the black card in his jacket pocket, and then sending a message to Bingge.

Next, he sat at the desk, motionless, scrolling through short videos for a few minutes, and then exchanging a few lewd pictures with friends in a gaming group.

He saved a few high-quality images.

Then he read a few minutes of a novel, constantly thinking about the card, and called Bingge.

After the call, the critical moment arrived. He paced around the room, the time when he was most likely to drop the card.

In the memory, he saw himself frowning and pacing, then reaching for the black card and finding it gone.

Zhang Yuanqing suddenly opened his eyes, his face full of fear.

Gone?!

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

What the hell did Bingge send me... Instantly, he felt a chill run down his spine.

Before he could think more, a chaotic noise filled his ears, like the voices of countless people overlapping. Broken images flooded his mind like a volcanic eruption.

A warm liquid flowed from his nose, and his head felt like it was being hammered with nails.

He crawled to the bedside, trembling, and took five blue pills, then shakily picked up the glass of water and swallowed the pills and water.

A moment later, Zhang Yuanqing sat at the head of the bed, pale and panting.

At this point, he was almost certain that Bingge’s disappearance was related to the black card.

"Bingge went missing after sending me the black card, and that card is clearly not ordinary..."

This suggested that he might have been under some threat and had to transfer the item.

"But why didn’t he hand it over to the local police?"

Am I, a college student who has never killed a chicken or slept with anyone, more reliable than the police?

Zhang Yuanqing suddenly thought of the detail that "the surveillance and dorm mates didn’t notice anything unusual."

To achieve this, one must have considerable power.

Bingge didn’t hand the black card over to the local police because... the police weren’t trustworthy?

Or perhaps, the person or force that made him disappear had influence over the local police.

"He sent the black card to me because he knew my grandfather was a retired police chief and my cousin is a police captain, with deep connections in Songhai City, and the people in Jiangnan couldn’t affect me?"

I need to tell my cousin.

"Ding dong~"

At that moment, he heard the doorbell ring from the entrance.

His grandmother’s footsteps approached the entrance, turned the doorknob, and opened the door.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Hello, we are investigators from the Kangyang District Police Station. Is Zhang Yuanqing at home?"

The person outside replied.

...

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