75: Chapter 75 Save...Save...Me

By the afternoon, Lu Cheng was about to go stir-crazy lying in the hospital room.

The Guiding Technique: Origin had been circulating slowly within his body, steadily raising his blood energy little by little. Combined with the recovery potions and nutritional supplements provided by the hospital, he was recovering rapidly.

Lu Cheng leaned against the headboard, moved his shoulders, and clenched his fists. Hmm... he had strength back.

If he had to keep lying there, he would truly go insane.

Not long after, the doctor came to do rounds, and Lu Cheng immediately stopped him.

"Doctor, I feel like I'm about ready. Is it okay if I go out for a walk?"

The middle-aged doctor adjusted his glasses, glanced at him, and then checked the data.

"You can walk, but no strenuous exercise, don't get into any fights, and don't recklessly use your blood energy."

"Understood, understood. I'm just going for a stroll."

"Remember to come back for a check-up in the evening."

"Sure."

Lu Cheng agreed quickly, afraid the other party might change his mind.

After changing his clothes, pulling out the IV, and handling the temporary leave permit, Lu Cheng finally slipped out of the hospital.

As soon as the outside air hit his face, he felt relieved.

Having smelled the scent of disinfectant in the hospital for so long, his brain had gone numb.

The sounds of cars on the street, the voices of people, and the advertisements playing from distant shops all flooded into his ears at once, giving him the feeling of coming back to life.

Lu Cheng walked slowly with his hands in his pockets.

He did not have any specific destination; he was just looking for a place to stroll and loosen up his Tendon & Bone Stage.

When passing an intersection, his steps suddenly faltered.

Not far ahead, a middle-aged uncle was walking beside a high school girl in a uniform, carrying a bag in his hand and chattering away non-stop.

Lu Cheng took one look and chuckled.

Isn't this the same uncle who was frantically setting flags in the Wasteland Zone and almost got himself killed?

The uncle still looked as disheveled as ever, with rough features, scruffy stubble, and a stiff gait from an injury that hadn't fully healed.

But the girl beside him was completely different; she wore a high ponytail, her uniform was clean and tidy, her profile was delicate, her eyes were bright, and she exuded a sense of youth.

Lu Cheng could not help but mutter to himself.

With this uncle looking like that, how on earth did he manage to have such a beautiful daughter?

He immediately called out to the front:

"Yo, uncle, still alive?"

The uncle stopped in his tracks and turned his head to look.

When their eyes met, they both immediately laughed.

"Haha, I almost died, but I was saved by Secretary Chen." The uncle patted his chest and laughed heartily. "My life is tough; even the King of Hell finds me annoying."

Lu Cheng walked over and looked him up and down.

"You're recovering quite well."

"It's passable, though my bones still ache." The uncle said, gesturing to the girl beside him. "But at least I can come out to pick up my daughter from school."

Lu Cheng looked at the girl and paused for a moment.

"This is... your daughter?"

The uncle nodded immediately, a look of pride instantly appearing on his face.

"That's right, my daughter."

After saying this, he even puffed out his chest specifically.

"How about it, isn't she pretty?"

"But she's still young right now. I won't agree to her dating until she's in university, so don't you even think about it, kid!"

Isn't this uncle's defensive awareness a bit too advanced?

The girl beside him blushed slightly, raised her hand, and pinched the uncle's waist hard.

"Dad!"

"Hiss!!"

The uncle gasped sharply on the spot, his whole face twisting as he clutched his waist and hissed in pain.

"Easy, easy! You girl, you have a heavy hand!"

The girl glared at him, her earlobes turning hot.

She had actually been secretly looking at Lu Cheng just now.

The person in front of her was clearly not old, truly quite handsome, with a clean and agile build. Standing there, he had a sense of clean sharpness.

Especially those eyes; they looked a bit lazy, but when they landed on someone, they were very bright.

Lu Cheng was amused by this father-daughter pair. He chatted a few words, did not stay long, and waved goodbye.

"Alright, I have things to do, I'm heading off."

"Let's chat again when there's time."

