Shi Pengpeng was left speechless by Wei Chi’s remark and hadn’t yet figured out what he meant when Wei Chi exclaimed again, “Where has President Yan gone? Why didn’t he even take his phone?”
Shi Pengpeng snapped back to attention, “What’s going on?”
It turned out that Wei Chi, fearing the meeting would be delayed, had already rushed to Yan Jing’s house with the documents before calling Shi Pengpeng.
Yan Jing lived alone in Xiluo, and as his assistant, Wei Chi often needed to enter his home, so he knew the passcode.
Now, Wei Chi had entered Yan Jing’s house and found the living room brightly lit, the computer open on the table, and a freshly brewed cup of coffee next to the coffee machine-clearly, everything was set for the meeting.
But the house was empty, and Yan Jing was nowhere to be found.
Strangest of all, his phone was left on the counter next to the coffee machine.
No wonder he hadn’t replied to messages or answered calls.
“This is really strange,” Wei Chi muttered, “What could President Yan be doing at this time?”
“You mean his phone is still at home?” Shi Pengpeng’s heart skipped a beat, and a sense of unease began to creep in.
If he had just stepped out temporarily, it wouldn’t be so unusual, but leaving without his phone was highly irregular.
Given Yan Jing’s work demands, he couldn’t afford to be without his phone, and he was usually so meticulous-how could he be so careless this time?
Unless… he had left in a hurry, without time to grab his phone.
At this thought, Shi Pengpeng couldn’t sit still any longer.
She stood up abruptly, “Brother Wei, don’t leave yet. I’m coming over now.”
Shi Pengpeng quickly hailed a taxi and rushed to Yan Jing’s place.
Wei Chi, now realizing the gravity of the situation, remembered how Shi Pengpeng had once dealt with a malevolent spirit and knew that sometimes inexplicable things happened around their boss.
He felt a chill and hurried to the entrance of the neighborhood to meet her.
Yan Jing’s home was simply furnished, and everything was in plain sight.
Shi Pengpeng quickly scanned the room and found it neat and tidy, with no signs of anything unusual.
But that in itself was unusual.
If there had been a struggle, there would at least be some traces.
But now, without any clues, a living person had simply vanished into thin air.
Shi Pengpeng lit a tracking incense stick.
The smoke wafted up, swirled in the air, and then dissipated.
“How is it?” Wei Chi asked nervously, “Any leads?”
“No,” Shi Pengpeng shook her head, her expression grave, “This is really strange…”
Normally, whether Yan Jing had left the house normally or been taken by something, there should have been some residual energy.
But the tracking incense couldn’t pick up any traces at all.
How was that possible?
“Do you know what he was doing the last time you contacted him?” Shi Pengpeng asked.
“I’m not sure…” Wei Chi thought for a moment, then exclaimed, “Ah! He might have been making coffee!”
Yan Jing often drank coffee to stay awake during late-night meetings.
When Wei Chi had first entered, the coffee on the counter was still warm, so it must have been freshly brewed.
“Making coffee?” Shi Pengpeng instinctively felt this might not be relevant, but she still glanced toward the counter.
Everything there seemed normal, and she was about to look away when her peripheral vision caught something on the floor beneath the counter, and her temple twitched.
There, it seemed there was a puddle of gray-black water stain.
She hurried over to check and, upon closer inspection, realized the stain was in the shape of a handprint, as if someone had dipped their hand in ink and pressed it onto the ground.
The scene felt familiar, and Shi Pengpeng perked up.
She took off the canvas bag she was carrying and called out, “Tea Pet, come out.”
Earlier, in her rush to leave, she hadn’t waited for Tea Pet to finish speaking.
Seeing this, Tea Pet had simply followed her.
However, with others around, Tea Pet had been hiding in the bag, afraid of being discovered.
Hearing her call, Tea Pet cautiously hopped out, “Ribbit, Master, what’s wrong?”
Wei Chi, standing nearby: ?
He glanced at the pitch-black toad, then at Shi Pengpeng, silently raising a hand to press firmly against his chest.
