Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The “Tooth Fairy” has only become widely known in China over the past decade or so.

Generally, children learn about her in one of two ways.

One is through adults-parents, teachers, and the like.

The other comes from a storyline in the British cartoon Peppa Pig, which was brought into China around 2015.

If the children around you know about the Tooth Fairy, which way did they learn it?

You would never imagine that the subtle difference between those two sources

could conceal a deadly truth.

“Officer, my daughter is missing! Someone hurt my daughter!”

I will never forget the scream that came from Wu Ruoxi’s mother.

November 24, 2016.

That was the morning Wu Ruoxi disappeared.

A little after seven forty, I had just taken over from the colleague on the night shift and was eating the dumplings I’d brought from home. Outside, the world was hazy with fog. Students and office workers were all heading out, and everything seemed no different from any other day.

Then I heard police sirens outside, growing louder and louder. I ran out to look and saw a police car stop at the gate. They said someone in Building 8, Unit 2 had called the police.

As a security guard, this was exactly the kind of thing you dreaded running into. I quickly raised the barrier and pointed them in the right direction.

Strangely enough, the moment I heard that unit number, I thought of Wu Ruoxi.

She lived in that unit and was always playing around the neighborhood with a bunch of other kids.

When I was on duty, I liked to buy a bag of sugar tangerines and then start playing Honor of Kings.

The kids would all crowd in to watch and eat my tangerines until there wasn’t a single one left.

So after two months as a security guard, the people I knew best were that group of children.

Ruoxi was different from the others, too. She talked the most and loved telling everyone what to do. Every time she ate my snacks, she would stuff a few of her own into my hands afterward-chocolate, spicy strips, things like that.

That morning, when her mother shouted those words at us, I froze where I stood, my heart clenching tight.

It really was her.

Her home was on the first floor, and the neighbors had already gathered around.

I ran over and immediately saw that a large hole had been pried open in the security bars over the first-floor window.

They said it was Wu Ruoxi’s room.

Looking back now, people often believe the first thing they see with their own eyes.

And the most terrifying, most sensational possibilities are always the ones that spread the fastest.

“Home invasion and rape,” “rape and murder,” “human trafficking”…

But even though public security in 2016 wasn’t as good as it is now,

none of us dared believe someone could be that brazen.

Prying open security bars in the middle of the night to break into a home-and targeting a ten-year-old girl.

Officer Liang, who was leading the team, immediately questioned Ruoxi’s mother.

“Your name is Zhou Xia, correct? You called the police at seven fifteen. Is that when you discovered it?”

“Yes. I got up a little after seven and passed by her room. I saw there was no one in the bed, then I realized the window had been pried open.

There was blood on the bed, and Ruoxi’s underwear…

I was so scared I searched the whole apartment, and then I called the police!”

“Did you hear anything last night?”

“That’s the thing-I didn’t hear anything! I went to bed late last night and slept straight through until morning!”

“What about Ruoxi’s father?” I asked.

“He was working through the night at the construction site. I just called him several times, but he didn’t answer.”

When she said that, I vaguely remembered something. Ruoxi had mentioned before that her father worked at a construction site and rarely came home.

We went into her home again and looked around carefully, then asked the neighbors who had gathered outside what had happened the previous night.

I remember that after Captain Liang finished looking, he took a deep breath.

I quickly asked him what he had found. He said:

“Based on experience, I’ve handled many cases where security bars were pried open at night. Most of them were burglaries.

Her home has two bedrooms, and the window to the girl’s room is small.

Usually, either no one sleeps in that kind of room, or only one person does.

A thief would choose this as the entry point first.

At first, I wondered if this had originally been a burglary,

and after the thief saw the girl, he developed other intentions…

Similar cases have happened elsewhere before.

And look-the sheets are such a mess.

There’s blood on the bed and the wall, plus the bloody underwear.

That does fit the characteristics of an impulsive crime.

But why didn’t the mother in the next room wake up? Why didn’t any of the neighbors hear anything?

Why didn’t the girl call for help or scream?

And most importantly,

why was the girl taken away in the end?

To be honest, I have a bad feeling about this.”