Chapter 17: The Vanished Her
“Oh, you mean that old house in the woods? No one’s lived there for a long time.” The wrinkled old lady’s face softened with memories. “That family moved away ten years ago… There was no little girl, just a boy. They said they were going south to do business… As for who bought the house? I have no idea.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Lu Mingfei smiled and nodded, turning away empty-handed.
The moment his back was turned, the forced smile quickly faded from his face, replaced by a heavy, solemn expression.
At this moment, he could no longer spare the data. Pulling out his phone, he searched the forum for the girl who had once captivated countless boys at Shilan Middle School throughout their youth.
No results!
Beside Chu Zihang, there had never been a girl who attended middle school with him, or even sat next to him for a long time!
The girl who had walked through childhood and youth hand in hand with his best friend, the one they had planned to share their middle age, old age, countless seasons, and all of life’s trials and tribulations together...
She had vanished.
A sudden, overwhelming panic surged in his heart, as if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss, the sensation of weightlessness swallowing him whole, a fall from great heights without ever touching the ground.
Goosebumps erupted all over his body; sweat trickled from his palm gripping the phone, dampening the back of his plain shirt.
“This can’t be. This just can’t be.”
Lu Mingfei refused to believe what lay before him. They had been so vivid, so real—how could they suddenly disappear?
Like him, whose life had been influenced by this butterfly effect, the lives of Old Tang and Su Xiaoqiang had simply diverged onto different paths, but no one had lost contact or ceased to exist!
If history had changed starting from the tragic death of their parents five years ago, then the siblings should have left traces in this city as well!
He quickened his pace toward the community gate, his thumb furiously scrolling through countless posts, searching for proof that a girl had ever existed beside Chu Zihang.
But there was nothing!
All Lu Mingfei found were records of Chu Zihang winning city-level “Three Goods” student awards, scoring 58 points wearing jersey number 11 on the basketball court, representing the school on the city youth basketball team and leading them to second place in the national league...
And last year’s uncontested top scorer on the school’s college entrance exam honor roll.
In all the messages and photos, Chu Zihang was always alone, his face expressionless, as if burdened by an iceberg heavy enough to sink the Titanic.
Lu Mingfei’s mood worsened until he stumbled upon a photo with over 999 comments.
He froze.
It was a photo taken four years ago, clearly a candid shot but stunningly beautiful.
The gray-black sky seemed gently painted with ink, a fine, unbroken drizzle falling.
In front of the teaching building, a black-haired boy in school uniform stood quietly, staring into the distance, as if waiting for the rain to stop.
Amid the endless wind and rain, his silhouette was as lonely and sharp as a blade.
The poster’s caption read that in that moment, he resembled a lone, wandering hero in a martial world—unmoved by dust or companions, facing the endless storms of life with solitary courage.
But Lu Mingfei didn’t think the silhouette looked heroic or cool.
With just one glance, he knew—something had gone terribly wrong!
And it was serious!
He and Chu Zihang had been brothers for half their lives, inseparable like wearing the same pair of pants, even promising to become in-laws one day.
Yet, in fifteen years of knowing each other, Lu Mingfei had never seen this side of him.
Though seemingly strong, there was a sorrow that couldn’t be expressed, seeping out slowly from between his bones, carrying marrow and blood with every thread.
What could have happened to make this strongest man so fragile?
Countless flashbacks from past lives overwhelmed Lu Mingfei’s mind, which felt like it was turning into a chaotic mess.
Suddenly, the intercom in the guardhouse shattered the silence like a thunderclap:
“An insider has revealed that the city’s renowned company, Black Prince Group, intends to enter the film industry, planning to invest in a China-US co-production movie titled ‘Yangtze River…’”
Lu Mingfei stopped listening immediately, his eyes fixed on the old radio as the words “city’s renowned company Black Prince Group” echoed in his mind.
Hadn’t the Black Prince Group already fallen apart due to internal conflicts?
Chu Shu’s Tianjiao Group had played a major role behind the scenes, making a huge profit while absorbing a lot of talent.
So how could it be...
Thinking back to the photo of Chu Zihang standing alone in the rain, Lu Mingfei snapped out of his stunned state and frantically searched for the Tianjiao Group.
The results showed a chemical company in the north, completely unrelated to the business Chu’s family ran!
Still disbelieving, he searched using the full company name, but it led to a different company again.
The Tianjiao Group, once the city’s most powerful enterprise, apparently never existed?
This harsh truth brought tears to Lu Mingfei’s eyes.
Like a young lion surrounded by vultures, he let out a hoarse roar from deep in his throat:
“How can it not exist! Uncle Chu is a major taxpayer, president of the local Chamber of Commerce—how could he just not exist?”
Recalling the taxi driver’s story about the Maybach being scrapped, and that only the driver had an accident, endless dread welled up inside him.
He put away his phone and quickly rushed out of the old neighborhood, stopping a taxi by the roadside with an outstretched arm.
He needed to see for himself.
The taxi signaled and waited for the green light to turn before changing lanes.
Before he could arrive, however, a fiery red Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano suddenly sped out and stopped steadily beside the boy.
Behind the wheel was a strikingly beautiful girl with flowing red hair, her single-handed grip on the Ferrari’s wheel both elegant and captivating.
“What a coincidence, seeing you again.”
The window rolled down; Nono lowered her sunglasses with a finger, revealing dark red eyes and lifted her chin, indicating there was space in the car:
“Where to? Sister will give you a ride—”
“Click! Bang!”
Lu Mingfei didn’t wait for Nono to finish speaking before he opened the door and slid inside.
Buckling his seatbelt with practiced ease, he gave the address in a hoarse voice.
The red-haired girl watched him closely, her eyes reddening, breath slightly heavy, her movements exaggerated—clearly on the verge of some emotional outburst.
She was about to have Norma check what he had been searching just now, but froze when she heard the address:
“Black Prince Group? Why are you going there?”
Nono had long been curious. Lu Mingfei had idly gone to the old street to inquire about a nonexistent bakery, then explored the old neighborhood’s haunted house without any clear purpose.
The previous visit to the esports club for a trial was understandable, but now heading to the unrelated Black Prince Group—what was he up to?
A high school dropout applying to a listed conglomerate?
Lu Mingfei kept his eyes fixed ahead, unaware of the gaze from the driver's seat.
The moment the address changed from Tianjiao Group to Black Prince Group, a blazing inferno seemed to erupt in his eyes, but he forced it down swiftly.
“It’s none of your business. Drive,” the boy’s voice was low and irritable, as if warning, “If you keep talking, I’ll get out.”
The taxi driver nearby was still eyeing the bright red supercar, muttering something—maybe complaining about a luxury car stealing business from taxis.
Nono’s rebellious instincts flared silently at his words.
But seeing Lu Mingfei’s low-energy, heavy aura, her curiosity won out.
She snorted coldly, “Hold on tight. I drive fast.”
“City speed limit is fifty,” Lu Mingfei replied unfazed. “There are monitoring cameras all along the way. With your car and your looks so obvious, if the traffic police catch you, don’t drag me into it.”
“You…”