Calmly, he asked, “Miss Shi, is this frog a monster?”
“Ribbit! You’re the frog! Your whole family are frogs!” Tea Pet retorted, “I’m a Three-Legged Golden Toad!”
Wei Chi: “…”
“Enough, stop arguing,” Shi Pengpeng interrupted the exchange between the human and the creature.
She lifted Tea Pet and brought it to the black stain, saying, “Take a look at this. I remember when you escaped from my grasp, you left behind similar ink marks. What’s going on?”
“Ribbit, it’s not my fault!” Tea Pet widened its eyes, hastily explaining, “It was the painting that teleported me away!”
“Painting?” Shi Pengpeng was puzzled, “What painting?”
“Ribbit, it’s a very mystical landscape painting…” Tea Pet began.
After it had ended up in the hands of the auction house, it had been locked in the vault.
Until a few days ago, when the auction house suddenly received a new item: the famous Xuanmen artifact, the Zigan Sword.
Along with the sword, its owner had generously gifted a batch of scrolls as souvenirs for all the attendees.
As a spirit creature, Tea Pet was very interested in the Zigan Sword and wanted to get a closer look.
Unexpectedly, among the scrolls, there was an incredibly powerful landscape painting.
Tea Pet had merely hopped over it and, caught off guard, was teleported away.
Normally, Tea Pet was bound by its inherent karmic connection to tea utensils and couldn’t stray too far from them.
But the painting’s power was so strong that it forcibly teleported Tea Pet several kilometers away.
This was the first time Tea Pet had been so far from its tea utensils.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t break free from the karmic bond and was forced to return to the auction house.
On its way back, it happened to pass by a restroom.
Having been locked in the auction house’s vault for so long, Tea Pet hadn’t enjoyed a proper tea bath in ages.
Unable to resist, it turned on the faucet to drench itself, which was how it coincidentally ran into Shi Pengpeng.
Shi Pengpeng’s talismans were undoubtedly powerful, but precisely because of this, when she suppressed Tea Pet, it inadvertently triggered the karmic power within it.
This caused the tea utensils to summon Tea Pet back through the painting in an instant.
As for the ink stain, it was what Tea Pet had picked up from the painting when it passed through.
After being drenched in water, the ink was left on the ground.
“So that’s what happened…” Shi Pengpeng’s heart tightened.
She quickly searched around and, sure enough, found a rolled-up landscape painting behind the bar.
This painting was one of the gifts the auction house had given to Yan Jing along with the auction items.
Someone of Yan Jing’s status often received gifts from merchants…
The object seemed so ordinary that it was dismissed without a second thought and casually brought back.
Shi Pengpeng unrolled the scroll, and the tea pet exclaimed in surprise, “Croak, this is the painting!”
The scroll appeared utterly unremarkable, with nothing special about the paper or the ink.
However, Shi Pengpeng keenly noticed that the weight of the scroll’s roller seemed slightly unbalanced, with one end being a bit heavier.
She immediately dismantled the roller and, sure enough, found a thumb-sized black stone inside.
“What is this?” Wei Chi asked, puzzled.
Shi Pengpeng’s expression turned grave.
“The Thousand-Mile Stone.”
Legend has it that during the Northern Wei Dynasty, there was a Buddhist monk named Nanda who was skilled in illusionary arts.
He could walk through fire and water without harm and pass through metal and stone without obstruction.
A commoner in Shu once offered him shelter, but after a few days, Nanda no longer wished to stay.
To keep him, the host closed the doors, but to their astonishment, Nanda walked straight through the wall and disappeared, leaving only a black image on the wall.
The color of the image faded day by day, and by the seventh day, only a small stone within the wall retained any color.
As for Nanda, he had already traveled a thousand miles away in the blink of an eye.
The stone that retained Nanda’s color came to be known as the Thousand-Mile Stone.
It was said that through this stone, one could borrow Nanda’s power to traverse a thousand miles in an instant.
Of course, this was an exaggerated tale from later generations.
