Mind reading saves the whole family; I'm firmly in the role of a charlatan.

Chapter 495 One Unlucky Person After Another
"Disappeared?!"

The rest of the Du family gathered around, looking nervously at Du Junyan who had brought back the news.

"What do you mean by 'disappeared'? Wasn't she arrested for that kidnapping case not long ago? How could she be released? Could it be that there was a mistake at the place where she was detained, and someone managed to bail her out?"

"That was an attempted kidnapping, with witnesses and physical evidence, it's practically a conviction, how can you let someone just take that person out like that?"

"Even without the kidnapping, she was someone who needed to be closely monitored. Someone who would do something like kidnapping for a little profit—you can imagine what kind of character that would be. Don't they realize how dangerous it would be to release her at this time?"

As the messenger who brought back this news, Du Junyan was no less surprised than his family. Faced with everyone's chattering questions, he only replied with one sentence.

"Disappearance means that no one redeemed her or released her; she simply vanished right under everyone's noses in the detention center."

After these words were spoken, the room fell silent for a few seconds, then erupted like boiling water!

"How is this possible? How can a living person just vanish into thin air? Is there some mistake? Did they actually see her disappear? Could it be a trick?"

"According to the detention center, no one actually saw her disappear, but the surveillance video shows that she did vanish in an instant."

Du Hexuan's expression darkened slightly: "Is there a problem with the surveillance video? Could someone have deliberately tampered with it?"

"At first they thought so too, and they asked professionals to come and check it out. They found that there were no traces of editing or splicing in the video."

Mr. Du's expression was also grim: "Did the people in charge of watching her say anything? Did she exhibit any unusual behavior before she disappeared? How long did it take them to notice her disappearance? Did no one really see her leave during that time?"

“There was nothing unusual, and that’s precisely what caught us off guard. According to them, she disappeared between 6 and 7 p.m. At 6 p.m., when the people who were watching her brought her dinner, she was still there. After finishing their other tasks, they went in to collect the dishes at 7 p.m., only to find the place empty, the food untouched, and she had completely vanished.”

Afterwards, the people in charge of guarding her discovered that she was missing. Their first reaction was to check the surveillance footage, but they did not expect to see footage of her disappearing into thin air. This is how the news reached Du Anrao and others.

Unlike the other members of the Du family who were filled with worry, Du Anrao's heart, which had been restless, calmed down upon hearing the news. He felt a strange sense of knowing it was true and a touch of melancholy.

Just as the Du family was filled with worries, fearing the negative impact Xi Yanjia's disappearance would have on Du Anrao and the current situation, a sudden voice came from outside the door.

"She is one of the female protagonists in two books related to An An."

Everyone subconsciously looked up and followed the sound, and saw Xi Jingyue and Du Desheng walk in together.

"Mr. Xi, what brings you here?"

Du Anrao glanced at him with slight surprise, quite taken aback by Xi Jingyue's appearance at this moment. Du Junyan, no longer bothering to feign anything, asked through gritted teeth, "President Xi, have you... been quite free lately?"

Are you not doing your own company's work anymore? Have you finished all the things in the group chat? What's with you coming to our house all the time? Anyone who didn't know better would think this is your home. Pshaw, what do you mean "think"? Nobody can think like that!

Xi Jingyue seemed oblivious to the sharp and unfriendly gazes of the Du family members, and said with a faint smile, "There may be many things to do, but we must distinguish between what is important and what is urgent. In my eyes, nothing is more important than what is happening here right now."

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately showed expressions of extreme toothache.

Even Du Desheng, who brought him here, glanced at him with a subtle expression and coughed twice to remind him to hurry up and get down to business.

"I rushed here after hearing about Xi Yanjia's situation."

Mr. Du's eyes flickered slightly, and he said coldly, "She is a member of your Xi family. You should know her whereabouts."

Unexpectedly, Xi Jingyue shook his head with a serious expression: "After learning about this, I immediately had someone check on the recent situation of my second cousin's family. We found that she had not returned home. We also asked some of Xi Yanjia's close friends, but they had not seen Xi Yanjia recently and did not know where she had gone."

The members of the Du family exchanged glances and frowned in unison: "How do you know they're not lying?"

"In fact, after my cousin was arrested, my second uncle and his family were affected by her. Their company was investigated, and the cooperation they had previously agreed to was basically canceled, resulting in heavy losses. Not long after, her brother was exposed for bullying classmates, forming gangs, and harassing girls at school. He was expelled from school and became a negative example in high society."

"Especially in the last few days, for some reason, his family members have all had a lot of bad luck. First, my second uncle, who loves to say one thing to someone's face and another behind their back, accidentally tripped and hit his head while going downstairs in the middle of the night. When he woke up, he was not only paralyzed on one side, but his face and mouth were also crooked. The doctor said that there was blood stasis in his brain, which compressed the nerves and triggered a stroke."

The Du family members: "???" What kind of quack doctor is this? He sounds so unreliable.
"Then there's her mother, my second aunt. She went to a girls' party and was accidentally pushed into the water. It was just a normal cough that didn't last long, but it inexplicably developed into acute pneumonia, and she's still in the ICU."

"And then there's my cousin. After being expelled from school, he became self-destructive and spent his days hanging out with those rich kids who were always out partying, going to bars and karaoke, indulging in a life of luxury. On the night my aunt had her accident, he also got into a serious car accident while driving under the influence and ended up in the hospital. He's still in critical condition."

Now, not only Du Anrao, but everyone in the Du family also sensed something was amiss from Xi Jingyue's description.

If it were just one or two incidents, it wouldn't be so bad. But with so many things happening in a row, and all three members of the family except Xi Yanjia ending up in the hospital, and each incident being worse than the last, that's quite interesting.

The Du family members did not think this was a coincidence, especially during such a sensitive and special period.

"In addition, when I asked her close friends and classmates to inquire about her whereabouts, I found that these people had all encountered some bad luck recently, from spraining their ankles by stepping on stones when they went out to being hit on the head by flower pots falling from a height while walking on the road. There were a dozen or so people, without exception."

Upon hearing this, Du Anrao's eyes narrowed slightly, and he almost immediately guessed Xi Jingyue's thoughts: "Are you suspecting that... their luck has been absorbed by Xi Yanjia?"