Chapter 58: Missing Person

After Pan Zi and the others arrived, they began searching the area with the pet hospital as their center point, focusing mainly on the nearby trash bins. Since they rummaged through the area multiple times, it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

Some passersby couldn’t help but sigh. Life might be good for most people now, but in the shadows, many still lived in hardship. Even a big guy like that had been forced to dig through garbage—who knew what kind of trouble he was facing?

Song Changfeng managed to avoid the embarrassment entirely, as he was assigned to stay inside the hospital and try calling Dezi. But it was already close to eleven o’clock, and after several unanswered calls, he began to feel anxious. He thought for a moment, then opened his contacts and dialed another number.

“Ring… Hello? Song-ge?” Zhou Zihang was leaning against his headboard playing a game. He was known around the base as a night owl, never sleeping before midnight. At the moment, he was in the final round of a match and fully immersed in the action. When he saw an incoming call, his first instinct was to ignore it—his friends often called at the worst times to mess up his winning streak. But when he saw the name “Song-ge” on the screen, he immediately grew alert. This guy was serious by nature, not one to joke around. So he quickly exited the game and answered.

“Looking for Dezi? Oh, he’s not picking up. Alright, I’ll go get him and have him call you back.” Zhou Zihang hung up, but a bad feeling suddenly crept into his chest.

Why would Song-ge be calling Dezi this late at night? Could something have happened to Aofeng? Even though Dezi was no longer Aofeng’s Trainer, the bond they shared from raising him since he was a pup couldn’t just be ignored. Something must have happened!

With that thought, he threw on whatever clothes were within reach and jumped out of bed. He ran straight to Dezi’s dorm and pounded on the door, shouting, “Dezi! Dezi, open up! Something bad’s happened!”

Dezi groggily heard someone calling him. When he finally got up and opened the door, he found several people gathered outside—others from the same floor who had been rudely awakened by Zhou Zihang’s racket.

“W-What’s going on?” Dezi stammered. What could possibly be happening in the middle of the night? There wasn’t a fire or anything. Could Zhou Zihang be pulling some kind of prank? If so, he was dead meat.

“Something’s happened, Aofeng’s in trouble! Hurry up, turn on your phone and call Song-ge!” Zhou Zihang shoved Dezi back into the room, and the others followed him in. It was too cold to stay outside.

The moment Dezi heard that, it felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head. He was instantly wide awake. He turned on his phone and saw several missed calls from Song Changfeng. He’d caught a cold today and taken some medicine before bed, which had knocked him out completely—he hadn’t heard the phone at all.

With trembling hands, Dezi tapped the number and called back. His eyes were already starting to redden. When the call connected and he heard Song Changfeng’s voice, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Song-ge, what happened to Aofeng? Let me see him…”

On the other end, Song Changfeng pulled the phone away from his ear with a puzzled look. He checked the number—yep, it was Dezi. But why did he sound like he was about to cry, sniffling and all?

Aofeng raised a paw to cover his face. Damn it, Dezi and his overflowing emotions. Zhou Zihang must’ve filled his head with worst-case scenarios. How else could he be like this?

“Dezi, calm down. Aofeng’s fine,” Song Changfeng said, his steady voice instantly reassuring. Dezi’s emotions settled down right away.

“Do you remember that Husky Aofeng rescued during the assessment this year? How did you contact its owner back then? Did you delete the call history?”

Dezi was a bit confused. A Husky? He’d been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night just to help contact a Husky’s owner? He sniffled, exited the call screen, and scrolled through his call history. Eventually, he found an unfamiliar number with no name attached. The timestamp matched the day of the assessment.

“Song-ge, I found it. Here, write this down: 135…” Dezi read off the number.

Song Changfeng was at the front desk. He borrowed a pen and paper from the nurse and jotted it down.

“Alright, thanks.”

“Song-ge, can I ask what’s going on?” Dezi asked cautiously. This whole thing was too strange. If they didn’t get an explanation, none of them would be able to sleep tonight.

Song Changfeng gave a brief rundown of the situation. Dezi had the speaker on, so everyone heard it clearly—and they were furious. Such cruel methods could only be described as sadistic. People who took pleasure in this kind of abuse were usually unstable elements in society. If they didn’t find this person, it wouldn’t just be animals getting hurt in the future.

After hanging up, Song Changfeng immediately dialed the number Dezi had given him. But all he got was a cold, automated response: “The number you have dialed is powered off. Please try again later.”

Powered off?

Song Changfeng’s heart sank. He tried again, but it was still off.

Logically, a Husky was a valuable pet. If it went missing, its owner would definitely be looking for it. Of course, it was possible the phone had died during the search and hadn’t been recharged. But Song Changfeng didn’t think that was likely. These days, with all the shared power banks¹ on the streets, who would let their phone stay off for long?

Which made the phone being off even more suspicious. Song Changfeng didn’t want to jump to the worst conclusion, but some things didn’t go away just because you avoided thinking about them.