The uncle waved back at him.

"Go on, go on, just don't go pining after my daughter."

"You are truly sick."

Lu Cheng cursed and turned to leave.

The two martial arts chips that Xia Yunchi gave him were still on him. With such good items in hand, if he did not study them immediately, he would not be able to sleep peacefully tonight.

Lu Cheng walked towards the martial arts hall all the way.

As soon as he entered the door, the familiar scent of sweat, medicinal oil, and the sound of equipment clashing rushed towards him.

There were quite a few people in the training area, with thumping sounds of striking one after another. Several students were sparring, and some were practicing pole work on the side.

Lu Cheng had originally intended to find a quiet corner to look at the martial arts chips first, but as soon as he walked in, he heard a few people nearby discussing something.

"Did you hear? Zhou Lize went to Yanghe Martial Arts Hall."

"No kidding, the news has already spread."

"He's now the head disciple of Yanghe Martial Arts Hall, and they're practically praising him to the heavens over there."

"It's said that his strength has already reached the Body Refining Realm: Extreme Realm, just one step away from the Source Gathering Realm."

"Damn, the Zhou Family is really willing to throw resources at him."

"Yanghe Martial Arts Hall has also been like they're on steroids lately; their recruitment is going crazy."

Lu Cheng's steps paused slightly, and he turned to look at those few people.

Zhou Lize.

He was all too familiar with this name.

After that incident, he had not shown his face much. Lu Cheng had thought this guy was plotting something big.

Turns out, he just ran off to become the head disciple at Yanghe Martial Arts Hall?

Body Refining Realm: Extreme Realm...

It seems the Zhou Family has poured quite a lot of things into him.

Another student nearby lowered his voice and said:

"Yanghe Martial Arts Hall is bustling now. I heard the hall master even came out to endorse him personally, saying Zhou Lize has astonishing talent and will definitely be able to enter Qingyuan Martial University in the future."

"They've been acting like it's an early New Year over there these past two days."

Listening to these words, Lu Cheng did not have much of a reaction. Having already beaten him once, Lu Cheng would not take him seriously anymore.

He did not continue listening to the gossip; he found an empty training room and took out the two martial arts chips.

The golden A-rank chip and the cyan B-rank chip lay in his palm, feeling cold to the touch, with faint patterns flowing on the surface.

Lu Cheng stared at them for a few seconds, his eyes lighting up bit by bit...

On the other side, the police station.

The lights in the conference room were very bright, with stacks of documents piled on the table. The air was filled with a thick smell of smoke and instant coffee.

In the last few days, almost no one in the bureau had rested well.

An older police officer stood in front of the whiteboard, holding a file, his expression somewhat grim.

"Recently, there has been an inexplicable increase in the disappearance of children and high school students."

As soon as he finished his sentence, several people in the conference room looked up.

The middle-aged police officer sitting in the main seat frowned.

"What are the specific numbers?"

"There are nine confirmed disappearances, and four suspected ones." The old officer flipped through the documents in his hand. "The time frame is concentrated in the last week, and the ages are on the younger side—the youngest is only eight, and the oldest is seventeen."

A female officer nearby immediately chimed in.

"Do these people have any common characteristics?"

The old officer was silent for two seconds, then looked down and read the documents again.

"Aside from one or two who might know each other, almost none."

"Different family backgrounds, different schools, and their activity ranges are also vastly different."

"Some disappeared on the way home from school, some did not return home after going out on the weekend, and the last locations captured on surveillance for two of them were even half a city apart."

The conference room went quiet for a moment.

The middle-aged police officer at the main seat tapped his fingers on the table, his expression growing increasingly ugly as he listened.

"Almost none?"

He stood up directly, walked to the whiteboard, grabbed the documents, flipped through a few pages, and spoke in a very heavy tone.

"Impossible, check it properly again!"

"From the places they've walked in these past few days to the things they've eaten, check it all clearly for me!"

"Re-examine the surveillance, pull the communication records again, and re-screen the contacts!"

"Pick through it point by point; I don't believe there isn't a single trace!"

