As he stepped on the accelerator pedal, the car sped through the snowy roads, heading for the heart of the Capital where the Gao family lived.
By the time Gao Tinghua got home, it was almost midnight. As he walked in, he was busy thinking of going to his mother's room to wake her up.
So it was a shock to meet her seated in the living room.
"You've come back." She said neutrally. She was seated, spine straight.
Gao Tinghua took a moment to evaluate this new version of her. It was like she had shed her skin and exchanged her bones, becoming a different person.
He dared to say that in his entire thirty-one years of life, he had never seen her look so dazzling.
Wordlessly, he nodded as he sat down on the dark brown divan opposite her chair.
Silence surrounded them for a while before Gao Tinghua broke it.
"Mother, tell me about this...sister of mine. What happened? Where did you lose her?"
Qiao Mingran sighed. "It's a long story, but for the full picture, I'd have to start from a much earlier time."
Gao Tinghua waited quietly for her to begin her tale.
"The Qiao and Gao families have been friends for generations. Not just because they were both leading, century-old aristocratic families, but because they were business partners.
"Your father and I got married to further cement the relationship between the two families. It was a marriage of convenience, but we cared for each other, at least at the beginning."
Qiao Mingran paused, coming out of the memory she was reminiscing about. The days where she was happy with Gao Zhipeng had long passed.
"In both families, the males were the main inheritors of the family business, so my brother inherited our company and Zhipeng took over the reins of Gaoyi Group.
"What I didn't know earlier was that for many years, both families were only using their companies as a font. Underneath, they had been operating a shady business, involving drugs and trafficking.
Gao Tinghua couldn't help it, his eyes widened. His father was once a drug kingpin?
Qiao Mingran was not done talking, "They, they brought trouble to me. My child..." She closed her eyes against the pain.
"Their competitors in that filthy business set their sights on my baby to threaten them, but neither my brother nor my own husband thought it wise to tell me. I didn't even know any of this until after many years of investigation.
"I was abducted in my 39th week of pregnancy. I was on my way to the hospital for my checkup when a car came out from nowhere and blocked our car, stunning the driver with the butt of a gun.
"They took me away in their car, and when I kept pleading for them to let me go, one of them covered my nose with a handkerchief. Once I inhaled it, I lost consciousness."
She kept staring at a point straight ahead, focusing on the souvenir set on the table. It was a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty.
"By the time I came to, it was dark. I didn't know how far we traveled or where we were, but the men were talking angrily about the vehicle breaking down suddenly and how it was all my husband's fault.
"They said something about how he was too stubborn and didn't want to listen to their demands even though they were in possession of his wife and child."
For the first time in a long while, the sight of his mother's tears did not irritate him. For the first time, he felt she had good reason to cry.
"They didn't know I was awake, so they spoke freely. One of them said, if he still did not let their goods pass the waters by the next night, they would send the...the body of his baby, cut out of my womb, to him."
Gao Tinghua passed the square cut handkerchief in his pocket to his mother. Qiao Mingran accepted it and dabbed at her eyes before continuing.
"His voice was so cold when he said, "Do as you please." I knew he didn't mean it— I mean, I hoped he didn't mean what he said, but it was very hurtful nonetheless. So I resolved in my heart that I couldn't rely on anyone. I had to save my baby myself.
"My chance came about an hour later. The men drank themselves to stupor, and the only one left to watch over me was engrossed with playing some sort of game. I snuck behind him with a bottle and hit his head with all my strength."
She snuck a peek at her son, but Gao Tinghua was deep in thought, his face an unreadable mask.
She shuddered. "The smell of blood was so sickening I almost vomited on the spot. I can't even explain how, but I just turned and ran. And that was when the pains started. It was so painful, I gasped. Then it subsided and I kept running. I ran and ran until the pains became too frequent and I felt the urge to push."
She paused to gather her emotions. "Your sister was so beautiful, so perfect. I couldn't even feed her before I lost consciousness. By the time I came to, she was gone."
The living room became silent again.
Gao Tinghua was of the opinion that he only knew how to make people cry, not the art of consolation, so he didn't know how to say any comforting words. He thought for a moment before patting his mother's shoulder awkwardly.
After she regained control of her emotions, he asked, "Did you and Father ever try to look for her?"
"I tried Tinghua. Believe me I did, despite your father trying to discourage me at every turn. When it was obvious he didn't care enough to look for her, I searched for her myself, hiring private investigators too. But to no avail.
Gao Tinghua wasn't even surprised. At this point, his father had been given the title of "scum" in his books.
What kind of father would do this?
Gao Tinghua was a typical playboy who hand no plans of settling down anytime soon, but if he were to have a family, he couldn't think of any reason sufficient enough to leave his wife and child in the lurch and not care enough to look for his missing child.