After a moment of thought, he dialed another number. This time, the call connected quickly, and Shen Yuanhui’s voice came through. “Xiao Song? You’re calling me at this hour—what’s going on?” As people got older, they slept more lightly. The moment his phone rang, Shen Yuanhui sat up.

Song Changfeng gave him a quick summary, then said, “Chief Shen, we can’t reach the Husky’s owner. Their phone’s been off this whole time. I suspect the Husky may not be the only one who’s been harmed.”

Shen Yuanhui confirmed his suspicion. “You may be right. Time is critical. I’ll have someone look into the owner’s identity right away and try to contact their family. Once we have solid information, head to the nearest police station and coordinate with them on the case. I’ll get in touch with their local department myself.”

Song Changfeng felt a surge of relief. With Shen Yuanhui’s statement, it wouldn’t be long before they figured out what had really happened.

On Shen Yuanhui’s end, he immediately contacted personnel from the Technical Department and gave them a phone number, instructing them to quickly identify the owner. After logging into the national information system using their police ID and password, the staff entered the phone number, and a profile popped up on the screen.

“Li Zihao, male, twenty-four years old. Registered residence: Yueming Villa, Binjiang West Road, Anyang City. His family is in business. Huaxing Technology, a leading enterprise in the provincial capital, is owned by his family. Besides his parents, he has an older brother who currently serves as the general manager of Huaxing Technology. After graduating from university, he didn’t take up a job. His hobbies seem to be playing games and keeping pets.”

“Send me his family’s phone numbers,” Shen Yuanhui said after hearing the report. He wanted to get in touch with Li Zihao’s relatives. With the help of the powerful system, the staff quickly sent over the phone numbers of the other three members of the Li family within two minutes.

Shen Yuanhui forwarded the numbers to the officers on duty, instructing them to call immediately and get a clear picture of the situation. If they didn’t use the police station’s number, the calls might be mistaken for scams and ignored.

Neither Li Zihao’s father nor mother answered their phones, but his brother did. As soon as he heard that his younger brother might be in danger, Li Ziyi could no longer sit still. He hung up and immediately tried calling Li Zihao himself, only to find the call went unanswered. However, even if the phone was turned off, its location could still be tracked through the system. When Li Ziyi opened the tracking app, he saw that the phone was located near a hotel.

He remembered that Li Zihao had recently posted a location tag at that very hotel on social media, so he immediately called the hotel’s customer service line and asked them to check if Li Zihao was still in his room. When the hotel staff hesitated, Li Ziyi sternly rebuked them. He wasn’t asking for the room number or any personal information, just trying to confirm the guest’s safety. If they refused to cooperate and something happened, he would hold them accountable.

Intimidated by his tone, the hotel staff contacted the housekeeping service on that floor and asked them to quickly knock on the door and check. After knocking for a while with no response, the housekeeper used a master key card to open the door and found the room empty. She immediately reported the situation. Once the customer service team relayed the information, Li Ziyi quickly contacted the officer who had called him earlier and asked them to notify the police in Jingdu to search the area around the hotel.

The officers passed the message to Shen Yuanhui, who then contacted Song Changfeng and told him to head over and check it out.

When Song Changfeng saw the hotel’s name, he immediately pulled up a map and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was located in the bustling commercial district nearby. Then again, that made sense, since the husky had been found in a trash bin in the same area.

As Pan Zi and the others pushed open the doors of the animal hospital and walked in, all they saw was Song Changfeng’s back disappearing into the distance.

“Where’s he rushing off to?” Pan Zi asked in confusion.

“He probably discovered something,” the instructor replied.

“So should we wait inside or what?” Pan Zi asked again. They had spent so long digging through trash bins that they were reeking. They had planned to tell Song Changfeng they were heading back for a shower, but now that he’d taken off, it didn’t seem right to just leave too.

“Let’s wait inside. A few minutes won’t make a difference,” the instructor said. Song Changfeng was always cautious. If he were heading somewhere far, he would’ve said so.

The group entered the pet hospital and tactfully waited in the corridor near the operating room.

Meanwhile, Song Changfeng and his team had already arrived near the hotel where Li Zihao was last located. They began searching based on the phone’s coordinates. Five minutes later, they found a phone in a flower bed. Aofeng had sniffed it out. The faint scent on the phone matched Kaka’s, and the other, stronger scent likely belonged to Li Zihao.

The flower bed was in a secluded spot. Finding the phone there strongly suggested that something had happened to Li Zihao. Given the background information they had just received about him, Song Changfeng believed there was a high chance he had been kidnapped.

After receiving the call, Shen Yuanhui immediately said, “Since it’s confirmed that he’s gone missing under suspicious circumstances, I’ll contact the Jingdu police right away. You head to the nearest station and report everything. We need to launch an investigation as fast as possible.”

“Yes, sir!”

Translator’s Notes