Chapter 2

The screen showed security footage from the Mount Tianfeng trail.

Using my statement, the police had retrieved everything recorded between two and five on the morning of June 9 and arranged it in sequence.

At first, everything was normal.

Around two, Song Yuan and I arrived at the foot of the mountain and began climbing.

Nothing unusual happened.

The only noticeable detail was her constant glancing toward the summit.

At first, once every five minutes. Later, twice a minute, her gaze increasingly fervent.

Still, eagerness to reach the top could explain that.

The real anomaly came at 4:53.

The camera clearly showed me entering the woods less than a hundred meters from the summit.

A blind spot.

I'd gone there to relieve myself.

One minute later, the system recorded a terrible scream.

My daughter, Song Yuan.

Another two minutes passed.

I emerged from the woods.

Holding a cleaver.

Blood covered its blade.

My eyes were savage, like a wild beast's. I looked terrifying.

Even I found that face unfamiliar.

“That isn't me!” I immediately denied it. “I never did that!”

The middle-aged officer looked at me coldly.

“The video's right in front of you, and you still won't admit it? You killed Song Yuan and disposed of her body.”

My thoughts tangled hopelessly.

The silver spacecraft had taken Yuanyuan.

Why were they saying I'd killed her?

I'd never done anything in that video.

Months passed. Song Yuan was still missing.

No living girl. No body.

Yet everyone believed I'd killed her and hidden her somewhere on Mount Tianfeng.

Even my wife, Wu Wei, began to doubt me.

Before long, she divorced me.

Nothing I said could defend me.

I often wondered: if I hadn't agreed to take Yuanyuan up the mountain that day, would any of this have happened?

I spent the years that followed in regret.

I hadn't harmed her.

But I had lost her.

I had to find her.

Day after day, I kept searching.

If one day wasn't enough, then ten.

If ten weren't enough, then a hundred.

A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand...

Until I found her.

That belief kept me searching for ten years.

Gradually, despair overtook hope.

I couldn't stop myself wondering...

Had I really gone mad and killed Yuanyuan?

Could she be somewhere I'd forgotten?

June 8, 2026.

As usual, I was putting up missing-person notices.

The neighbors had long since stopped finding it strange.

Even regular passersby had grown used to me.

To them, I was just a madman.

I caught the arm of an office worker on his way to work and handed him a flyer.

“This is my daughter. She went missing ten years ago. If you see her, please let me know—”

Before I'd finished, he impatiently took it without even looking.

A few seconds later, he threw it on the ground.

I bent to pick it up, but a gust caught it.

After a few turns in the air, it landed in front of a woman's shoes.

She picked it up and handed it back.

“Thank you.”

I put it away and gave her a fresh copy.

“This is my daughter. Her name is Song Yuan. She disappeared on Mount Tianfeng ten years ago. If you see her, please call me right away. My number's at the bottom. My phone's on twenty-four hours a day.”

The woman took it and sighed softly.

“Song Qian... you need to wake up.”

The familiar voice stopped me.

I slowly raised my head.

“Wu... Wu Wei...”

Ten years had left her much more worn.

“Stop searching.”

Her eyes held a tangle of emotions.

“You won't find her.”

Something inside me snapped.

“I lost Yuanyuan! I have to bring her back! I have to!”

Wu Wei suddenly knocked the flyers from my hands, her eyes red.

“Stop dreaming, Song Qian! Song Yuan died long ago! She died before she was even born!”

Dead?

Before she was born?

I stood as though struck by lightning, my lips trembling.

“What... what did you say?”

She wiped the tears from the corner of her eye.

“Song Yuan wasn't my child from a previous relationship. She was ours. But she never came into this world. There was an accident when I was seven months pregnant... I lost her.”

Cold swept through me, as though I'd fallen into an ice cellar.

I stood rooted to the spot.

I looked down.

On the flyers scattered across the ground, there were no photographs of Song Yuan at all.

Only crudely scribbled figures.

