Reborn a day later, I emptied my enemy's possessions beforehand.

"But how many people and how many vehicles would it take to move all this stuff?" Xiao Zhao's voice was trembling.

Old Liu suddenly thought of something and abruptly raised his head:

"Call Mr. Zhou. He was the one who told us to leave last night, so he definitely knows what happened."

He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed Zhou Haibing's number.

After pressing the call button, he held the phone to his ear, waited two seconds, and then his expression changed drastically.

"It's off," Lao Liu said.

Old Ma quickly took out his phone and dialed as well, and the same notification sounded:

"Hello, the number you dialed is currently switched off."

He thought for a moment, then dialed Sun Guiying's number again, and his expression became even stranger—

Instead of a beeping tone or a busy signal, a cold, recorded message appeared:

"The user you dialed is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

"General Manager Zhou's phone is switched off, and we can't get through to him. Sun Guiying's phone is also temporarily unavailable."

Old Ma put down his phone and looked at the other three people.

The four people looked at each other in bewilderment.

Old Liu said, "One phone is switched off, and the other is temporarily unavailable. What a coincidence!"

Old Li stubbed out his cigarette on the ground, frowned, thought for a moment, and said, "Should we call the police?"

"Call the police?" Xiao Zhao's eyes widened.

"Why are you calling the police? Saying our pharmaceutical factory was emptied overnight? What are we supposed to say when the police come and ask who moved it and when? Say we don't know?"

Old Ma also shook his head:

"This is a huge matter; a few security guards like us can't make a decision on it. I think we should find General Manager Zhou first, explain the situation to him, and let him decide."

Old Liu nodded:

"Old Ma is right. Boss Zhou came to the factory last night and was the one who gave us the day off. Now his phone is off, which is not normal. We need to find him in person and explain things to him face to face."

"But where can we find him?" Xiao Zhao asked.

Old Ma said, "Let's go to his house. President Zhou's house is in that villa area in the east of the city. I've been there once before, so I remember the approximate location."

After discussing it, the group decided that Lao Ma and Lao Liu would go to Zhou Haibing's house to see General Manager Zhou, while Lao Li and Xiao Zhao would stay at the factory to wait, so that they could have someone to look after them if General Manager Zhou or someone else came.

Old Ma and Old Liu rode their electric bikes out of the industrial zone and headed east of the city.

The roads were difficult to navigate during the morning rush hour. The electric scooter weaved through the traffic, stopping and starting frequently, and it took almost an hour to reach the villa area where Zhou Haibing lived.

The gate of the residential compound is very impressive, with two security guards standing at the entrance, dressed in crisp uniforms and wearing their hats neatly.

Old Ma and Old Liu parked their electric bikes outside the residential area and walked to the window of the guardhouse.

"Hello, we're looking for Mr. Zhou Haibing," said Lao Ma.

The security guard sized them up.

Two middle-aged men in security guard uniforms, one fat and one thin, were covered in sweat, clearly having ridden their electric bikes all the way here.

The security guard, with a subtle hint of disdain in his expression, asked:

"What's your relationship with him?"

"We're security guards from Haibing Pharmaceutical Company's factory. We need to speak with General Manager Zhou about something," Old Liu quickly added, trying to make his voice sound more authoritative.

The security guard nodded and handed a registration form through the window.

"Register, please show me your ID card."

Old Ma took out his ID card from his pocket and wrote his name, ID number, mobile phone number, and the address he wanted to go to on the registration form.

When he wrote the three characters "Zhou Haibing," the security guard glanced at it and said:

"Mr. Zhou, their house is No. 12 in Section A, the innermost row. Go in and walk straight along the main road to the end, then turn right."

The electric sliding gate opened a crack, just big enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.

Old Ma and Old Liu entered the residential area and walked along the main road.

The villa area has a very nice environment. Ginkgo trees are planted on both sides of the road, and the leaves are just beginning to turn yellow. The stone-paved road is clean and tidy, unlike the neighborhood where fallen leaves are piled up all over the ground.

But they had no interest in the scenery and walked very fast, their leather shoes making a clattering sound on the stone slabs.

They found No. 12 in Area A, a three-story detached villa with off-white stone cladding on the exterior walls. The Roman columns on the porch were even thicker than the columns in the ancestral hall of their village.

Old Ma rang the doorbell once, waited for a while, and then rang it again, but no one answered the door.

The wrought iron gate was locked from the inside. Old Ma tiptoed and peered through the crack in the gate into the yard. The yard was completely empty; there weren't any flower pots or stone benches, not even a single blade of grass.

No, it's not that there's no grass; it's that where there should have been flowerpots and stone benches, only bare ground remains. The soil has been compacted, and the rings are still there, but the things are gone.

He pressed the doorbell a few times and leaned against the door, calling "President Zhou" twice, but there was no response.

"Nobody's here," Old Ma said.

Old Liu pointed to the side: "Why don't we ask the neighbors?"

Old Ma shook his head: "How would the neighbors know where he went? Let's go back to the gate and ask the security guard."

The two walked back to the entrance of the residential area along the same route.

Old Ma walked to the guardhouse window and asked the security guard, "Sir, did you see General Manager Zhou leave this morning?"

The security guard thought for a moment and said:

"I didn't see Mr. Zhou, but I did see his wife. She went out early this morning and even borrowed my phone to call a ride-hailing service."

"Using her phone to call a ride-hailing service?" Old Liu interjected. "Doesn't she have her own phone?"

The security guard shrugged.

"She said she couldn't find her phone. I didn't recognize her at first either; her face was swollen like a pig's head. If she hadn't given her name first, I wouldn't have dared to call out to her."

Old Ma and Old Liu exchanged a glance.

Sun Guiying's face is swollen?

What's going on?

"Her Porsche is pretty good, why doesn't she drive it?" Old Ma asked casually.

The security guard said:

"It seems like something happened at her home. She walked out, barefoot, and the soles of her feet were black. She walked from inside the complex to the gate. I even lent her a pair of slippers."

Old Ma and Old Liu exchanged another glance.

The two of them imagined the scene and both felt that something was wrong.

A female boss living in a villa ran barefoot to the entrance of the community, her face so swollen that she was unrecognizable. She didn't have a phone, didn't drive her car, and had to borrow a ride-hailing car—this didn't seem like a normal situation at all.

Old Ma said:

"Driver, don't you have a ride-hailing record on your phone? Could you help us find out where she went?"

The security guard hesitated for a moment, then took out his phone, scrolled through the ride-hailing app's trip history, and read a line aloud:

"Destination - Emerald Bay Residential Complex, Block B"

When Old Liu heard the words "Emerald Bay," his eyes flickered.

"This is...the neighborhood where Mr. Wang Jinshan lives, right?"