My mother likes to eat eggplant very much.
When Lu Xiaohe was young, his mother's favorite saying was "Eggplant is better than meat". At that time, his mother's skill in making fried eggplant with rice was excellent. The soft and tough eggplant mixed with rice absorbed the soup had a good texture and tasted delicious. Steamed eggplant with minced garlic was also delicious. His mother called it "chicken drumstick".
At that time, the family was indeed not well-off. But looking back, Lu Xiaohesi never thought that her family was poor. Her childhood was difficult but carefree.
She loves her home.
Therefore, Lu Xiaohe tried his best to study and got into the top university and the top major, hoping that his parents could have a similarly carefree life in their later years.
Unfortunately, the road to scientific research is long and arduous. Before she finished her studies, her mother fell ill unexpectedly. For a disabled researcher, Zhian was the fastest way for her to legally obtain a large amount of funding... If it weren't for this, she might have continued her research at school and then directly entered a formal research institute.
It's really fate.
Amid the rumbling sound of the range hood, Lu Xiaohe finished frying the eggplant: "Dad, serve the rice!"
The father responded and went into the kitchen, and the father and daughter prepared the meal in tacit understanding. Lu Xiaohe carefully mixed the rice with the stir-fried eggplant and put it on the tray. She used red peppers to spell a "V", admired it happily, and mixed a glass of glucose water - the mother didn't want to drink plain water, she only said it was bitter.
Just add a little glucose and mother will drink it happily.
The bedroom door is the only normal exit of the bedroom, facing the living room... Just now she and her father were in the living room, and the bedroom door was ajar and had not been moved.
The next moment, she almost dropped the tray.
"Hey, Xiao Yin."
She wished her mother would suddenly appear from somewhere, and say with a smile, "I scared you guys. Even if it was just a bad joke... I hope it wasn't a bad joke."
Indoors, the table is filled with books and game consoles, the floor is clean, and there are lush green plants by the window. It is late autumn, and the leaves outside the window are golden and red, and against the clear blue sky, it is as beautiful as a painting. The air in the house is fresh, with only the fresh scent of plants, and occasionally birds chirping outside the window. With such an environment, the originally old room also has a full of charm.
In closets, under beds, behind curtains.
Lu Xiaohe sat paralyzed on the bed, the bedding and pillow still smelled of her mother. She tried to hold back her panicked tears, tremblingly took out her cell phone, and called Yin Ren.
But there was no one in the room.
My mother's bedroom is alone. In order to make her feel happy, the small bedroom is made to look very spacious.
Lu Xiaohe held the tray, made a face at his father, and then used his shoulder to push open the bedroom door.
How come
She wanted to greet her father, but her throat was unable to make a sound. Lu Xiaohe stumbled to the closet, opened the door, and looked through it in despair.
"I'll take it to Mom and stay with her for a while." Lu Xiaohe said with a smile, "Dad, don't eat all the food, leave some for me."
Lu Xiaohe put down the tray with trembling hands. The fried eggplant gave off a warm aroma, but this aroma only made her insides tremble. Her eyes quickly scanned the room, trying to find some trace of her mother.
"That's hard to say." At this moment, her father was already sitting at the dining table, his wrinkled face full of smiles.
“I can’t find my mother.” She choked up, “… I can’t find my mother.”
She subconsciously asked for help using the name she was most familiar with, even though she knew the person on the other end of the line stood at the top of the metaphysical world.
Lu Xiaohe stepped on the dancing light spots on the floor and greeted with a smile: "Mom—"
The usually calm commander in the rear couldn't hold back his tears this time.
There was no one on the bed.
Lu Xiaohe felt cold all over, and at that moment, her thoughts almost came to a standstill.
The bedsheets and pillows still had dents from people lying there, and her mother's slippers were neatly placed beside the bed. The window was open a palm-wide gap, making it impossible for anyone to get through. Not to mention that her mother was too weak to move on her own, there was no toilet in this bedroom, but there was a bedpan. There was no need for her mother to leave suddenly.
Half an hour later, Yin Ren and Zhong Cheng were already standing at Lu Xiaohe's house. The fried eggplant on the tray had turned cold, and the police were coming and going, conducting routine investigations.
Since finding Zhong Cheng, Yin Ren's face has never looked so ugly.
He walked around in the bright bedroom, his eyes focused. Zhong Chengshuo looked at Lu Xiaohe, whose eyes were red. He hesitated for a few seconds, but still expressed his opinion bravely.
"We'll find her," he said. "I understand you must be worried."
Just like the fear he had when he was trapped in the underground morgue, "I will never know Yin Ren's situation again." Whenever he recalled that feeling, Zhong Cheng said he felt like his chest was filled with bitter soil.
Lu Xiaohe sniffed and forced a smile: "Just because of what you said, I believe you are a real meat figurine."
Zhong Cheng said: "..."
