At four in the morning, in Building 2 of Rongfu Jiayuan Community in Changning District, there was still a house with lights on.
The ceiling lights in the kitchen and living room were bright, and a young woman held her phone, pacing back and forth in the living room for several rounds.
Visible anxiety was evident on her face, and she almost pressed the screen lock to check every few seconds, but unfortunately, the phone screen remained empty, showing nothing.
Scattered on the coffee table were some messy loose pages of notebooks, and a few crumpled photocopies of contracts. The top page of the white paper had six or seven phone numbers written on it. Three or four of them had already been crossed out, and the remaining ones had notes like “Mr. Wang” or “Mr. Li,” indicating that they were not to be disturbed unless absolutely necessary.
The woman interlocked her hands, holding the phone, and sweat seeped out layer by layer from her palms. She was extremely nervous, heating the thin metal in her hands.
She moved like a caged beast in the living room, thinking of making another call. Just then, she heard a soft click from the bedroom door, and the doorknob turned half a circle from the inside, pulling it open, revealing a narrow gap.
After a moment, a little girl about the height of the woman’s thigh rubbed her eyes and walked out of the bedroom.
She carried a fluffy little bunny in her arms, her hair messy from sleep. Obviously, she had just woken up. Her eyes were still adapting to the bright light in the living room, and a tear rolled down, clumsily reaching out her little hand to shield her eyes.
The woman paused for a moment, hurried over, and bent down to help her block the light.
“Mommy.” The little girl spoke with a babyish voice, “Why hasn’t daddy come back yet?”
“He’s almost here.” The woman pursed her lips, mustering a reassuring smile with difficulty, and said softly, “Maybe he’s stuck in traffic, or the plane is delayed.”
The little girl had no idea that the woman had already checked the flight information in advance, so she tilted her head and was temporarily convinced by this lame excuse.
“But Daddy still hasn’t come back, and it’s almost dawn.” The little girl sighed like a little adult and said, “My birthday has passed.”
Children’s concept of time is not very clear; they always feel that as long as it’s not daylight, it’s still “tonight,” completely unaware that her birthday passed four hours ago.
“No, he won’t be long.” The woman half-knelt on the floor, reaching out to tidy the little girl’s hair, forcing a cheerful smile to comfort her, “Didn’t Daddy promise you? He’ll definitely be back for your birthday.”
The little girl pouted, not sure whether to believe it. However, good upbringing prevented her from throwing a tantrum. After some thought, she just reached out and grabbed the woman’s clothes.
“Mommy.” The little girl asked softly, “Is my cake still okay?”
“Yes, it is.” The woman smiled forcefully and said, “I put it in the refrigerator for you.”
“I want to see it.” The little girl said.
The little girl seemed to sense the woman’s distress and anxiety. Her keen child’s intuition made her aware of the unusual atmosphere in the room. Subconsciously, she didn’t press her mother about her father but used this lame excuse to alleviate her own panic.
The woman gently touched her face and led her to the refrigerator, taking out a delicately small eight-inch cake for her to see.
The cake was decorated with a delicate little tiger, and underneath it read, “Wishing Ruirui a Happy Birthday.”
“Ruirui, did you see it?” The woman asked, “After you see it, Mom will put it back, and you should go back to sleep.”
The little girl stood on her tiptoes and looked for a while, reluctantly allowing the woman to put the cake back.
“Okay.” The little girl said, “But when Daddy comes back, you have to wake me up.”
The woman, already very anxious, felt a sourness in her heart upon hearing this. Her eyes almost instantly turned red. But she didn’t dare to show it in front of her daughter, only managing to force a smile and say okay.
She watched the little girl, holding her bunny, walk back to the bedroom door. The little girl seemed to have a sense of unease. She stopped at the bedroom door, turned around, looked at the woman, and cautiously said, “Mommy, you should call Daddy and tell him to come back soon, or the cake won’t be good anymore.”
The woman instinctively covered her mouth, nodded vaguely, and then turned away, waving her hand to signal the little girl to go back to her room.
As the bedroom door closed behind her, the woman covered her face, took a deep breath, and, trembling, lit up her phone. She entered the last phone number from the scrap of paper into the dialing interface.
At half-past nine in the morning, in another part of Shanghai, in a budget hotel, Sheng Zhao’s alarm clock sounded urgently, almost dragging him out of a deep sleep within half a second.
