Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The incident was supposedly behind us, but I couldn’t shake a lingering sense of unease.

My fears were realized a month later when Qi An held his phone up to my face.

I froze the moment I saw the screen.

It was a photo similar to the last one, taken from a similar angle. Only this time, the subject of the photo was a girl instead of a boy.

Fury instantly surged through my body. Would this ever end?

My hands shook as I scrolled through the chat logs. The person on the other end had said, “I play games too. Let’s be friends.”

It had started normally enough, with the person tailoring the conversation to match the interests shown in my son’s posts.

Until last night, when the other party sent a photo.

“Want to trade photos? We’ve been talking for so long.”

“I have some posted on my Moments.”

“Not that kind.”

That was where the conversation ended. Because of the previous incident, I had spent that night teaching Qi An all about online grooming and cyber-flashing.

This time, he had sensed something was wrong immediately and brought the phone to me.

“Mom, I thought she was just a gaming friend.”

He played games and often added other players. Her account wasn’t some suspicious blank profile either; she had posted plenty of gaming-related content.

They had played to his interests, making it almost impossible to guard against.

Faced with this situation, my first instinct was still to call the police.

I took the night off again. I had been taking leave so frequently lately that my team leader finally snapped. “If you’re going to keep taking days off, you might as well not come back to the company at all.”

My son overheard the voice coming from my phone and whispered, “Mom, it’s actually fine. I can just delete her.”

“Even if it happens again, I’ll know how to handle it.”

I patted his head to comfort him and spoke into the phone. “Fine. Then I quit.”

After hanging up, I told him, “Anan, nothing is more important than you.”

“And I’m not doing this just for you. I’m doing it for other kids your age, too.”

Qi An could tell me when he received messages like this, but what about the children who didn’t have a good relationship with their families?

Would they struggle with how to say no, only for the person on the other end to become even more brazen? Would they be fooled by the guise of friendship and actually send photos? Would they go through the whole ordeal believing the person was just a friend?

When they grew up, that experience wouldn’t just vanish. It would become a shadow clinging to them, dragging them back into the darkness every time they remembered it.

I rushed to the police station late that night and encountered Officer Liu again.

He glanced up at me before reaching out to take my phone.

He scrolled through it briefly and then reached a conclusion. “Your son probably clicked on some shady website.”

“He didn’t.”

“Without substantive evidence, we can’t open a case here.”

He tapped my phone screen with his index finger and pushed it back toward me.

But by the time there was substantive evidence, it would be too late. He just didn’t want to deal with the hassle.

I pushed the phone back to him and lowered my voice. “Please, take another look.”

He took the phone again and scrolled through it lazily, clicking into the other person’s Moments to look at her posts.

Unable to get rid of me, he finally used the computer to help me run a check.

“This is a minor. It’s probably just a joke that went a bit too far.”

“I understand how you feel, but this is all I can find for now.”

“You can wait for further notice.”

I took my phone and walked out. A “further notice” was as good as nothing.

If this place wouldn’t help, I’d go somewhere else.

There had to be someone who would take responsibility.

As I was heading out, I ran into the female officer from last time. She asked me what was wrong.

I showed her the messages on the phone again.

She led me back inside.

Turning to Officer Liu, she asked, “Why aren’t you opening a case?”