Throughout history, spatial magic has been considered one of the most difficult arts to master.
Coupled with the thin spiritual energy of the modern era, the cultivation level of practitioners is far inferior to that of Nanda’s time.
Using the Thousand-Mile Stone to transport someone is nearly impossible.
Except for Yan Jing.
Yan Jing possesses an extremely unique constitution that allows any magical artifact to exert extraordinary effects on him.
If a highly skilled practitioner used the Thousand-Mile Stone as a medium to set up a special magical array, it would indeed be possible to abduct Yan Jing from a thousand miles away.
This was a trap specifically designed for Yan Jing.
Starting with the Zigan Sword, the person behind this had meticulously guided Yan Jing into the trap.
Although Yan Jing was cautious enough not to bid on the sword, he still couldn’t avoid the Thousand-Mile Stone.
The Zigan Sword and the Thousand-Mile Stone-one a Taoist artifact, the other a Buddhist treasure-were both used specifically against Yan Jing, indicating the grand scale of the scheme.
Either Yan Jing had a deep-seated grudge with someone, or to the other party, Yan Jing’s value far exceeded that of these two items.
Shi Pengpeng immediately thought of the Longevity Island and Zhao Xiwen.
If anyone had the capability and resources to pull this off, it was likely the Longevity Island.
The disappearance of Zhao Xiwen’s soul had also been suspected to be related to them.
But if it was indeed the Longevity Island’s doing, what was their purpose?
Her mind was in turmoil, unable to make sense of it all for the moment.
The immediate priority was to find Yan Jing.
Yan Jing had been transported to an unknown location without his phone or any tracking device.
The only way to find him now was to follow him through the Thousand-Mile Stone.
But aside from his unique constitution, it would be difficult for an ordinary person to unleash the stone’s full power.
Wait, no-there was one other thing that had “activated” this stone before.
Shi Pengpeng turned to the tea pet.
“Tell me in detail, what did you do to be transported by this painting?”
“Quack, I didn’t do anything,” the tea pet said with a blank look in its beady eyes.
“I just used the painting as a stepping stone and stepped on it…”
As it spoke, it suddenly remembered something.
“Quack, but at that time, I felt a lot of the Five Elements’ energy gathering around me…”
“The Five Elements’ energy…” Shi Pengpeng realized.
“The Five Emperors’ Coin.”
At that moment, the tea pet still had the Qin Banliang coin in its mouth.
As the oldest of the Five Emperors’ Coins, it could even bring a lifeless ceramic like the tea pet to life, so naturally, it could also awaken the Thousand-Mile Stone.
However, the karmic bond between the tea pet and the tea set had not been severed, so it wasn’t transported too far and quickly found its way back.
Without hesitation, Shi Pengpeng took out the Qin Banliang coin and held it in her palm.
She placed her other hand on the Thousand-Mile Stone, closed her eyes, and focused her mind, silently reciting the incantation.
As the spell took effect, a sudden gust of wind rose in the living room, enveloping Shi Pengpeng.
Caught off guard, she was pulled into the unfolded landscape painting.
“Miss Shi!” Wei Chi was shocked and instinctively reached out to grab her.
But it was too late.
In an instant, Shi Pengpeng was completely swallowed by the painting, leaving only a corner of her clothing visible.
In the blink of an eye, even that disappeared.
After a moment, the living room returned to calm, as if nothing had happened.
Only a faint ink stain remained beside the landscape painting.
Wei Chi and the tea pet stared at each other, both momentarily stunned.
“What… what should we do now?” Wei Chi asked awkwardly.
“Should we call the police?”
“Quack, no! Don’t call the police!” the tea pet panicked and immediately objected.
“The police will take me away for experiments!”
Wei Chi: “…”
This monster is way too paranoid!
And where did it get such a strange train of thought?
But it did seem like calling the police wasn’t the right move.
Not only was it unclear whether this was even a matter for the police, but if they started asking questions, how would he explain it?
Say that the boss and Shi Pengpeng disappeared into a painting?
He might end up getting himself locked up before they even found the missing people…
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