Now that Li Lingling has suddenly disappeared, Ling Yun, as the leader of the small group, naturally felt anxious.
Hearing the concern in his voice, Zhang Yunfeng couldn't help but feel happy for Li Lingling. Although he was panicked, he remained calm: "I don't know the specifics. I called her cell phone this morning, but she didn't answer, which I found a little strange, but I didn't think much of it, assuming she was out having fun. When I called her cell phone again in the evening, she still didn't answer. I had no choice but to call her home. It turned out her mother answered, crying and saying that Lingling was missing. Then I saw the news on TV, so I quickly hung up on you."
"Have you been to her house?" Ling Yun asked softly after a moment of silence.
"No, but I reckon the scene has already been cordoned off by the police. We're just her classmates, not related to her family, so we probably can't get in," Zhang Yunfeng said hesitantly, clearly unsure.
“You don’t know, this matter has caused quite a stir throughout the city. Everyone is talking about the mysterious disappearance of the girls. The girls in our class are so scared that they stay at home all day and dare not go out. Even those who go out need to be accompanied by their families. Three girls have disappeared because they went out alone,” Zhang Yunfeng added.
“But staying at home isn’t safe either. Didn’t Lingling disappear from home?” Ling Yun countered.
“Yes, and her parents were home at the time, in the living room. They didn’t notice their daughter was missing all night until this morning when they called her for breakfast and pushed open the door, only to find that the window was shattered and she was gone. That’s when they reported it to the police,” Zhang Yunfeng said in surprise.
“Let’s go to her house and take a look,” Ling Yun said resolutely after a moment’s thought.
"Okay, I'll wait for you at the entrance of the Imperial Garden." Zhang Yunfeng hung up the phone.
Lingyun turned around and called his parents, saying he was going to a classmate's house and might not be home that night. His parents didn't think much of it, only reminding him not to overexert himself. Then Lingyun changed into jeans and a T-shirt and went straight out.
Even in summer, it gets dark by 8 p.m. These past few days have been sunny, with a dense array of stars and a crescent moon faintly visible. The streetlights on both sides of the street emit a dim light, and countless unidentified insects dance merrily in the beams of light.
Ling Yun's unease grew stronger, a feeling that was a reflection of the unknown. The stronger the unease, the more terrifying the unknown seemed.
He walked onto the street, and before he could even wave, a taxi with its lights off stopped beside him. Ling Yun opened the door, got in, and the driver started the car without asking a single question, heading straight for the outskirts of the city.
"Master? Where are you taking me? I need to go to the Imperial Garden." Ling Yun looked at the taxi driver, who was almost entirely hidden in darkness, with surprise. Not only were the lights off, but the driver was also wearing a large baseball cap that almost completely obscured his face. An ordinary person might only be able to vaguely make out an outline, but this didn't bother Ling Yun at all. However, seeing him clearly only made Ling Yun more surprised, because the driver was also wearing sunglasses. Driving a taxi at night wearing sunglasses? Did he have a death wish?!
"Go where you're supposed to be." A lifeless voice came from the taxi driver, sending chills down one's spine. But Ling Yun clearly saw that the driver's mouth didn't move at all; that is, although he was speaking, he didn't open his mouth.
If it were an ordinary person, they would probably be panicked and think they had encountered an unlicensed taxi driver who was going to rob them.
Ling Yun calmed down, suddenly turned around and glanced back, a glint of silver flashing in his eyes almost imperceptibly. "Stop the car!" Ling Yun shouted.
The driver seemed oblivious, instead increasing his speed. He sped along the road like a mad rat, thankfully there was very little traffic in the area, and not a single car passed by for half a day, otherwise it could have easily caused a traffic accident.
"Are you going to stop or not?" Ling Yun coldly demanded.
"If you're so capable, make me stop the car." The lifeless voice spoke again.
With a sharp, piercing sound of rubber tires rubbing against the asphalt, the speeding taxi seemed to be pulled back by an invisible giant hand, slid erratically for dozens of meters on the road, and finally came to a stop by the side of the road.
Ling Yun's face was deathly pale. He slumped back in his chair, exhausted. When he used his telekinesis to forcibly stop the taxi traveling at 80 kilometers per hour, a deafening roar erupted in his mind, as if he had been struck hard on the head by a giant iron hammer. His head throbbed with pain. If it weren't for the past month or so of rigorous training, Ling Yun would probably have fainted on the spot.
The driver was not wearing a seatbelt. Due to the enormous inertia, his face slammed hard against the front windshield. The windshield cracked in a spiderweb pattern from the center of the impact, but it did not break. Instead, the driver's baseball cap fell off, and his sunglasses broke into several pieces, which fell in front of the window.
The driver slumped over the steering wheel, motionless. The skin on the back of his neck was an abnormal purplish-blue color with spots of varying sizes. Ling Yun knew that these were the lividity marks that only appear on people who have been dead for a long time.
He didn't touch the driver's body. After recovering for a while, he used his telekinesis to turn the driver's head over. Sure enough, it was an extremely grotesque and terrifying dead face. The two eyeballs had long since become two empty holes, and the lips were simply a twisted mass of flesh. It was obvious that this driver was already a decomposing corpse.
The lifeless sound ceased. When Ling Yun used his telekinesis to stop the car, his mental energy field had already penetrated the entire interior. No living being could survive except himself.
Ling Yun remained silent for a moment, then quietly opened the car door and stepped out. If it were an ordinary person, they would probably be terrified by now. A corpse that could talk and drive a taxi? If word got out, it would be a shocking and earth-shattering story.
