Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Yu Jianghai, Our Daughter Is Missing Teacher Li was also stunned for a moment. She turned around to look, and cold sweat instantly broke out. "That's not right—she was just standing right here." Looking out across the crowd, all she could see were children in raincoats, dressed identically from head to toe. Teacher Li raised her megaphone and called out, "Lin Qiaoqiao, Lin Qiaoqiao." "Your mommy is here to pick you up." "Your mommy is here to pick you up." She called out three times in a row, but there was no response from anywhere in the crowd. Lin Meiyan took a deep breath. "Could she have gone back into the classroom?" No sooner had she spoken than she rushed off to the classroom where Qiaoqiao normally had her lessons, not waiting for Teacher Li to react. Unfortunately, it wasn't there either. Past dismissal time, every classroom was completely empty. Lin Meiyan didn't know how she managed to walk back out. Her legs felt weak. "Teacher Li, Qiaoqiao isn't in the classroom either." Teacher Li's face went pale in an instant. "I looked by the entrance too—Qiaoqiao isn't there either." "I'll go make an announcement over the PA system." The megaphone broadcast the message over and over again. If Qiaoqiao were still on school grounds, she would have come out for sure. But no. Nothing. Not once, not at all. "Could she have gone outside?" Lin Meiyan dropped her umbrella and ran out like a woman possessed. It was raining, and the school entrance was packed with parents in raincoats and under umbrellas, all there to pick up their children. She pulled aside face after face to look—one, two, three, four. She checked every single child one by one, and none of them was her Qiaoqiao. Where was her—where was her Qiaoqiao? At that moment, the school's broadcast station kept repeating: "Lin Qiaoqiao, Lin Qiaoqiao, if you hear this announcement, please come to the school entrance. Your mother is waiting for you there to take you home." The broadcast even alerted Director Chen, who came out of his office. "What's wrong with Qiaoqiao?" Lin Meiyan's mind was actually blank. She took a deep breath, then another. "Director Chen, my Qiaoqiao went missing at the school entrance." "We've searched the classroom and everywhere nearby." "I need the security team to cooperate with me now and search for her around the school." By this point, Lin Meiyan had gradually calmed herself down. "I need you to give the orders. I'll go ask around." Director Chen's expression turned grave. "Let's go look right now." Three minutes later, all three security guards were standing at the entrance. Lin Meiyan questioned them. "Did any of you see a child leave by herself?" They all shook their heads. "It's basically one-on-one—every parent takes one child, occasionally one parent takes two." "Wait." One of the guards suddenly spoke up. "I remember a child playing alone by the iron fence gate. Later, when I turned around, the child was gone." Lin Meiyan immediately asked, "Was it my Qiaoqiao?" The guard shook his head. "She was wearing a raincoat and a hood. I couldn't make out her face." They were suddenly at an impasse. Lin Meiyan closed her eyes. "Director Chen, please send people to search the surrounding area. If we can't find her, I'm calling the police." She had no other choice. Her daughter was her life. She couldn't afford to lose her life. Qiaoqiao had been waiting at the kindergarten entrance for her mother. After waiting for a while without seeing anyone, she accidentally lost the reward ball she had gotten in class that day. The ball, slick with rainwater, rolled along the bumpy ground all the way past the fence. Qiaoqiao let out an "Ah!" and stamped her foot. "Oh no, that's the ball I was going to give to Mommy!" Without a second thought, she chased after the ball in her raincoat, running from the kindergarten entrance all the way to the outer street at Simenkou. By the time she realized she had wandered onto the outer street, Qiaoqiao was already starting to panic. She instinctively looked around, her big, clear black-and-white eyes tinged with confusion. "Mommy..." Four-year-old Qiaoqiao had, for the first time, wandered so far from her mother and her teacher all alone. "Little one, are you looking for your mommy?" Qiaoqiao looked over warily. It was an old grandmother with white hair holding an umbrella. The woman looked somewhat familiar, but Qiaoqiao couldn't quite remember where she'd seen her before. "You're Qiaoqiao, aren't you?" Grandma Zhao recognized her too. Qiaoqiao hesitated, then nodded. "Where's your mother? How come she let you stay here all alone?" Qiaoqiao said in a small voice, "I came out to pick up my ball." "And now I don't know how to get back." "Grandma Zhao, can you take me home?" Grandma Zhao hesitated for a moment. She studied Qiaoqiao's features carefully. Honestly, even in a raincoat, the child's exquisite, doll-like beauty couldn't