Chapter 423: The Disappearance

At first, Li Yiyi thought that the three elderly people at home had prepared dinner early, but when she parked her bicycle at the door, the silence inside the house made her immediately sense something was wrong.

At that moment, a military wife walked over to her and said, “Dr. Li, you just came back, right? You probably don’t know what happened at home. You should go and look for Zhangpeng. Your three elders have already gone out to search for him.”

Li Yiyi stopped the military wife. “Sister, were you just talking about my Zhangpeng? I didn’t hear you clearly. What’s wrong with him?”

“Well, your Zhangpeng is missing. Your three elders are frantic and searching everywhere. Several of the military wives in the compound are helping to find him,” the military wife said.

Upon hearing this, Li Yiyi’s heart skipped a beat, and she hurriedly asked, “Do you know where my parents are looking for him?”

“I know. I just came back from there. They’re looking near the west gate of the military district. I heard from some kids coming home from school that they saw Zhangpeng there. After your elders heard that, they rushed over, and they’re still looking there now,” the military wife explained.

Li Yiyi thanked her and immediately ran toward the west gate.

When she arrived, she saw her three elders desperately calling out Zhangpeng’s name, looking dazed and lost.

As the elder sister, Jiang Yueyue was on the verge of tears, her eyes nearly swollen from crying.

“Brother, please come out, okay? I won’t call you dumb anymore. Brother, please come out,” Jiang Yueyue cried hoarsely.

Seeing her family in such a state made Li Yiyi’s heart ache. She walked up to them, “Dad, Mom, Aunt Huang.”

The three elderly people immediately looked up when they heard her voice. Then, with all their strength, they got up from the ground. Aunt Huang and Jiang’s mother each grabbed one of her arms, choking on their words, “Yiyi, Zhangpeng is missing.”

“Yiyi, we didn’t take care of Zhangpeng. What are we going to do?” Aunt Huang cried, her tears flowing uncontrollably.

Li Yiyi, seeing their distress, tried to calm them down. “Dad, Mom, Aunt Huang, don’t worry. Zhangpeng is a sensible child. He probably just went to play with his friends. I’ll go to his friends’ homes and look for him. I’ll bring him back.”

“No, we went to his classmates’ homes, and they said they hadn’t seen him. How could this be? He’s never done something like this before,” Aunt Huang said, her tears flowing even more.

“It’s okay. Maybe he’s at another friend’s house. I’ll figure it out. Please don’t worry,” Li Yiyi reassured them.

After finally calming her three elders down, Li Yiyi heard her daughter sobbing softly as she approached.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t take care of my brother. You can scold me,” Jiang Yueyue said, her eyes swollen from crying.

Li Yiyi patted her shoulder. “Mom doesn’t blame you. I know you’re a good sister. Can you help me find your brother?”

Jiang Yueyue stopped crying and looked at her mother with a confused expression. “Can I really help you find him?”

“Of course you can. You know your brother better than anyone. You can definitely help,” Li Yiyi said, giving her a comforting hug.

After a while, Jiang Yueyue cried and smiled, then nodded determinedly. “Okay, I’ll help you, Mom.”

Once Li Yiyi saw that her daughter had calmed down a bit, she gently asked, “Okay, now think back to today when you were with your brother on the way to and from school. Did he say anything unusual?”

Listening to her mother’s words, Jiang Yueyue slowly felt a sense of calm returning as she thought back to what had happened earlier.

Her anxious thoughts began to clear, and she started recalling things from today.

“Well, the most unusual thing was that my brother was really quiet today. He wasn’t his usual talkative self on the way to school. It seemed like he had something on his mind,” Jiang Yueyue said, after some thought.

Li Yiyi’s heart lifted. “And did he say anything to you? Think carefully!”

Jiang Yueyue bit her lip, thinking for a while. Suddenly, her eyes widened in excitement. “I remember, Mom! I remember! My brother said something strange. He said if I didn’t believe him, he would find a way to prove it to me.”

The mother and daughter spent a few moments contemplating the meaning behind those words.

“Mom, I think what he meant by proving it to me has something to do with that bad person. He wouldn’t go to find that bad person, would he?” Jiang Yueyue asked, her eyes red with worry.

Although she often scolded her brother, she loved him dearly and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

Hearing this, Li Yiyi immediately pulled her daughter close. “Yueyue, help me with something. Go and bring your grandparents back home, then tell your father what we know. I’ll go ask a few of your brother’s closest friends if they know anything. Be quick, okay?”

Jiang Yueyue nodded instinctively. After a moment, she realized that her mother was asking them to leave while she faced the situation alone, and she didn’t want that.

“Mom, what will you do by yourself?” she asked, concerned.

Li Yiyi smiled and gently patted her daughter’s head. “Yueyue, don’t worry about me. I’m an adult and can take care of myself. You just focus on taking care of your grandparents and Aunt Huang.”

“Okay, I will. Mom, be careful,” Jiang Yueyue said, holding back her tears, her voice a little choked.

She made a silent vow to herself: once she found her silly brother, she would make him pay for causing all this trouble, putting their family through such distress.

After watching her daughter take the elders back to the house, Li Yiyi turned and made her way toward the homes of the children who often played with her son.

The first person she looked for was Jia Chunhua. When she arrived, she almost bumped into Jia Chunhua, who was just about to leave.