However, Ling Yun had calmly accepted the facts. Since he could inexplicably possess superpowers, what was so strange about other things happening in the world? He simply hadn't experienced them before. Moreover, as he continued to cultivate his mental energy field, Ling Yun had a faint feeling that sooner or later, he would see a world completely different from that of ordinary people.
Moreover, during his conversation with that lifeless voice, Ling Yun had sensed a faint fluctuation clinging to the driver's corpse. However, after he suddenly activated his mental field, the fluctuation vanished without a trace. The corpse, having lost its support, had become a completely lifeless object.
When he looked back from inside the car, he clearly saw with his X-ray vision that there was a young girl's corpse in the back of the car. In other words, one corpse was using a taxi to pick up passengers from another corpse. Luckily, he encountered Ling Yun. What if it were an ordinary person?
Ling Yun frowned, filled with many questions. It was clear that the corpse was being manipulated, but who was controlling it? And what was their purpose? But he didn't have time to think about these things now, because he needed to get to the Imperial Garden to meet up with Zhang Yunfeng.
Chapter Seven: The Wilderness
After arriving at a slightly busier street, Ling Yun hailed a taxi again. This time, he was smarter and made sure the taxi driver was a normal person before opening the door and getting in. This puzzled the driver, who wondered why this student-looking boy was so concerned about his appearance.
As for the corpse and the taxi of unknown origin, Ling Yun had no time to worry about them. He would wait for them to be discovered by passersby at dawn. He had more important things to deal with now.
Fifteen minutes later, the taxi arrived at the main gate of the Imperial Garden. Ling Yun had just gotten out of the car when he saw Zhang Yunfeng running towards him: "Why are you so late? I've been waiting for you for ages."
"Uh, we ran into some trouble on the road. There was an accident somewhere, and the traffic was jammed for a while." Ling Yun couldn't bring himself to tell Zhang Yunfeng the bizarre story of a corpse being able to drive a taxi. After all, Zhang Yunfeng was just an ordinary person, and it would be too shocking to tell him, so he gave a vague answer.
"Traffic jams can happen even late at night," Zhang Yunfeng said casually, not paying much attention. "Let's hurry inside. Do you think we should go straight to Lingling's house to find her parents?"
"No need for now. Since her parents didn't notice their daughter's disappearance all night, they probably won't get any information out of her. Besides, we're not here to offer condolences. You said Lingling disappeared from her bedroom, and the entire window of her bedroom was broken?" Ling Yun asked as he walked, deep in thought.
“Yes, that’s what they said on TV back then, and they even filmed it. She lives on the 18th floor of Building C in this complex. How could a grown woman just disappear into thin air? Moreover, the police checked the ground within a hundred meters of Building C and found no trace of Lingling, basically ruling out the possibility of suicide.” Zhang Yunfeng frowned as he walked side by side with Lingyun, analyzing the information he had seen in a logical and reasonable manner.
“You don’t need to smash the whole window to commit suicide. Let’s go take a look at the area under her bedroom window,” Ling Yun said confidently.
The two teenagers passed through the automatic retractable iron gate guarded by 24-hour security and entered Emperor's Garden. Following a path illuminated by knee-high streetlights, they turned two corners and quickly arrived at Building C. It was not yet nine o'clock at night, and most of the residents' homes were brightly lit. Looking at the twenty-four-story luxury residential building, Ling Yun and Zhang Yunfeng stopped in their tracks.
Ling Yun had never been to Emperor's Garden before, but he knew it was one of the most upscale residential communities in Tongjiang City, frequented by prominent figures and wealthy individuals. This was evident from the community's luxurious amenities and exquisitely designed, elegant environment. Ling Yun knew Li Lingling's family was wealthy, but he hadn't imagined they were this rich.
Zhang Yunfeng, however, was unsurprised. He had visited Li Lingling's house countless times when he was pursuing her, and he knew the place well. He pointed to the dark window on the eighteenth floor, squinted, and said, "That's Lingling's bedroom window. We're standing right below her. If she disappeared and fell from upstairs, she should have landed right in front of us."
Ling Yun looked up at the window of Li Lingling's bedroom on the eighteenth floor. His vision had changed the fastest, and he now possessed farsightedness, night vision, and X-ray vision. He could clearly see that only the window frame remained; the uniform PVC windows made for the entire complex were gone. Clearly, very little time had passed since Li Lingling disappeared, and her parents had no intention of repairing the severely damaged window.
From this angle, the interior of the bedroom was not visible. Ling Yun looked down at the clean, tidy red and white floor tiles. The property management here was excellent; the shattered window glass scattered on the floor was quickly cleaned up by the cleaning staff. The floor was spotless, but Ling Yun still found a few tiny shards of glass in the gaps between the tiles.
"What are you looking at? I can't see anything," Zhang Yunfeng asked curiously when he saw him looking down at something.
“There’s nothing there.” Ling Yun shook his head. “There’s no blood on the ground. Lingling disappeared directly from home.”
The two looked at each other, both feeling utterly helpless. Just as the news had reported, there wasn't a single clue; a young girl, a living, breathing person, had simply vanished into thin air from her home. Aside from a broken window, there was no other trace. It was almost unbelievable to anyone who heard it.
"Could it be that Lingling was abducted by aliens?" Zhang Yunfeng muttered to himself, scratching his head in distress. "Otherwise, how could anything possibly snatch her directly from her bedroom?"
Ling Yun's heart stirred. He suddenly remembered that just now, in that taxi controlled by the corpse, the moment he used his mental field to force the car to stop, he suddenly felt a faint fluctuation on the corpse. It was very similar to the fluctuation of his mental field, but not quite the same, yet he could feel it with his mental field.