be hidden—she was truly adorable. This little girl was exceptionally pretty. Big eyes, fair skin, soft and delicate—like a porcelain doll. But in the blink of an eye, a scheme had already formed in Grandma Zhao's mind. She broke into a warm smile. "Of course I can." "Come on, Grandma Zhao will take you home." Grandma Zhao took Qiaoqiao's hand. Qiaoqiao hesitated for a moment, but then she noticed that the path Grandma Zhao was taking her wasn't the way home at all. Qiaoqiao furrowed her little brows. "Grandma Zhao, my house is that way." "I know that." Grandma Zhao's tone was kind, her white hair making her approachable. "I know Qiaoqiao's home is up ahead, but Qiaoqiao—" She crouched down to meet Qiaoqiao's eyes. "Don't you want to find your father?" The moment those words fell, Qiaoqiao's eyes instantly turned red. She asked cautiously, "Can I?" "Can I find my father?" Grandma Zhao nodded and reached out to stroke her hair. "Of course you can. Every child has a father." "Our Qiaoqiao has a father too." "Come on, Grandma will take you to find your father." Meanwhile. Lin Meiyan, Director Chen, and Teacher Lin had searched nearly everywhere around the kindergarten. Nothing. Still nothing. Qiaoqiao wasn't on Simenkou Hengjie, and she hadn't gone home either. She was gone. When that realization hit, Lin Meiyan's mind went blank for a moment. She stood at the kindergarten entrance, scanning her surroundings. "Qiaoqiao." For the past five years, Qiaoqiao had been her only support. Rather than saying she had raised Qiaoqiao, it was more accurate to say Qiaoqiao had accompanied her. Through those hardest days, the two of them had relied on each other, step by step, to reach where they were today. "Meiyan, let's call the police." Director Chen's face showed traces of exhaustion. "We've searched the kindergarten and Simenkou. Since she's not there—" "Then we have no choice but to call the police." Lin Meiyan already had that in mind, but she couldn't accept it. She turned back to look at Director Chen, her neck exposed vulnerably to the rain, letting the raindrops trace down her fair skin and disappear into her chest. "Teacher, do you think... will I ever find Qiaoqiao again?" Cases of children going missing or being abducted were all too common these days. Jiangcheng had a few cases every year, but Lin Meiyan had never imagined something like this would happen to her. Director Chen knew that as a mother, she must be completely beside herself by now, so she comforted her. "Meiyan, don't panic. Go report it to the police." "Report it. Let the police get involved." A child going missing from the kindergarten—the kindergarten couldn't escape responsibility for this either. Twenty minutes later. Lin Meiyan sat in the police station office, letting the officer question her bit by bit, answering every question carefully. Officer Qian finished taking the statement and checked the time. "Strictly speaking, a case can only be filed after a missing person has been gone for over 24 hours." The moment those words fell, Lin Meiyan's face turned pale instantly. She wrung her hands. "Officer Qian, my Qiaoqiao is only four years old. She's only four. If we wait 24 hours to file the case—" Before she could finish, tears came streaming down. "Then I'm afraid it'll be too late." At this moment, she was just an ordinary mother who had lost her child. Frantic with worry, yet utterly powerless. Officer Qian understood all of this. He closed his notebook. "I know. Your situation is special. Let's file the case now." "I'll send everyone at the station out to search for her right away." The moment she heard he was willing to cooperate in the search, Lin Meiyan immediately stopped crying. She pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing herself to calm down. "Officer Qian, Simenkou, the train station, the bus station." "Please, I'm begging you to keep a close watch on these places." With that, she pulled a photo from her pocket and handed it over. "This is my Qiaoqiao." "This is what she looks like." Officer Qian took the photo and looked at it. In the one-inch photo, the little girl was exquisitely beautiful, adorable as jade—even in black and white, her striking features couldn't be hidden. Actually, the moment he saw what Qiaoqiao looked like, his heart sank. This child was likely in grave danger. But he couldn't say that. Lin Meiyan came out of the police station. Gu Kaihua, who had just received the news and rushed over in a hurry, was drenched in sweat. "Yanyan, how could Qiaoqiao go missing?" If he hadn't asked, it might have been fine—but the question made Lin Meiyan's tears fall instantly. Still, she held them back, murmuring, "It's my fault. It's all my fault. I didn't watch her carefully enough." "This isn't the time for blame." Gu Kaihua said, "I'll go find people first. Let's head to the train station, the bus station, and some of the surrounding intersections ourselves." Lin Meiyan nodded. Within just over ten minutes, nearly all six members of the Gu family had appeared at the police station entrance, splitting up to search in different directions. Even neighbors from around Simenkou came out, adding bits and pieces of information. "I think I saw Qiaoqiao in the rain." The moment those words fell, Lin Meiyan whipped around. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was already standing right in front of the person. The woman was startled by her. She seemed never to have seen the owner of Linji in such a distraught state before—but then again, thinking that she was a mother who had lost her child, it was understandable. So she poured out everything she knew. "I saw her come out to pick up a ball. I was about to go stop her, but then I saw Old Lady Zhao come over and take her hand, so I didn't bother." Lin Meiyan seized on the key detail, her reddened eyes suddenly blazing with intensity. "Old Lady Zhao? You mean the old lady Zhao who lives in that narrow little house at the very edge of Simenkou?" "Yes, that's her. She came out with an umbrella to pick through the trash." Lin Meiyan's eyes were red-rimmed, but her mind had suddenly become clear. "We have a lead." She turned to look at Officer Qian. "Officer Qian, I know Grandma Zhao. She lives at the end of the street. Because she has no children and life has been hard for her, I've even given her meals before." Officer Qian nodded and immediately took his colleagues from the police station to Grandma Zhao's house. Unfortunately, by the time they arrived, Grandma Zhao's door was shut. There was no one inside at all. Lin Meiyan refused to give up. She still thought the child might have been taken by Grandma Zhao to Linji, so she made a special trip to check Linji. There was no one at the entrance of Linji either. "Grandma Zhao is probably a kidnapper." Officer Qian said these words with difficulty. "But it's also possible she took the child out to play—anything's possible." "Now that we have a lead, let's go find the child." "An old woman with a child—that's a very obvious target." Compared to having no clues at all before, this was already much better. Qiaoqiao, who was being searched for by everyone, was at that moment following Grandma Zhao through a series of twists and turns. As the surroundings grew increasingly remote, a sense of fear began to creep into Qiaoqiao's heart. "Grandma Zhao, I don't want to find my dad anymore." With that, she suddenly wrenched herself free from Grandma Zhao's grip and turned to run. But her legs were short, and after just two steps, Grandma Zhao caught her by the back of the neck. "Qiaoqiao, where are you going?" She was smiling, but in Qiaoqiao's eyes, she might as well have been a demon. "Grandma said she'd take you to find your dad, and she will." "What's the matter? Don't you want your dad anymore?" Qiaoqiao was lifted off the ground, her legs kicking wildly in the air. "I don't want him anymore." "Grandma Zhao, I want to go home." "That's not up to you." Grandma Zhao carried Qiaoqiao, turned to push open the door, and called out inside, "Old Cao, we've got good goods." As soon as the words left her mouth, a man named Old Cao came out. After looking at Qiaoqiao's features, his eyes lit up, then immediately furrowed. "Why did you bring a girl this time?" How much was a girl worth? What was truly valuable was a boy. Grandma Zhao snorted. "Short-sighted fool. Don't you see how pretty this girl is? If we're talking about value, she's probably worth more than a boy." "Keep a close eye on her. We need to find a way to send her out within the next couple of days." Old Cao grunted. He turned to size up Qiaoqiao, who had a pair of dark, bright eyes, now glaring at him fiercely. "My mother is Lin Meiyan." "She runs a restaurant. If you take me back, I can have my mother give you lots and lots of money." The man seemed tempted, but Grandma Zhao slapped him across the face. "You really think that if you return this girl, you'll get her mother's money? Old Cao, I advise you not to be stupid. Once you're on this path, how many people ever get to turn back?" These words were like a bucket of cold water, instantly sobering Old Cao up. He looked at Qiaoqiao with sinister eyes. "This girl is only three or four years old, isn't she? She's clever as a fox. We need to watch her closely from now on." A four-year-old who knew how to use incentives to sway someone—she was no ordinary child. Of course, if she wasn't an ordinary child, that was even better. It meant her value was higher. With that thought, Old Cao and Grandma Zhao exchanged a glance, both seeing the same sentiment in each other's eyes. "Give this girl some water to drink." That was code. This water wasn't ordinary water—it was water with something added. Old Cao immediately understood Grandma Zhao's intention. He went to get the Menhanyao and mixed it into the water. Though Qiaoqiao was unwilling, Old Cao pinched her mouth