Chapter 2: The Disappearance
"It’s from Big Bro Bing?"
Zhang Yuanqing finished reading the letter and furrowed his brow. What does he mean by "change my life"? And what does he mean by "not good enough to master it"? What a clown! He couldn't even bother to explain properly!
He turned his gaze back to the black card, flipping it over and over, examining it from every angle. As far as he could tell, it was completely unremarkable. If there was anything unusual about it at all, it was how pleasant it felt to the touch, and the seemingly rare material it was made from.
Could this be a VIP card from some top-tier club?
That would make sense; only a mathematician of Zhang Yuanqing’s caliber could handle big numbers like 36D.
Lei Yibing had been his ride-or-die since childhood. His nickname was Ah Bing, and he was two years older than Zhang Yuanqing. Back before his grandparents bought their new apartment, the two families had lived in the same alley.
If real life was a game, Lei Yibing’s physical strength and speed stats would have been ranked AA... while his intelligence would have been ranked C. Even so, he'd always had Zhang Yuanqing's back—first to charge into a fight, last to retreat when taking a beating. If anyone dared mock Zhang Yuanqing for being the kid without a father, Lei Yibing would step up and handle it the not-nice way.
That was why Zhang Yuanqing had always called him Big Bro Bing.
Lei Yibing's grades hadn't been great in high school, so he'd gone to college in the neighboring Jiangnan Province. Because of the distance, the two of them had gradually fallen out of regular contact.
Zhang Yuanqing slipped the black card into his windbreaker pocket with one hand and picked up his phone with the other to fire off a teasing message.
Zhang Yuanqing: Which club's VIP card is this? At least give me an address or a phone number.
Half an hour passed. No reply.
Zhang Yuanqing gave up waiting and dialed Lei Yibing's number directly.
After two rings, the call connected. A deep male voice came through the speaker. "Hello. This is Lei Yibing's father."
"Uncle Lei?" Zhang Yuanqing blinked, then his expression brightened. "Is Big Bro Bing back in Songhai this week? Could you put him on? I need to talk to him."
There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then the deep voice returned, this time laden with grief. "Yuanzi... I'm in Jiangnan. Ah Bing has gone missing."
Big Bro Bing is missing?! Zhang Yuanqing stood frozen.
Several seconds ticked by before he managed to ask in a bewildered and urgent tone, "What happened?"
How can he be missing? He just sent me a package.
"He disappeared three days ago. Your Aunt Zhou and I got a call from the university yesterday and rushed over immediately." Uncle Lei's voice was heavy with despair.
"Have you filed a report? What did the Public Security Bureau say?" Zhang Yuanqing asked, his tone grave.
Uncle Lei fell silent for a long time, then spoke hesitantly. "The whole thing is... hard to explain. The way Ah Bing vanished was strange."
Zhang Yuanqing's mind stalled. Strange? What does that mean...?
Uncle Lei continued, "Ah Bing disappeared from his dormitory two nights ago. The police pulled surveillance footage of the hallway and found that Ah Bing hadn't left his room the entire night. But the next morning, he was just... gone. His roommates said they saw him before going to bed, but when they woke up, he wasn't there. They assumed he'd just stepped out."
"How is that possible...?" Zhang Yuanqing blurted out.
People didn’t just vanish into thin air. Even a three year old wouldn't buy that story.
He swallowed his anxiety and lowered his voice. "Uncle Lei, did he maybe get on someone's bad side at school?"
His first thought was that his big bro had crossed the wrong person, someone with local influence. That would explain why the surveillance footage showed nothing suspicious. It usually meant the school was covering something up.
In the age of information overload, anyone who'd spent time online had heard of cases like this.
"The school administrators said they'd cooperate with the police as much as possible. The officers told us to go home and wait for updates, that they'd investigate... Your aunt and I haven't slept all night." Uncle Lei's voice was laced with frustration and worry.
Of course that's what they told you. Damn it...
Zhang Yuanqing took a deep breath and tried to offer reassurance. "Try not to panic. You know my grandpa and my cousin both work at the Public Security Bureau. I'll ask them how to handle a situation like this and what to watch out for. If there's anything you don't understand or you need advice on, call me anytime. Also, you absolutely need to talk to his classmates. If Big Bro Bing had a fight with someone, his classmates would know."
It seemed like that lifted some of the weight off Uncle Lei’s chest. "Alright. Yuanzi, don't worry too much either. The moment I hear anything, you'll be the first to know."
After hanging up, Zhang Yuanqing couldn't sit still. He paced back and forth across his room, gnawed by worry over his friend's safety.
People didn't just disappear for no reason. If the cameras caught nothing, then someone had tampered with the cameras. The question was who Lei Yibing had managed to piss off.
But he was merely a third year college student; who could he possibly have crossed?
