chapter 4

Chapter 4

My mother said that on the night before my college entrance exam, my father became inexplicably irritable, and the two of them exchanged a few words. Maybe he left home out of spite, but she thought he would come back after cooling off for a few days.

I found this reason a bit strange, but I had no choice but to accept it.

Leaving home like that didn’t seem respectable. We didn’t make it public and searched for him quietly. But for several days, there was no news at all.

The college entrance exam really seemed to become a major turning point in my life. After my exam ended, my father disappeared without a trace.

I couldn’t understand why my father would abandon us. Looking back, there hadn’t been any reasonable signs. For as long as I could remember, my father had always been a steady, family-oriented man who was honest and reliable. In the simple, quiet way unique to most Chinese fathers, he cared for his family and protected our home.

I had never doubted my father’s love. But he just left like that.

My mother asked again, “Could he have gone to look for your brother?”

I have an older brother, five years my senior, who was born with a visual impairment.

My brother left home to work at an early age and never returned. He disappeared without a trace, as if he had vanished from the world.

Could that be the reason? My intuition told me it wasn’t.

A month later, our neighbors noticed something was off and reported it to the police. A kind neighbor even described my father’s appearance, height, and weight to the authorities.

The police came to our house, their faces grave. They didn’t talk about searching for a missing person; instead, they collected fingerprints throughout the house.

The next day, they came again, bringing with them a shocking secret about my father.