Unable to accept it, I clung to one last hope.

“You're lying! You're lying to me, aren't you?”

Wu Wei shook her head with a bitter smile.

“After we lost her, your mental health deteriorated. You imagined she was still alive. She never grew up. Never took the university entrance exams. Never went to Mount Tianfeng.”

Every sentence was a hammer to my heart, battering me until I couldn't breathe.

Pain rose like a tide and submerged me.

I screamed and ran blindly, wanting only to escape it all.

Wind roared in my ears.

I don't know how long I ran before suddenly stopping.

Mount Tianfeng stood before me.

A guard booth was nearby.

Seeing someone, the guard came over with a flashlight, clearly annoyed.

“You again? How many times have I told you? Ever since that girl disappeared here, nighttime climbing's been banned. What's the point of this?”

I shook all over.

“Who... who disappeared?”

His mouth twitched. He looked me up and down strangely.

“Your daughter, Song Yuan. Who else? Went missing here in 2016. Still hasn't been found. Why are you asking me?”

“Is that true? You're not lying?”

The sudden reversal left me babbling.

Thinking I was deliberately messing with him, the guard muttered, “Lunatic,” and walked away.

My heart pounded.

That meant Yuanyuan really existed.

There really was a person called Song Yuan.

She was simply missing.

But why would Wu Wei lie to me?

I racked my brains without finding an answer.

Yuanyuan might not be my biological child, but I'd watched her grow up.

I'd long since come to think of her as my own flesh and blood.

Looking at Mount Tianfeng in the darkness, I had a thought.

I'd been here countless times.

Always in daylight.

But that silver spacecraft had appeared around four or five in the morning.

If I went up at that time, might I find something unusual?

I hid in the grass beside the road.

Once the guard began nodding off, I slipped onto the trail.

The only thing I'd improved over the years was my ability to climb mountains.

I kept moving under the moonlight.

I don't know whether I imagined it.

When I looked toward the summit, something seemed to flash.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

A figure.

A figure more familiar than anyone.

My daughter.

Song Yuan!

Ten years of persistence became a surge of strength unlike anything I'd known.

I raced toward the summit.

The faster I ran, the closer I came.

Gradually, I could make out her face.

She smiled gently.

“Dad, you're so slow! I've been waiting ages!”

I sped up.

When I was less than a hundred meters away, someone suddenly rushed out of the woods and tackled me.

Wu Wei!

Delighted to see her, I shouted, “I've found our daughter! Yuanyuan's at the top! Look!”

Instead, she gripped my hands.

As though remembering something terrible, she nearly begged.

“Song Qian... please... Don't go over there!”

I was stunned.

After ten years, we'd finally found our missing daughter.

Why react like this?

Just then, blinding silver light flared overhead.

The silver spacecraft...

Had returned.

Memories from ten years earlier flooded back.

I couldn't let the tragedy repeat itself.

Without another thought, I shoved Wu Wei away and raced desperately toward the summit.

Behind me came her despairing cry.

“Stop! If you see what's there... you'll regret it!”

It was as though everything had returned to yesterday.

Exactly like ten years ago.

A column of white light shone down from the silver craft.

Song Yuan stood inside it.

I leaped forward, arms spread, and plunged into the light.

Feeling a yielding body in my arms, I thought I'd caught her.

But as my senses returned to normal, the sight before me made my scalp crawl.

An indescribable terror shot straight into my brain.

What I held wasn't Song Yuan.

It was a creature glowing white from head to foot.

No skin.

No hair.

No features.

Only a shape resembling a human.

I recoiled and immediately let go.

The instant I released it, it pressed close and gripped me.

I struggled.

Uselessly.

Then weightlessness swept over me.

Holding me tight, the humanoid slowly rose.

We ascended through the column of light, drawing closer to the silver craft.

The scene was so familiar.

Wasn't this exactly how Yuanyuan had been taken?

My heart tightened.

Ten years ago, she'd disappeared before my eyes just like this.