and forced half a bowl down her throat. And so Qiaoqiao fell unconscious. At the police station. "Found her?" "No." "Nothing at the train station, bus station, or any of the major intersections—no sign of Grandma Zhao." It was already 11 PM, and a full six hours had passed since Qiaoqiao disappeared. For Lin Meiyan, every minute and every second was agonizing. Officer Qian comforted her. "Comrade Lin, no news is the best news." "We've had people check those places, and there's been no sign of her. That means Grandma Zhao hasn't appeared at any of them, which also proves that Qiaoqiao is still in Jiangcheng." "As long as Qiaoqiao is still in Jiangcheng, there's hope of finding her, isn't there?" If Qiaoqiao weren't in Jiangcheng, that would be the real problem. Hearing this, Lin Meiyan forced herself to muster her spirits. Officer Qian handed her a cup of water and also gave her Qiaoqiao's school bag, which he had picked up from the school during the day. "Comrade Lin, I'd like to ask you a question, if you don't mind." Lin Meiyan looked at the little school bag, running her fingers over it carefully, and forced herself to stay composed. "Officer Qian, please go ahead." "Where is Qiaoqiao's father? Is it possible the child went to find her father?" At the sudden mention of this question, Lin Meiyan's face instantly turned pale—like fine white porcelain that had, in that very moment, developed cracks. Fragile and easily broken. "If it's inconvenient for you to answer, you may choose to decline. But—" Officer Qian shifted his tone, "I'd recommend you take a look at your child's notebook." Lin Meiyan took a deep breath, accepted the schoolbag, and pulled out a notebook before finally looking at it. On every page were the words "Daddy"—countless "Daddy" written over and over, the strokes still clumsy and childish, some even looking a bit misshapen. But Lin Meiyan knew these were all written by her daughter, Qiaoqiao. Because Qiaoqiao was just a beginner. Lin Meiyan raised her slender, fair hand and ran her fingertips over each stroke. She didn't know what Qiaoqiao had been feeling when she wrote the word "Daddy." That child was so sensible that she had never once mentioned the word "Daddy" in front of her. But in her notebook, there were countless "Daddy"s. Tears fell from Lin Meiyan's eyes one by one. It took her a moment before she spoke. "I've never mentioned her father in front of her." She paused, then added, "And her father and I—we haven't had any contact for years." Officer Qian got the answer he was looking for. He let out a sigh. "You should head back for now. If there's any news tomorrow, we'll let you know right away." "But—" He hesitated, then said anyway, "Comrade Lin, you should prepare yourself. Jiangcheng is a big city. Even though we've stationed people at the train station and bus station intersections, it's still not enough." "Our manpower is limited. In the end, the outcome—" He didn't finish, but Lin Meiyan understood. Every year, tens of thousands of children are abducted, and the number that are ever found can be counted on one hand. What's more, seven hours had already passed. The chances were slim. Lin Meiyan's legs gave way beneath her. If Officer Qian hadn't caught her, she would have collapsed. She couldn't fall. Her daughter still hadn't been found. Lin Meiyan left the police station in a daze. She passed the kindergarten, passed Linji, and seemed to see the scene of picking up her daughter every day—Qiaoqiao laughing as she ran into her arms. She also saw how, whenever she was busy, Qiaoqiao would drag over a small table and obediently wait for her at the entrance of Linji. Her Qiaoqiao was only four years old. But she had lost her daughter. Lin Meiyan looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped, and scattered stars had appeared across the dark canopy above. They were faint, but they still lit a path ahead. So where was her path? Lin Meiyan didn't know. She was like a trapped beast—an ordinary, powerless trapped beast. She tried to search for the only hope and chance she had left. Then, suddenly— Lin Meiyan remembered Qiao Qingqing, whom she had met at Linji during the day. She had said—Sister Meiyan. Do you know which of us from back then has done the best for themselves? Who? The madman from Niupeng. He's a big name known all over Jiangcheng. Lin Meiyan's dim eyes slowly began to regain a glimmer of light. She thought, why not give it a try? Once she made up her mind, Lin Meiyan knocked on the door of the corner shop late at night. The owner, yawning, pushed the telephone over to her. Lin Meiyan took the phone and dialed the number she had deliberately tried to forget. In just a moment, the call was picked up on the other end. "Hello?" The voice was low and hoarse, carrying an indescribable quality. Lin Meiyan instinctively gripped the receiver, her knuckles turning white as she trembled and said, "Yu Jianghai, our daughter is missing."