130: Chapter 130 Daughter is Lost

Xiao Baihe froze.

She immediately cried out.

"Xiaojing, Xiaojing, where are you? Don't play hide-and-seek with Mommy."

There was no response.

"Xiaojing!" she raised her voice, starting to search around the swings, "Come out now, Mommy is getting angry!"

Still, there was no response.

Xiao Baihe's heart began to panic.

She circled the entire Park, calling her daughter's name, her voice growing louder and more frantic.

"Has anyone seen a four-year-old girl? She's wearing a pink dress with two little braids!" She grabbed and asked every passerby.

Everyone shook their heads.

The fire truck arrived, and the scene of fighting the fire was chaotic.

Some said they saw a little girl heading towards the fire, others said they saw a man carrying a child walking in the opposite direction, and some said they hadn't noticed at all.

Xiao Baihe searched the Park and surrounding streets like a madwoman, shouting until her voice turned hoarse.

As the sky gradually darkened, she reported it to the police. The officers came, took a statement, and said they would help search.

That night, Xiao Baihe did not go home.

She sat in the Park until dawn, clutching the hair clip her daughter had left behind, the one she had just put in Xiaojing's hair that morning.

Xiaojing was missing.

For the next month, Xiao Baihe searched for her daughter like a woman possessed.

She printed thousands of missing person notices and plastered them all over the streets and alleys.

She ran to all the nearby towns and villages, asking everyone she met.

She joined various missing children groups, staring at the messages in the chats every day.

The police checked the surveillance footage, but the cameras near the Park happened to be broken, capturing nothing.

Some said it was human traffickers, taking advantage of the fire's chaos to snatch the child.

Some said the child wandered off on her own.

Some even said they saw the child fall into a nearby river.

The police dredged the river for three days, finding nothing.

Xiao Baihe lost twenty pounds. Her once plump figure became gaunt, her eyes sunken, with no trace of a smile left in them.

Only when speaking of her daughter would a light appear in her eyes: "Xiaojing is very well-behaved, she never runs off... She must be waiting for me to find her..."

In the missing children groups, everyone shared their experiences searching for their children, sharing both despair and hope.

Some had been searching for ten years and were still looking, some had found children they could no longer recognize, and some had received the worst possible news.

Xiao Baihe dared not think of the worst outcome.

She could only search, keep searching.

A year passed, and Xiaojing's fifth birthday arrived.

Xiao Baihe bought a cake again, cooked dishes, and set two places at the table. She spoke to the empty chair: "Xiaojing, you're five now. Mommy bought you another pink dress, even prettier than last year's... Come back quickly and try it on..."

As she spoke, tears streamed down her face.

The search transformed from its initial frenzy into a daily routine.

She still set up her stall, still did handicrafts, because she needed to live, and only by living could she continue searching.

She made the missing person notice into a sign and placed it in front of her stall. To every customer who came to buy something, she would ask: "Have you seen this child?"

Most people shook their heads; a few would sympathetically offer some words of comfort.

There were also scammers who called, claiming to know the child's whereabouts but demanding money first.

Xiao Baihe had been scammed twice, once for five hundred, once for eight hundred—half a month's income for her.

But she would still answer every unknown call. What if? What if it was real?

This spring, a group member in the missing children chat named "Old Zhang Searching for His Son" said that near the Xiangxiao Residential Area in Zhongzhou City, he had seen a little girl who looked a lot like Xiaojing from the missing person notice.

"The child was about five or six, also had big eyes, just a bit dirty and dressed in rags," Old Zhang said. "I wanted to get closer for a look, but a man was pulling her along, walking very fast."

When Xiao Baihe saw the message, her hands trembled so much she couldn't hold her phone.

She immediately added Old Zhang and asked for details.

"It's been a while, about half a month ago," Old Zhang said. "I can't be sure if it's your daughter, but she really did look similar. The Xiangxiao Residential Area is an old Residential Complex, lots of renters, pretty chaotic."

Xiao Baihe felt a spark of hope.

Even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand possibility, Xiao Baihe had to go.

She packed a simple bag, sewed the three thousand yuan she had saved into her underclothes, and boarded the bus to Zhongzhou.

The whole way, she clutched Xiaojing's photo tightly, silently reciting in her heart: Xiaojing, wait for Mommy, Mommy is coming to find you.

Zhongzhou was much bigger than Xiao Baihe had imagined.

Skyscrapers stood tall, traffic flowed endlessly. Standing in the station square, she felt small and helpless for the first time.

But she had no time to be afraid.

Following the address Old Zhang gave, she found the Xiangxiao Residential Area.

An old Residential Complex much as she had imagined, with peeling buildings, tangled wires, and junk piled in the courtyard.

She found the cheapest motel near the Residential Complex and stayed there, forty yuan a day.

Early the next morning, she began her search.

She showed the photo to the elderly in the Residential Complex, to shop owners, to mothers sunning their children.

"Haven't seen her," most people said.

"Seems a bit familiar..." said a breakfast stall auntie, looking at the photo, "but I'm not sure. There are lots of wandering kids around here, scavenging, begging, hard to remember them all."

Xiao Baihe was not discouraged.

She went out every morning at six and returned to the motel at ten at night, walking the Xiangxiao Residential Area and the surrounding streets countless times.

She memorized every child's face, every corner where someone might be hidden.

A week passed with no results.

But she realized that searching aimlessly like this was too inefficient.

She needed to stay long-term, gain a deep understanding of this community, build connections to get more information.

She rented a single room in the Xiangxiao Residential Area for five hundred yuan a month, cheaper than the motel.

The room was on the first floor, dark and damp, but close to the Residential Complex.

She also found a job nearby.

Working as a cashier at a small Supermarket, salary two thousand eight hundred, with one meal provided.

Her working hours were from 1 PM to 9 PM, so she could continue searching in the mornings.

The Supermarket owner's wife was a middle-aged woman in her fifties. Hearing her story, she sighed: "It's tough, sister. Alright, you can come in a bit later in the mornings, spend more time looking for your child."

Xiao Baihe was immensely grateful.

And so, she settled down in Zhongzhou.

Working during the day, searching for her daughter in her spare time, returning at night to that cold single room, talking to Xiaojing's photo on the wall.

"Xiaojing, Mommy is in Zhongzhou now. Someone said they saw you here... If it's true, wait for me, Mommy will definitely find you."