"Brother Bing's situation…" Zhang Yuanqing's heart brightened as he asked,
"Any results from the Hangzhou branch? Did they find anything?"
The Hangzhou team's efficiency was painfully slow — three whole days just to get results. It was clear they didn't take Brother Bing's disappearance seriously… Zhang Yuanqing grumbled silently.
Brother Bing had been missing for nearly half a month. If the Ling Realm Walkers from the Hangzhou branch were diligent and responsible, they should have provided feedback with plenty of information right after Li Dongze took over the case.
Obviously, they assumed Brother Bing died inside the Ling Realm and thus didn't see the point of investigating further.
"There are indeed some findings…" Li Dongze chose his words carefully, then said,
"Lei Yibing's social relationships were pretty simple. He was a loner, kept to himself, and didn't get close to classmates. He kept a low profile at school, never causing trouble. But after a deep investigation, the Hangzhou branch found that in the past three years, two people who provoked him both died in ways that seemed plausible."
Zhang Yuanqing frowned deeply. Once Li Dongze finished, he immediately refuted,
"That's not right. Bing isn't exactly sociable, but he's definitely not a loner. And low-profile? No way. I grew up with him, I know him well. When he's angry, he doesn't even waste time saying 'What're you looking at?' — he just hits."
As for the suspicion that Bing might have killed someone, Zhang Yuanqing neither denied nor commented, not knowing the full story.
"You must be talking about Huo Shi…" Li Dongze couldn't help but tease, then cleared his throat and steered the conversation back, "So, the Lei Yibing you know and the one the students remember aren't the same. Who do you think is the problem?"
Zhang Yuanqing paused, then said quietly,
"Maybe… Brother Bing is the one with the problem."
Li Dongze gave a thoughtful "Hmm" and analyzed,
"You two went to the same university after high school, right? If he had changed, you would have noticed. So that means Lei Yibing's change happened after starting university.
Between graduating high school and starting university, he must have gone through something that drastically changed his personality. But with so many factors and no more clues, it's impossible to speculate."
Zhang Yuanqing agreed with Li Dongze's analysis but puzzled over one thing: given their close, brotherly relationship, how could Bing become a Ling Realm Walker and not even tell him?
There's no mechanism in the Ling Realm that erases memory or identity. If you wanted, you could even go around shouting from rooftops about your Ling Realm experience.
Though no one would believe you…
"Anything else?"
"There is, but I'm not sure if it counts…" Li Dongze hesitated before saying, "Did Lei Yibing keep a diary?"
"Who writes diaries seriously nowadays?"
"The Hangzhou branch found a diary in his dorm. He didn't write very often, but the night before he sent you that character card, he wrote an entry."
"Where's the diary now?"
"It's still in his university dorm. The Hangzhou colleagues checked it and thought it had no value, but at my request, they took photos and I'm sending them to you now," Li Dongze said.
"If I'm not mistaken, tomorrow will be the 14th day since you came out of 'Sheling Tunnel.'"
"Yeah."
Tomorrow was the deadline — either he entered the Ling Realm tonight or tomorrow.
"There's a brief buffer period when entering the Ling Realm. Remember to call me or Guan Ya to report."
"Got it."
They ended the call. Zhang Yuanqing opened his chat app and received a compressed file from Li Dongze.
After extracting it, he found over thirty photos.
Sitting at his desk, Zhang Yuanqing read through the diary. Bing's entries were indeed sparse — sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly — mostly trivial stuff.
At first, Zhang Yuanqing read carefully, but after confirming the earlier entries had no clues, he flipped straight to the last photo.
"Internship starts in the second half of the year. Time flies; unknowingly I'm about to leave university life and enter society. Last night I dreamed of childhood days in the alleys with Yuanzi, secretly reading banned books, tricking my dad and his uncle out of pocket money, and the games we played together…"
The entry was brief, just a few lines.
Zhang Yuanqing stared deeply at his phone screen, then suddenly leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Brother Bing really left me a clue!
...
The next day, Zhang Yuanqing woke up at 9:30 AM.
"Looks like today's the day to enter the Ling Realm…"
He had breakfast, put on a mask and a baseball cap, and took a taxi to Lei Yibing's home.
The alley where he grew up, Yinping Community, was built over fifty years ago. Each residential building showed the wear of time — six floors each, no elevators, messy cables wrapped around walls in spirals.
