"Did Lei Yibing send this?" Zhang Yuanqing frowned after reading the contents of the letter. What did they mean by "changing one's life" or "being unable to handle it"? Truly, they didn't explain themselves clearly. He turned his gaze once again to the black card, studying it carefully, confirming that it was nothing special—only that it felt good in the hand, with a somewhat rare material. Could it be the premium membership card of a top-tier club? After all, only someone like me—a rare man—could truly command the 36D ladies. Lei Yibing had been his closest friend since childhood, affectionately called "Bing-Bo" by him. He was two years older than Zhang Yuanqing, and when the couple's grandparents hadn't yet bought a new home, the two families lived in the same alley. Lei Yibing was a swift athlete with average intelligence, always stepping forward in fights, taking the brunt of blows when others fell back. Whenever someone mocked Zhang Yuanqing as a man without a father, Lei Yibing would step in to defend him. That's why Zhang Yuanqing had always called him "Bing-Bo." Li was not particularly outstanding in high school, so he enrolled in university in Jiangnan Province, the neighboring province. Since then, their contact had grown sparse. Zhang Yuanqing slid the black card into the pocket of his冲锋衣 and picked up his phone to send a teasing message to Bing: "Which club's VIP card is this? At least give me an address or contact information." After sending the message, he waited for half an hour without receiving a reply. So, Zhang decided to call Bing directly. After two rings, the phone connected, and a low, steady voice came through the speaker: "Hello! This is Lei Yibing's father." "Uncle Lei?" Zhang was momentarily surprised, then brightened: "Is Bing coming back to Songhai this week? Could you ask him to take the call? I have something to talk to him about." On the other end, there was a brief silence, followed by a somber tone: "Yuanzi, I'm in Jiangnan Province. Bing has gone missing..." Bing has gone missing? Zhang Yuanqing stood motionless, and after a few seconds, asked with a mixture of bewilderment and urgency: "What's going on?" How could Bing have disappeared? He had clearly sent me something recently. "He went missing four days ago. My uncle and your aunt received a notice from the school yesterday and immediately rushed over," said Uncle Lei, his tone subdued. "Have they filed a report? What did the police from the Public Security Bureau say?" Zhang Yuanqing asked firmly. Uncle Lei remained silent for a while, then hesitated before saying: "This situation is actually quite difficult to explain—Bing's disappearance is rather unusual." Unusual? What did that mean? Zhang Yuanqing was momentarily puzzled. "Bing went missing during the night of four days ago," said Uncle Lei. "The police checked the surveillance footage from the dormitory hall and found that Bing never left his room all night. Yet by the next morning, he was completely gone. "The students in the same dormitory reported that they saw him just before going to sleep, but when they woke up, he was no longer there—they thought he might have simply gone out." Zhang Yuanqing said out loud, "How could this be possible...?" Could people really vanish without a trace? A three-year-old child wouldn't believe such a thing. Zhang Yuanqing calmed his anxiety and spoke softly, "Uncle Lei, did Bingbo perhaps offend someone at school?" His first thought was that Bingbo had clashed with someone who held influence locally—someone whose presence could make the school's monitoring system fail to detect the issue, often indicating institutional protectionism on the part of the school administration. In this information-overload era, anyone who's used the internet has likely heard of similar cases. "The school leadership said they would do their best to cooperate with the police, while the officers told us to return home and wait for updates—they would be investigating. We didn't sleep a single hour together with your aunt." Uncle Lei's tone carried both frustration and concern. Indeed, that's exactly what one would expect—what a pity. Zhang Yuanqing took a deep breath and reassured him, "Please don't worry. My grandfather and my cousin both work at the Public Security Bureau—something you're well aware of." After I ask them how to handle this situation and what points to pay attention to, please feel free to call me if you have any questions or concerns. "Also, you must definitely check with your classmates at the school—if Bing has offended anyone, someone among them will surely know." With this, Uncle Lei felt a little more reassured and said, "Got it, Yuanzi. Don't worry—once I have any updates, I'll let you know right away." After hanging up, Zhang Yuanqing felt restless, pacing back and forth in the room, worried about Bing's safety. People don't just vanish without reason. Since the surveillance footage doesn't show anything, it must have been tampered with—though it's still unclear who Bing has offended. But who could a third-year student possibly offend? Wait—what about the one who disappeared four days ago? Four days ago?! Zhang Yuanqing was startled. It typically takes 2 to 3 days for a package to be delivered from Jiangnan Province to Songhai. According to the timeline, Bing must have