Zhong Cheng said he decided to change the topic: "Since it involves an ICP employee, the ICP will directly intervene in this case without the need for a police contact to review it. Yin Ren has already reported it to the higher-ups, and the investigation team will officially begin the investigation today."
The trance on Lu Xiaohe's face disappeared instantly, and she seemed to be suddenly awakened from a dream: "I want to participate!" After saying that, she seemed to remember something, and her face became a little lonely: "But only the Class B investigation team has the authority to investigate missing cases directly related to security personnel..."
"Our group nine is now in the B tier."
Yin Ren finally finished searching the entire room, his tone unusually serious.
"And this time, this case will have a higher level of security backup support - Sister Xiaohe, there are faint traces of evil power in this room, and the breath is still fresh."
"Impossible!" Lu Xiaohe immediately retorted, "The things in my mother's room have not been moved for a long time, and she hasn't bought anything new recently. Absolutely—"
Halfway through her speech, a hint of ferocity suddenly appeared on her face. Before Yin Ren could speak, he saw Lu Xiaohe rush out of the bedroom and rush towards her father.
She grabbed her father's front and said, "Dad, what did you ask your friend for? Bring me the clothes or bag you used to put it in, quickly!"
The incident happened not long ago, and Father Lu's clothes were in the living room. Within a few minutes, Yin Ren got the answer.
"It's the 'golden bag amulet' you mentioned, no doubt about it." He fiddled with the coat pocket of Lu Xiaohe's father, his face solemn. "It smells very faintly of evil power, which can contaminate people if they come into contact with it at close range, but it won't trigger the alarm of Zhian."
Father Lu clutched his hair with both hands, his expression half confused and half painful. As an ordinary person who had never been exposed to metaphysics, he didn't know much about these things, but he could vaguely sense where his responsibility lay.
"It's my fault," he murmured, his lips dry and thin, tightly pursed. "That's what the girl does, and I brought the wrong things home. It's my fault, all my fault, girl, blame me."
Lu Xiaohe just looked at the cold food on the table. She said nothing, her face was stiff and expressionless. She seemed to want to stop crying, but she had to wipe away the tears again and again with the back of her hand.
"I... I should also tell you more in advance..." Her voice was dry and hoarse, the volume was too low to be heard, and her body was still trembling slightly.
"That's right, Mr. Lu."
Yin Ren interrupted Lu Xiaohe's mumbling and looked at Lu's father sincerely.
"I am Xiaohe's colleague at Shi'an. She helped me a lot before, and I made an appointment with her to help her check her mother's illness - my family has some ancestral remedies that are very effective."
Yin Ren's tone was serious and calm, with a convincing force. His face was no longer relaxed as usual, and he looked a bit like the great master in the rumors.
"Later, I kept delaying because of personal matters. If I had fulfilled my promise earlier, your wife would not have encountered such a thing. I will take responsibility and will definitely find her back."
Yin Ren emphasized the pronunciation of the word "absolutely", and Lu Xiaohe looked at him with complicated eyes.
"you… "
"I should be responsible for this matter, and I will take responsibility for it." Yin Ren said decisively.
The pain on Father Lu's face faded a little. He gripped his knees tightly with his fingers and nodded vigorously.
That afternoon, the Zhian Group specially dispatched the ninth office.
The news that Team Nine had won the "League Victory Award" was not as fast as the equipment. However, this time Lu Xiaohe was a little distracted, and these shiny new equipment did not make her smile.
On the larger screen wall, dense data was clearly projected, covering the entire space. Compared with the investigation Zhong Cheng said at that time, it was even more than before.
Even though it was a day off, there was no sign of overtime work in the room. Ge Tingting sat solemnly at his workstation. Even Huang Jin looked serious, with his arms folded, and his face was not very good.
“… This is our first mission after we were promoted to Class B, a multiple missing persons case. We’ve always been good at this, right?”
Lu Xiaohe tried to liven up the atmosphere as he did in the past, but his voice was so hoarse that it was unpleasant.
"The commonalities of these cases are very obvious. The missing persons are all women, and they were all exposed to a certain amount of evil power pollution before they disappeared. The data characteristics of the evil power at the missing scene are highly similar. Apart from that, they don't have much in common."
She tapped the keyboard heavily, and three brief information files zoomed in.
[Meng Huai, female, 21 years old when she disappeared, former head of the Emergency Management Department of Ren Shian, quasi-ghost general. Excellent practitioner.]
[Zhong Chengfeng, female, 26 years old when she disappeared, worked as a criminal police officer in the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Haigu City Public Security Bureau. She is a science-oriented person.]
[He Huan, female, 54 years old when she disappeared, unemployed. Mother of Shian employee Lu Xiaohe. No obvious bias.]
"These are three cases that we are investigating together, and our mission is to get to the root cause of these cases..."
Lu Xiaohe paused.
"And to locate missing persons."
(End of this chapter)