Wait. He disappeared two days ago... Two days ago?!
The realization hit Zhang Yuanqing like a bolt of lightning. A package from Jiangnan would take two to three days to arrive in Songhai. Based on that timeline, Lei Yibing likely vanished the very same night he’d mailed the package.
Coincidence? Or is there a connection?
His hand instinctively darted toward the black card in his pocket. But the moment his fingers slipped inside his windbreaker, he froze.
The card was gone.
Did it fall on the floor? Zhang Yuanqing dropped his gaze immediately, eyes sweeping rapidly across the room.
Nothing.
He got down on the floor and peered under the bed. A layer of dust, a few scattered coins, pens, buttons—but no black card.
The card, which he remembered with absolute certainty that he had put in his pocket, had vanished.
How could something just disappear into thin air?
The mysterious disappearance of Lei Yibing. The cryptic letter. The card that had somehow evaporated inside his pocket. Together, they sent a creeping wave of terror and confusion radiating through Zhang Yuanqing's chest.
Could the black card be connected to Big Bro Bing's disappearance? Or could it be a crucial clue?
Zhang Yuanqing drew a deep breath. He decided to use his "old illness" to replay his memory.
First, he poured cold water into a glass. Then he retrieved the pill bottle from the nightstand and twisted the cap open. He kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed.
With the preparations complete, he closed his eyes, held perfectly still, and began to visualize his father's face.
The way to trigger his old illness was to calm his mind and fixate on an image—ideally something he'd seen before but could no longer recall clearly. That would spark his brain's activity, gradually warming up his mental processing until it reached a roiling boil.
After so many years, his father's face had long since blurred beyond recognition, so it was the perfect target.
Seconds crawled by. Minutes followed. His father's face sharpened from a haze into crisp detail, every pore rendered with photographic clarity. Zhang Yuanqing's heart hammered violently, like an engine pushed past its limit.
At that moment, time seemed to rewind. The events of the past hour replayed themselves like a film reel, frame by frame.
He watched himself open the package. Read the letter. Slip the black card into his windbreaker pocket. Then text Big Bro Bing.
From that point on, the next half hour unfolded normally. He'd sat motionless at his desk, scrolled through short videos for about fifteen minutes before trading a few racy pictures with the degenerates in his gaming group chat.
He'd even saved a few high-quality images for future reference.
After that, he'd read a novel for a few minutes, but since his thoughts kept turning back to the card, he’d called Big Bro Bing.
After the call—here was the critical window—he'd paced frantically around the room. This was the most likely point for the card to have fallen out.
Through the replay, he watched himself frowning, pacing the room, then reaching into his pocket for the black card, only to discover it was already gone.
Zhang Yuanqing's eyes snapped open. His face was white with shock. Gone?!
The black card hadn’t fallen out. It had simply ceased to exist. Vanished into nothingness.
A chill crawled across his scalp. What the hell did that guy send me...?
Before any other thoughts could take form, a cacophony of cries flooded his ears, as if a thousand voices had been layered on top of each other, while shattered images flew through his mind as though erupting from a volcanic blast.
Something warm trickled from Zhang Yuanqing's nose. He felt as though steel spikes had been hammered into his skull.
Face contorted in agony, he crawled toward the headboard, shook out five blue pills with trembling hands and stuffed them into his mouth, then grabbed the glass shakily and threw his head back, washing the pills down with water.
Moments later, Zhang Yuanqing sat slumped against the headboard, ashen-faced and gasping.
At this point, he was all but certain: Lei Yibing's disappearance and the black card were connected.
"Big Bro Bing went missing after mailing me the black card. And that card is obviously not a normal card if it does unnatural shit like this..."
The implication was hard to ignore—Lei Yibing might have been facing some kind of threat and been forced to get rid of the item.
But why didn't he turn it over to the police? Why send it to me? Am I really more reliable than trained police officers? I’m just a normal college student who’s never even killed a chicken, and I’m still a wizard!
Then it struck him. The small detail about the surveillance footage, and the roommates noticing nothing unusual.
Whoever pulled that off had to wield considerable power.
Perhaps Lei Yibing hadn't surrendered the black card to the local Public Security Bureau because... the bureau itself couldn't be trusted?
Or rather, whoever or whatever entity had caused his disappearance wielded enough influence to compromise the local bureau entirely.
"He sent the card to me because he knows Grandpa is a retired police chief and my cousin is a security squad captain. We have deep connections in Songhai City. Perhaps whoever's in Jiangnan... can't reach me here?"
I need to tell my cousin about this.
Just then, the doorbell chimed. The sound of Grandma's footsteps followed immediately, crossing the living room to the front door. The door handle creaked.
"Good day. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Hello. We're from the Kangyang District Public Security Bureau. Is Zhang Yuanqing home?"
