Chapter 4

Chapter 4

2025.

Nine years had passed, but the details of that case had remained etched in my mind.

After learning what the fairy tale of the “Tooth Fairy” was really about, I thought about it the entire night.

The truth was already close. All that was missing was the final piece of the puzzle.

And once I put it in place,

would I still be able to find the child who had vanished nine years ago?

A little after six in the morning, I scrolled through my phone contacts for a long time.

At last, I saw Captain Liang’s name.

2016.

Perhaps from the very beginning, as we continued digging into Wu Ruoxi’s family, we should have sensed the helplessness and confusion surrounding them.

Wu Ruoxi, ten years old, was in fourth grade at Second Experimental Primary School, about six kilometers from her home.

Her father, Wu Xing, was forty-two. He mostly worked on construction sites around the city, with his personnel records attached to a labor outsourcing company.

Her mother, Zhou Xia, was thirty-four. She ran a street stall selling braised cold cuts. She usually set up in the afternoon and packed up around ten at night.

At the time, I couldn’t help wondering: in a family where both parents were always busy, had the child really been targeted by someone?

Their financial situation was utterly ordinary, and their social connections were relatively simple. They were busy from morning to night, so naturally, they did not have much contact with others.

In the eyes of their neighbors, Wu Xing was a blunt man. Sometimes people could hear him speaking loudly at home, but he was earnest in his work and was considered an honest man.

As for Zhou Xia and Wu Ruoxi, everyone spoke very highly of them.

They said Zhou Xia was kind to others and hardworking, earning money on her own while also taking care of the household. Wu Ruoxi was very sensible, warm to everyone she met, and was often seen helping Zhou Xia. The neighbors would occasionally support Zhou Xia’s business as well.

The family’s social circle was very simple, so there was no breakthrough in that direction.

However, as we learned more about the situation, we repeatedly heard the neighbors vaguely mention one rumor-

Zhou Xia was not Wu Ruoxi’s biological mother.

“Did something really happen to that big sister who was afraid of being lonely?”

–

Time moved to the day after Wu Ruoxi disappeared.

The day before, Captain Liang and the others and I had been running around until dark, asking everyone we needed to ask.

Captain Liang said their bureau had held a meeting the previous night, and that more people would be sent over today.

I stayed in the guard room, my chest still feeling unbearably heavy.

In just over two short months, these children and I had only been chance acquaintances. Yet at some point, whenever I bought sugar oranges at the supermarket, I would weigh out a little extra, and I would deliberately play the heroes they liked watching.

When they came to the guard room and made a racket, they were also the only company in my lonely life on duty.

Wu Ruoxi once said that every time school let out, the first thing she did was find that group of playmates. If anyone failed to show up, she would go downstairs to their building and shout for them at the top of her lungs.

“No one gets left behind! Otherwise, people without friends will be really lonely. That includes you too!” she had said, looking at me seriously.

Today was Saturday. Usually, at this hour, they would already be gathered neatly around me.

I looked out the window. For one dazed instant, I saw that group of children outside, grinning as they looked in at me.

But when I came back to myself, all I saw in the distance was Little Fatty Chenchen, the boy Ruoxi had once helped, sitting alone on a bench.

I walked over. He lifted his head, his expression full of dejection.

“Big Sister isn’t here anymore, so nobody else is coming either. Uncle, is she really gone?”

“It’s okay. We’ll find her very soon.”

“You won’t find her.”

When I heard that, I froze for a moment, thinking I must have misheard.

“Why?”

“She always told us she never wanted to be alone. She was afraid of being lonely.

If one day she didn’t come play with us, it meant she was already gone.”

“Oh. So that’s what she meant.”

So it had only been something children said to each other.

But from those words, I also heard a faint, hidden sorrow.

Could it be

that deep down, Ruoxi had known these ordinary, beautiful days would one day come to an abrupt end?