Where did you get the money to make a public phone call?" Wilson asked.
"Dialing 911 doesn't require coins," Jack replied.
"You just stood by the phone waiting for the police?"
"Because I didn't lie. I never lie."
"What's your homeroom teacher's name…"
When Wilson questioned the boy, he noticed an elderly man standing by the rusty gate. He recognized him—the longtime gatekeeper of this building.
"Charlie, you're back? The gate wasn't locked, so I let myself in. This kid claims he saw someone jump from the rooftop, so I came to investigate."
"Officer Wilson, I saw your car outside and figured something was up. Everything okay?" Charlie smiled.
"No real leads. Probably just a mistaken sighting by the kid. If someone jumped, there'd be blood or something, right? I circled the area and found no traces," Wilson explained.
Jack shot a disappointed look at Charlie. The boy seemed genuinely honest.
"The rooftop is inaccessible—no stairs. I've never been up there," Charlie added, following the officer's lead.
"Should we go up and check?" Charlie suggested.
"No need! It's likely a wild goose chase. Besides, I have other matters to attend to. I'll call his teacher tomorrow," Wilson said.
"Anything else? Any recent cases?" Wilson pretended to scan the surroundings. In reality, it was just the three of them in this desolate place. He and the man he thought was named Charlie weren't particularly close. But Wilson had some stories bottled up, itching to share.
"Do you know about the recent missing persons in the neighboring counties?" Wilson's tone was exaggerated.
"Heard about it! You mean the young women being abducted?" Charlie replied.
"Nonsense! You're talking about old news. I'm referring to the past month—adult men disappearing. Mostly at night, near their homes. No clues left behind. Strange, isn't it?"
Seeing Charlie nod earnestly, Wilson continued, "We conduct missing persons research every year. This month's cases are truly unusual. Generally, grown men don't just vanish unless…"
At this point, Wilson glanced at Jack standing nearby, swallowing the rest of his sentence. He hoped not to bruise the unfortunate kid's ego.
"Abducting a mentally sound adult male is challenging. Silent kidnappings are even harder. Our department is investigating, but we can't share too much with the public yet—don't want to cause panic. It's a tough situation."
"You must be swamped!" Charlie said calmly, showing no signs of surprise.
Wilson felt a bit deflated by Charlie's nonchalant demeanor. Little did he know that Charlie, in his younger days, had witnessed plenty of oddities, leaving him unimpressed by such revelations.
As the evening wore on, Wilson bid farewell to the old man and headed back with Jack. The walk triggered the memory of his radio, and he deliberately shouted into it, "We've investigated—it's a false alarm!" Glancing through the rearview mirror, he saw Jack sitting expressionless, lost in thought about the strange events of the day. The boy seemed unfazed by the officer's words. Despite his young age, Jack firmly believed that everything in the world had a logical explanation—even the most peculiar occurrences were rooted in hidden reason.
Jack sat there, replaying the scene over and over.
An hour earlier, he had followed his usual routine, staying alone in the classroom to do homework. As class monitor, he held the keys to the room. Through the north-facing window, he could see the towering "Azure Building" in the northern suburbs—a monument to unfinished construction. Over time, students had grown accustomed to the eyesore, but even the most mischievous among them wouldn't venture near it. Legends circulated about a shadow within the high walls, perpetually roaming the waist-high grass. Blink, and the figure vanished. Recently, the rumors took a more mundane turn: the so-called shadow was the deputy county mayor, who had committed suicide due to financial troubles. Supposedly, he searched the grass for his missing eyeballs. These far-fetched tales had a tiny grain of plausibility—the school's elevated location provided a clearer view of the three-meter-high wall surrounding the "Bi Lan Building."
As Jack packed his bag, he glanced outside to check if the rain had stopped. There it stood—the "Bi Lan Building" amid the drizzle. Someone moved on the rooftop, walking in an odd manner. Jack struggled to describe it. Initially, he mistook the figure for a transparent plastic bag fluttering in the wind. But something felt off—the bag didn't move parallel to the ground. In a split second, his brain made a compromise: it was a person in a raincoat, gliding swiftly.
The person reached the building's edge and leaned forward—not the typical posture of someone unafraid of heights. Instead, they stood rigid, defying gravity. Jack's heart raced. Standing at that angle, most people would topple forward within seconds. And as expected, the figure accelerated its tilt and finally plummeted. Jack didn't scream like a girl; he held his breath, watching the prolonged fall. When he snapped out of it, he felt suffocated. He dashed out of the classroom, finding the teacher's office empty and the door locked. Downstairs, he sprinted to the school's public phone under the overpass. The security guard was on a lengthy call, enthusiastically discussing practical household chemicals and his recent sales course.
In the midst of this animated conversation, the guard noticed Jack—a student standing outside, mouth agape, staring at him. The guard recognized the boy—the one who left school late every day and often stumbled during PE class. Jack had a reputation as a good student but came across as an annoying bookworm. Without looking at Jack, the guard continued his sales pitch.
Jack waited, realizing he wouldn't get a chance. He ran outside, reaching the public phone under the highway overpass. Dialing 911, he anticipated that the arriving police might be bumbling fools, much like his uncle. His foresight had prepared him for their potential confusion.