The hotel mattress was a bit hard, and after sleeping for a night, he felt sore all over. He was awakened on time by the alarm clock, and when he got up from the bed, his whole person was still in a daze, almost hitting his head on the bathroom door, like a body waking up but the soul still in a sleeping daze.
Sheng Zhao, half-squinting his eyes, swayed in front of the sink, turning on the tap, filling it with half a basin of cold water. Then, he took a deep breath, immersed his face in it with a plunge.
Although this rude waking method was not very humane, it worked well. Sheng Zhao shivered all over, almost immediately awake.
He lifted his head, wiped off the water droplets that had splashed onto the mirror, and then emptied the cold water from the sink. He turned the tap to the hot water setting, waiting for the temperature to rise.
During this short wait, he habitually took out his phone from his pocket to check for new messages.
After unlocking it, a text message from Xing Yingzhuo popped up first, a reply sent early this morning. Xing Boss seemed to be selling his time by the second, sparing no words in the reply. The conversation box had only two words.
“Very obedient.”
Sheng Zhao: “…”
Sheng Zhao thought, what’s going on with this? Does Xing Yingzhuo talk like this? Saying “very obedient” to another guy sounds a bit gay.
He swiped away the message, thinking that he knew it. A guy who looks this good and loves to drink red bean coconut milk green tea can’t possibly be straight.
Sheng Zhao wiped his head with a semi-wet towel and walked out of the bathroom, carelessly grabbing his phone from the washstand.
Coincidentally, a push notification came in, and he opened it absentmindedly.
It was a popular local news alert, and he glanced over it, realizing it was a missing person notice.
The poster was a local Shanghai online influencer, who sent this message at 7:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, with not many followers, half of them being bought, and two hours having passed without causing any waves online, there were few comments. It was eventually pushed to Sheng Zhao, a local user with location information turned on.
The missing person, surnamed Zhang, named Zhang Kaisheng, male, thirty-nine years old, was an assistant manager for a project in the No.2 Planning Zone of Changning District. Supposedly, he was supposed to return home after a business trip yesterday but lost contact after getting off the plane. The family reported the disappearance, but the police couldn’t find any leads, so they sought help online.
The information was detailed, almost too much, including some trivial details. However, the details about the man’s clothing and appearance were not written very clearly. Instead, there was a lot of useless information about his age and position.
Sheng Zhao speculated that since he went missing right after getting off a business trip and hadn’t returned home yet, his family didn’t know what he was wearing at the time of his disappearance.
Recently, there had been quite a few missing persons, Sheng Zhao thought, and they all seemed to be in the same area. It sounded a bit eerie.
He shook his head and casually scrolled down. When the information reached the bottom, he noticed that there was also a recent photo of the missing man attached at the bottom of the information. He only glanced at it casually and suddenly froze.
The reason was simple— the man in the photo was the same man he had seen last night.
The man in the photo had a healthy complexion, a smiling face, appearing friendly and amiable. He looked completely different from the “flag-bearing zombie” Sheng Zhao saw on the plane last night.
However, despite the stark contrast in demeanor, the man in the photo, Zhang Kaisheng, was undoubtedly the same person Sheng Zhao had seen last night.
Sheng Zhao had been startled by the man’s chilling temperature just last night, making a lasting impression. He recognized him almost immediately.
—He had seen this man on the plane last night, and now, within a few short hours, he had gone missing?
Sheng Zhao subconsciously recalled the man’s condition last night, attempting to remember any useful information. However, as he tried to summon the image of their last meeting, what flashed in his mind was not the man’s appearance but the slender black shadow that slithered into the back of his neck.
A chill ran down Sheng Zhao’s spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
He hurriedly scrolled back to the top, carefully re-reading the missing person information.
The requester was Zhang Kaisheng’s wife. According to her, yesterday was their daughter’s fifth birthday. Zhang Kaisheng had promised to come home, but due to an unexpected incident during his business trip, he missed the afternoon return flight and could only buy a midnight ticket on the same day.
After getting off the plane, Zhang Kaisheng’s phone remained on for some time, but there was no answer on the other end. His wife called him several times, but there was no response. She logged into his phone system account and checked his location.
However, she discovered that Zhang Kaisheng, who should have gone straight home, inexplicably changed his destination midway, going to the construction site where he worked in the middle of the night.
Subsequently, his location stayed in place and showed no movement.
