Chapter 80: Shen Ke Has an Accident

Many lights remained lit in the Recovery Group’s office building. Plenty of people were working late into the night. That included Ye Ziqiu, who was still working overtime at seven-thirty in the evening.

When Lin Jian arrived upstairs, he happened to run into Secretary Jin carrying a takeout box out of the CEO’s office.

Seeing Lin Jian, Secretary Jin gave him a friendly smile. "President Ye asked me to let you know to wait here for a moment. She still has a few documents to finish reading."

"Alright, take your time."

There was a row of chairs in the corridor outside the office. Lin Jian tactfully took a seat, pulling out his phone to send a text to Shen Ke. He wanted to ask her to meet again tomorrow. He needed to know which city the escaped Old Cat had last appeared in. The police would definitely know more. If he could gather as much intelligence as possible from Shen Ke, it would be much easier for Xu Xiaohui and the others to track him down later.

However, a long time passed without any reply from Shen Ke. Lin Jian had heard her mention having an operation tonight, but for some reason, whenever he thought of how she had chuckled as she left earlier that day, panic gripped his heart. It was an inexplicable sense of dread, a nagging feeling that something terrible was about to happen.

"No, I still need to call her. Even if I interrupt her, I have to make sure she’s safe," Lin Jian thought. He took a deep breath and slowly dialed Shen Ke’s number.

The call went through, but no one answered. Lin Jian’s heart pounded in his chest—THUMP THUMP. After it rang seven or eight times, he was about to give up and hang up, but part of him thought she might answer on the very next ring. Just as it rang for the tenth time, the call suddenly connected.

"Shen Ke, are you okay?" Lin Jian asked nervously.

However, Shen Ke’s voice didn’t come through the receiver. Instead, there was a lot of background noise and muffled voices. Lin Jian was absolutely certain they were the voices of men.

While Lin Jian was trying to make sense of the situation, Shen Ke’s voice suddenly rang out. "Hey, what’s the meaning of tying me up like this? Let me tell you, I’m Hai’s woman! Aren’t you afraid he’ll settle the score with you?"

"Heh, don’t try to scare us with Hai. Hai’s woman is exactly who we’re kidnapping today," someone sneered.

"Where are you taking me?" Shen Ke pressed.

"Cut the crap. If you keep talking, I’ll sew your mouth shut."

RUSTLE.

More noise echoed through the phone before Shen Ke spoke again, feigning anger. "What do you mean by taking me to the suburbs? Is that the funeral home over there?"

"San, gag her..."

SWISH.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

The call abruptly cut off. Lin Jian shot up from his seat. Shen Ke had been kidnapped, and they were heading in the direction of the Jiangcheng Funeral Home.

"Damn it!" he cursed. How could this happen? Why was her unit always running into accidents? Even a vice-captain like Shen Ke could get kidnapped? Weren’t they being far too unprofessional?

Lin Jian sprinted toward the elevator, dialing Ye Ziqiu’s number on the fly. She answered after a single ring. "Lin Jian, wait for me a little longer. I still have an important document to finish reading. Have you eaten?"

To his surprise, President Ye actually knew how to care about others now.

"Old Ye, wait for me at the company! A friend of mine is in trouble, and I need to go save her. You... don’t go home yet. No matter how late it gets, I’ll come back for you." Without waiting for her response, he hung up immediately.

Ye Ziqiu was utterly stunned. Back when the little security guard was actually a security guard, he was arrogant enough to openly oppose her, the CEO. Now that he had been upgraded to her driver, he had stood her up yet again.

But his friend was in trouble? He went to save someone?

She wanted to call him back to ask, but then reconsidered. Their relationship hadn’t exactly reached the point where she could pry into everything, so she dropped the idea. At the same time, she lost all focus on her documents. Truth be told, Lin Jian had already found his way into her heart.

She had an indescribable feeling toward him—a mix of appreciation, exploration, and curiosity. But more than anything, it was a desire... a desire to spend just a little more time with him. Yes, almost subconsciously, she wanted to be alone with him a bit longer. She didn’t know why, but whenever she was with Lin Jian, she could completely relax. She could drop all her disguises and defenses. She could laugh, glare at him, playfully pinch him, or even act spoiled.

Just thinking about that feeling filled her with sweet joy; it was something she yearned to hold onto.

Could this be love? Resting her chin on her hand, she let her imagination run wild.

Meanwhile, after reaching the ground floor, Lin Jian drove the Ferrari straight out of the parking lot. The keys had been on him the whole time; he was the driver now, after all. As soon as the car hit the main road, he floored it, accelerating to a hundred kilometers an hour as he sped toward the Donghu District.

He knew the funeral home. It was about seven or eight kilometers away from the Jiangcheng City District, located near a small town in the Donghu District. Lin Jian didn’t know if he could find Shen Ke, but he had to try. If something happened to her tonight and he hadn’t gone looking for her, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

"Heading toward the funeral home, there’s only one main road," Lin Jian analyzed as he drove, piecing together the clues Shen Ke had dropped over the phone. "When she called just now, she must have been approaching the area. She could already see the funeral home from the road. That means, by this point, they’ve either turned onto the side road leading into the funeral home, or they’ve continued straight along the main road!"

Shen Ke’s hands were likely bound, and her phone must have been on vibrate, which was why the kidnappers didn’t hear it ring. Since she couldn’t comfortably answer the phone, she had managed to connect the call but couldn’t bring it to her ear to speak. That was why she had loudly asked where they were taking her—she was leaving clues for whoever was on the other end of the line. She might not have even known who was calling her.

Lin Jian drove furiously, his speed continuously climbing. Soon, speeding along the main road toward the destination, the funeral home came into view. However, to actually go to the funeral home, one had to turn right off the main road onto a side street. And earlier, Shen Ke hadn’t explicitly confirmed if they were actually heading inside.

As Lin Jian reached the intersection, he took a deep breath and decisively turned right. He planned to use his Thought to scan the inside and outside of the funeral home while driving around it. If he did a full lap and found no trace of Shen Ke, he would return to the main road and continue his search forward.

He slowed the car down. The side road leading to the funeral home was lined with pine forests on both sides. Even with the streetlights, the funeral home felt incredibly eerie at night. After all, this was a place where the dead were cremated, a resting place for souls. It even housed a public cemetery and a columbarium for storing ashes. As a result, the Yin energy here was overwhelmingly heavy.

As he drove and probed his surroundings with his Thought, a shadow suddenly flashed past from behind a tree. Its speed was terrifyingly fast! Lin Jian was startled. He saw that the shadow was shaped like a human, but it wasn’t a person. It was... a pitch-black mass. After darting through the range of his Thought, it simply dispersed on its own!

Every hair on Lin Jian’s body stood on end. Could his Thought actually see ghosts?

That dark shadow just now was definitely not a person, nor was it any other animal. It was merely a pitch-black silhouette—a silhouette that could dissipate into thin air!

He swallowed hard. Did ghosts actually exist in this world?

"Hmm? There’s someone in the car up ahead!" he muttered.

Just then, he noticed a car parked by the side of the road outside the funeral home’s main compound, and a driver sitting inside smoking a cigarette. When the driver spotted Lin Jian’s car approaching, he deliberately shielded the glowing red tip of his cigarette with his palm and peeked sneakily in his direction.

"Something’s wrong!" Lin Jian instantly concluded. There was definitely something suspicious about this driver.