delivered the items to me that very evening before going missing. Is this just a coincidence? Or is there some connection? As this thought came to him, he instinctively reached for the black card in his pocket. But when he extended his hand into his pocket, he suddenly froze. The black card was gone. Had it fallen to the floor? Zhang Yuanqing quickly bent down and quickly scanned the floor of the room. No—it wasn’t there! He crawled to the floor and looked under the bed. A layer of dust covered the bed base, along with some coins, pens, and buttons, but the black card was nowhere to be found. The card had simply vanished, and he was certain he had placed it in his pocket just moments before. How had it disappeared so completely? With the mysterious disappearance of Bingge, the oddly worded letters, and now this inexplicable vanishing of the black card, Zhang Yuanqing felt an unexpected sense of fear and bewilderment. "Could the black card be connected to Bingge’s disappearance? Or perhaps it holds a crucial clue?" Taking a deep breath, Zhang Yuanqing decided to restart his memory using his long-standing condition. He poured some cold water into the glass cup, took out a medicine bottle from the nightstand, opened it, and then removed his shoes before lying down on the bed. After completing all this, he closed his eyes and remained still, mentally visualizing his father's face. The condition for his chronic illness to be triggered was to calm down and imagine a scene—ideally one he had seen before but could no longer clearly recall. This would activate the brain, gradually warming it up until it reached a state of intense activity. Over the years, his father's face had grown increasingly hazy, making it the perfect subject. As time passed, the image of his father gradually transitioned from blurry to sharp, finally coming into vivid focus, while Zhang Yuanqing's heart raced, as though the engine were under heavy load. At that moment, time seemed to reverse, and the scene from one hour earlier unfolded before him, frame by frame, like a scene from a film. He saw himself opening the delivery package, reading the letters, placing the black card into the pocket of his冲锋衣, then sending a message to his comrade. From there, for the next half-hour, he sat motionless at the desk, scrolling through short videos for over ten minutes, and exchanged a few awkward photos with the members of the gaming group in the chat. Saved a few high-quality images. Then read a few pages of a novel, but kept thinking about the cards, so called up Bing. After the call, the moment arrived—he was so anxious that he started pacing around the room, which was the most likely time for cards to go missing. In his memory, he saw himself frowning as he walked back and forth, then reaching out to feel for the black card, only to find it gone. Zhang Yuanqing suddenly sat up, wide-eyed with shock. Gone? The black card simply vanished—disappeared out of nowhere. What in the world had Bing actually sent me? For a moment, his scalp felt numb. Before he could think further, a chaotic noise surged into his ears, like countless voices layered on top of one another, and the fragmented images in his mind erupted like a volcanic eruption, flooding in all at once. Warm liquid ran down his nose, and his head felt as though it had been driven into steel spikes. He crawled toward the head of the bed with a twisted face, trembling as he carefully extracted five small blue pills and swallowed them. Then, trembling again, he picked up the water cup and tilted his head back, drinking the pills and water down at once. A moment later, Zhang Yuanqing sat at the head of the bed, pale and breathing heavily. By now, he could reasonably conclude that the disappearance of Bingbo was closely linked to the black card. "Bingbo went missing right after he sent me the black card—something about that card was strange, clearly not an ordinary item," he thought. This naturally raised the question: why hadn't he delivered it to the local police department instead? Could it be that, as a university student who had never killed a chicken or slept in a dormitory, I was more reliable than the police officers themselves? Zhang Yuanqing suddenly recalled the detail about "no anomalies noticed in the surveillance or among the dormitory staff." Only someone with substantial influence could achieve such a level of undetected movement. Bro didn't submit the black card to the local public security office because... perhaps the public security office itself isn't trustworthy? Or maybe the person or force that caused his disappearance has influence all the way down to the local public security office? "He sent me the black card knowing that my grandfather was a retired police captain and my cousin was the head of the public security department, with strong connections in Songhai City—people from Jiangnan Province couldn't reach me, right?" He should definitely tell this to his cousin. "Ding-dong~" At that moment, he heard the doorbell sound coming from the entrance. Then, his grandmother's footsteps echoed through the living room and reached the entrance, where she turned the doorknob. "Who are you looking for?" "Hello, we're investigators from the Kangyang District Public Security Office. Is Zhang Yuanqing at home?" the person outside replied.