Several people in the conference room immediately responded.

"Yes!"

Soon, the documents were redistributed, and the sounds of keyboards, page-turning, and phone calls rang out one after another.

More than half an hour later.

A young police officer suddenly looked up, his voice tinged with surprise and suspicion.

"Captain, there's a situation here."

The middle-aged police officer immediately looked over.

"Speak."

The young officer pulled out a few documents and spread them on the table.

"I did a cross-screening of the movement trajectories of these missing persons over the last three days and found that although their usual activity ranges are different, most of them have been to the same place."

"Where?"

The young officer's Adam's apple moved, and he pointed to a name on the document.

"Yanghe Martial Arts Hall."

The conference room fell silent instantly.

That name hung in the air, appearing particularly glaring.

The older police officer's eyelids twitched, and he immediately leaned in to look.

"Are you sure?"

"Of the seven people confirmed so far, all of their trajectories have appeared near Yanghe Martial Arts Hall." The young officer spoke quickly. "Two went to sign up for a trial class, three went with friends to take a look, and although two did not go inside, they chatted with the teaching assistants there."

The female officer also flipped out another document, her expression changing slightly.

"The missing girl I have here, her last consumption record was also at the milk tea shop opposite Yanghe Martial Arts Hall."

The middle-aged police officer stared at the documents on the table, his expression sinking bit by bit.

"Keep investigating."

"Get all the surveillance, entry/exit records, coach lists, and temporary visitor logs for Yanghe Martial Arts Hall for the past week."

"And..."

He paused, his voice dropping lower.

"Notify the higher-ups, don't alert the enemy yet."

The atmosphere in the conference room tightened instantly.

Some people had vaguely realized that this matter might not be that simple.

Yanghe Martial Arts Hall is one of the top three martial arts halls in the city, and the influence behind it is not small. If these disappearance cases are really related to that place...

Then the problem is huge.

Meanwhile, in the training room, Lu Cheng had successfully learned two martial arts techniques:

[Drifting Dragon Rending Shadow (Entry: 0 / 200): After execution, the martial artist's movement technique is like a dragon piercing the sky; not only does speed explode, but they can also create several indistinguishable afterimages while moving at high speed. Every lunge can leverage momentum to build power, converting speed into lethality, erupting with fierce, heavy strikes in the moment of close-quarters intersection, possessing extremely strong defense-breaking and combo-kill capabilities.]

[Gale Step (Entry: 0 / 100): Significantly increases movement speed, as if a gale is sweeping past!]

"My state is okay today."

Lu Cheng did not continue studying these two martial arts techniques. The consumption over these two days was still high; continuing to train hard would likely be too much for his body to handle.

When he came out of the martial arts hall, the sky outside was already somewhat late.

After the setting sun sank behind the city's high-rise buildings, only a layer of dim yellow afterglow hung on the horizon. The streetlights on both sides of the street lit up one by one, casting mottled shadows on the ground.

This area is usually quite lively, but at this hour, there were already far fewer people.

Especially the alleys on Lu Cheng's way home; basically, no one could be seen.

"What's that smell?"

Lu Cheng stopped his steps. A faint scent of blood drifted over with the night wind.

Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Bad Luck immediately gave a reaction.

The next second, a petite figure suddenly stumbled out of the alley ahead.

It was a little girl who looked no more than eleven or twelve years old. Her silver-white long hair was matted into strands by blood, and her light-colored dress was almost soaked through with blood. Her exposed legs and arms were covered in scratches, and she stumbled as if she would fall at any second.

She was clearly almost at her limit.

But the moment she saw Lu Cheng, those eyes, which had been somewhat unfocused, seemed to suddenly grab onto a last straw of hope.

"Save... Save... Me..."

The voice was light and trembling, carrying a clear crying tone.

As soon as she finished speaking, she threw herself directly at Lu Cheng.

Lu Cheng subconsciously reached out to catch her.

The moment the little girl collided into his arms, she was extremely light... immediately followed by that heavy scent of blood rushing into his face, and even her slightly trembling breath carried urgency and pain.