Chapter 365

Chapter 365

I drove Seventh Master’s car to the entrance of the complex.

As expected, Liang Yi’s parents were back, “defending their rights.”

They held a banner and shouted for the heartless developer to return their daughter.

To investigate Liang Yi, I needed to start with the people around her.

As a student, she spent most of her time at university. To learn what she was like day to day, I would normally ask around campus, but we had already done that.

To understand why someone behaved that way, however, you needed to understand their family.

There was clearly something wrong with Liang Yi’s family and her parents.

Normal parents whose daughter had disappeared would focus on finding her, not come here waving banners.

Even the police didn’t know how Liang Yi vanished. Even if she had died in this complex, Boss Xu held no legal responsibility.

Their opportunistic protest was obviously about money.

Maybe Liang Yi’s parents didn’t care about her at all. In their eyes, squeezing cash from a wealthy developer mattered more than finding their daughter.

I walked over and watched from the side.

Seeing a spectator, they made an even louder scene. They held up a family photograph and shouted that a heartless profiteer had harmed their daughter and destroyed their family.

The photograph showed four people, not three.

Alongside Liang Yi and her parents was a teenage boy who appeared to be a minor.

“Are these your daughter and son?” I asked.

The moment Liang Yi’s mother saw someone paying attention, she began crying theatrically. “Yes. Our family was perfectly happy. My daughter was a college student with excellent grades, and now she’s gone. How are we supposed to live?”

“Young man, you young people know the internet. Record us and post it online.”

“The developer is inhuman. He kidnapped my daughter and does whatever he wants because he’s rich. Even the police can’t control him.”

The claims were so outrageous that I felt fortunate they didn’t know how to use the internet.

If they did, Boss Xu couldn’t clear his name by jumping into the Yellow River.

“Hold on. Your daughter’s missing. You haven’t found her yet, so shouldn’t you be looking for her?” I asked. “Will waving a banner here every day bring her back?”

Her parents immediately grew hostile. “Of course we’re looking! The developer harmed our daughter. We’re pressuring him for her sake.”

“If you won’t help post this online, get lost. Don’t stand there making sarcastic remarks.”

I understood now.

They were utterly unreasonable.

“What evidence do you have that the developer harmed her?” I exposed the lie. “Are you here to find your daughter, or are you here for money?”

They snapped. “What nonsense are you talking, brat? Stop spreading lies!”

“Do you favor your son over your daughter?” I continued. “Are you using your daughter’s disappearance to extort money so you can take it home and raise your son?”

They exploded. “Bullshit! Do you have no sympathy? What did your mother teach you? Keep talking and I’ll slap you!”

Both rushed over, trying to hit me.

“What are you doing? You’re attacking me because I struck a nerve?”
I pulled out my phone and aimed it at them. “Didn’t you want someone to record you? Fine, I’ll do it. Your daughter goes missing, and instead of searching, you come here demanding money. What kind of parents are you?”

“Keep filming, brat! I’ll beat you to death!”

They lunged for my phone.

I couldn’t be bothered arguing any longer. I hurried back to the car and prepared to leave.

They pounded on the doors, cursed eighteen generations of my ancestors, and kicked the car.

I drove away.

I had deliberately provoked them to see what kind of people Liang Yi’s parents were and what sort of home she came from.

Clearly, this family favored sons over daughters.

Liang Yi couldn’t even eat properly at university. She was sallow and thin. Her younger brother, meanwhile, was pale, plump, and well fed.

A family that favored sons raised one useless boy and one girl who had been suppressed and treated differently since childhood. When that girl grew up, she became insecure, lacked confidence, and developed a compulsion to please others.

That was Liang Yi.

Her constant helpfulness at school was really an attempt to please people, just as she tried to please her parents at home, hoping they would notice her and treat her like her brother.

But her parents didn’t even care whether she lived or died. Why would they care about her daily life?

If they hadn’t abused her at home, that alone probably counted as parental conscience to them.

Now that Liang Yi was older, could she have decided to escape her family? Had she gone to An Yutong to borrow money?

On second thought, she studied extremely hard and was already a junior. If her family refused to support graduate school, she could start working next year.

With her grades, she could find a good job and build a promising future. She only needed to endure one more year. Why do anything drastic?

I parked by the road and thought until my head hurt, but still couldn’t understand why Liang Yi had gone to An Yutong.

Brother Liu called that afternoon.

The sketch artist had finished the mysterious man’s portrait, and the system was still searching for a match.

More importantly, Brother Liu had investigated An Yutong’s car and found something abnormal.

She had indeed sent it to a dealership for repairs, but the service department couldn’t find a single fault.

The body had never been scratched, nor had it been repainted recently.

In other words, An Yutong had lied again, and for no obvious reason.

Suspicious, Brother Liu went to the dealership himself, inspected the car, and checked it thoroughly.

He found nothing strange. He only asked when An Yutong planned to collect it.

The employee said she had no plans to retrieve it soon and might leave it there for some time.

The call left me even more confused. I understood An Yutong less and less.

Why lie that someone had scratched her car?

Why send a perfectly functional vehicle for repairs?

The university was far from her home. Driving would make her daily commute much easier.

Why create trouble for herself for no reason?

That night, I returned to the university gate and waited for An Yutong to come out.