"If Auntie Su hears what you just said, I'm sure she would have a heart attack!"
"She'll also make sure she kills me first before her heart gives out. She still called me about it this morning! She's so persistent about me settling down. But what can I do since I keep meeting scumbags and playboys?"
"I'll give you the same advice you gave me. Open your heart and don't give up on love. The right person will surely come."
"We'll see about that. On a lighter note, My Ranran is now a relationship expert. I'm so proud!"
"You're not serious. Anyways, will you still be coming over tomorrow?"
"I'll try. It's a golden opportunity that I must not miss. I'll sneak out during my lunch break."
"Alright. See you."
They ended the call at that, but Pei Yueran was stuck on the blunder she made.
Or was it not a blunder after all? Did she really see City M as her new home?
Su Qianhua went back to the park where she left Jiang Philip. He was still there, typing away expertly on his laptop. He looked up when she approached.
"Welcome back. See, I only said so because I don't want to alert this guy. He is a notorious hacker on the dark web, and known for sneaking away from law enforcement agents. I'm not saying I won't get the cyber police involved, I'm just saying I want to have a firm grasp on him so that he doesn't escape."
"Fine. I flared up and I'm sorry. Let's do it your way then. But you need to be careful. If he has a backer, then this guy is not nearly as dangerous as the person who hired him."
"You're right, I'll be very careful. I don't plan to move around anyways. Once I gather evidence, you guys can step in."
"Sounds like a plan."
*****
"Tinghua, when will you come home???"
Gao Tinghua removed his earphones and dug his ears in irritation.
"You'll see me when you see me Mother."
A hint of sorrow passed through Qiao Mingran's eyes. Why was her son always so distant?
"Alright. When will you be returning to the Capital?"
Gao Tinghua sighed. His mother knew just the right amount of sadness to infuse into her voice in order to make him feel guilty.
"Soon Mother, very soon. I came to City A to see a friend. I should be back in the Capital by next week. Talk to you later."
Gao Tinghua ended the call then, but he didn't notice that his mother had gone silent and didn't reply to his words.
Qiao Mingran sat frozen. City A was a place she would never ever forget. She lost a piece of herself there so many years ago.
The familiar, crushing pain hit again, and she clutched at her chest in agony, pain shooting in all directions. She could never forgive herself for her cowardice thirty-three years ago.
Her daughter. She didn't even know if she was alive or dead. It pained her to think what had become of her daughter. While she enjoyed a life of social glamour, was her daughter suffering and slaving away somewhere?
Maybe everything was retribution. Her son and second daughter were very successful, but estranged from her. Her husband was always giving her the cold shoulder, preferring to spend time with his mistress instead.
She was living in a huge mansion in the heart of the capital, with everything she could ever want, but loneliness threatened to swallow her whole.
She laid on the huge bed she slept in alone most nights, and wept bitterly.
Even now, she wondered. Why didn't she ever try to search for her daughter? In truth, she and her husband were threatened not to go back to look for her at that time.
Thirty-three years ago, she was kidnapped while heavily pregnant. Through a stroke of luck, the vehicle of the kidnappers broke down and she was able to escape.
She didn't even know where she was, but she gritted her teeth and tried to run to somewhere safe. Unfortunately, she went into labour at that time and eventually gave birth to a baby girl a long while later.
She was terribly weak afterwards. She only had time to look at the child and wrap her in a small shawl she usually carried around, before losing consciousness.
By the time she came to, she was in their family hospital in the Capital, her baby nowhere to be found. Her rescuers didn't see any baby around her and her situation was critical, so they abandoned the search and rushed her to the hospital.
She cried in agony and kept insisting that she had to go back to find her baby, but to no avail. The doctors had to sedate her so that that she could rest.
The next time she woke up, she had received a text from an unknown number, threatening her that if she insisted on looking for her child, the child would die.
She still wanted to go, but her husband refused to let her leave the hospital, much less the capital.
She got to know that she was kidnapped to City A when her husband screamed at her in anger one time, "Do you really want to go back and lose your life? You're not even safe right here in the Capital, much less in City A!"
She kept quiet then, but she had kept that name in her heart. She had also repeatedly sent people to City A to look for her daughter over the years, but with so little to lean on, there had been no progress over the years.
Life had moved on since then, and she had gone on to have two more children, but she had never forgotten her first daughter, not for one moment.
"My poor baby, Mummy owes you. Mummy is so sorry. Mummy failed you." She cried over and over again.
*****
"Xiao Chen, are you busy? Can I come in?"
"Yes."
Pei Yueran came in. "Do you think you can accompany me somewhere?"
Judging from the drawn look on his mother's face, he knew where she wanted to go to.
"Sure."
They drove in silence, not even putting on the radio. Pei Yueran was busy arranging her thoughts, while Han Yichen was just quiet as usual. They stopped once to buy some flowers.
They soon arrived at the cemetery.