Zhang Yuanqing got out of the taxi and glanced around casually. After all these years, aside from fresh paint on the exterior and a newly added security booth at the entrance, nothing else had changed.
Back when he was in middle school, rumors of demolition circulated for years. Everyone waited and waited — almost ten years passed, but no demolition crews appeared.
Crossing the street, he bought a bag of loquats, a pineapple, and three Kate mangoes from a fruit shop.
He climbed the narrow stairwell and pressed the doorbell of apartment 402.
Moments later, footsteps approached, the security door opened, and a woman in her forties stood there, surprised:
"Yuanzi?"
She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes and a gaunt face.
"Aunt Zhou, I came to check on you and Uncle Lei," Zhang Yuanqing said obediently, silently sighing.
Aunt Zhou's eyes fell on the fruit bag he held. She smiled warmly and softly said,
"Come in."
The apartment was a modest two-bedroom, eighty-plus square meters. Zhang Yuanqing sat on the living room sofa, holding the warm water Aunt Zhou poured, listening to her somber story.
"Aunt Zhou, I believe the Public Security Bureau will find Brother Bing," Zhang Yuanqing comforted her.
"Your grandma came to see me a few days ago. She said Old Chen told her that no news might be good news," Aunt Zhou sighed, then added,
"Stay for lunch."
"No thanks, I have class later," Zhang Yuanqing shook his head.
He and Brother Bing were inseparable as kids, often slept over at each other's homes, and frequently shared meals. But today, since he could enter the Ling Realm at any moment, he wanted to minimize time outside.
"Aunt Zhou, I want to spend some time in Bing's room."
Zhang Yuanqing hadn't forgotten why he came.
He pushed open Bing's bedroom door. The small room held a double bed, wardrobe, desk, and TV. His gaze swept quickly, then he pulled out a large cardboard box from under the bed.
The box was full of random stuff: a Subor game console, a Battle Dragon machine, a Piball, yo-yos, a telescope, Water Margin hero cards, wooden spinning tops, whistles, Dragon Ball manga, and the book The Scandalous History of Emperor Yang of Sui by Qi Dongye Ren…
Each toy held its own story. For example, the telescope — back then, a red-light district nearby lit up at night. The brothel's glamorous ladies would lounge on sofas, their enticing curves visible through glass doors.
Once, Bing — still in elementary school — secretly told Zhang Yuanqing he saw his uncle sneak into the brothel.
Zhang Yuanqing didn't believe him and went to ask his uncle directly. The uncle panicked and gave him twenty yuan as hush money.
Afterwards, the two boys happily licked popsicles, thinking it was a lucrative business.
So after school, they kept watch on the street. They didn't catch the uncle, but did spot Bing's father.
Bing's father was shocked and gave them ten yuan to keep quiet.
Later, both men reformed and were never caught again, until one day Zhang Yuanqing stole his aunt's pocket money to buy a telescope to spy from afar…
And once again, he earned hush money.
So this box preserved not only Bing's childhood but also Zhang Yuanqing's.
He stared blankly at the toys, feeling the swift passage of time and how much things had changed.
What am I reminiscing about? I'm not old enough for nostalgia… He chuckled bitterly, pushing the flood of memories aside.
Then he picked up The Scandalous History of Emperor Yang of Sui and flicked through its pages.
With a rustle, a slip of paper fell out. On it were two dense strings of numbers.
Seeing this, Zhang Yuanqing exhaled slowly, feeling a heavy weight lift from his chest.
The numbers were a code only the two brothers could understand.
Influenced by their grandfather, Zhang Yuanqing was obsessed with cop dramas and detective novels as a kid, fantasizing about being a skilled security officer.
In middle school, he and Bing once read a famous foreign detective novel and were inspired to create a secret code between Detective Zhang Yuanqing and his assistant A-Bing.
They spent effort developing a cipher system.
For example, the first number corresponds to the line number, the second also the line number, the third to the page number, grouping seven characters per set. The second group of numbers is the reverse of the first group's format…
Their first attempt at the code used The Scandalous History of Emperor Yang of Sui as the key.
Zhang Yuanqing recalled the cipher system while cross-referencing the book. Time passed unknowingly until finally, he pieced together all the content.
First line of numbers: 6203; Two brothers for life.
Second line of numbers: Yuanzi, find it, I've left everything there.