One week before the bidding meeting, all undercurrents were accelerating. Wanting's team was rushing to complete the new scheme. The core clauses of the gambling agreement were polished line by line. Chen Zhiyuan personally signed and confirmed.



Shen Zhengye wasn't idle either. Ever since he saw Su Wanting's photo, he hadn't slept a full night. Using the blood sample from Nian'nian's missing person notice that he had preserved, he contacted the Provincial People's Hospital to conduct a DNA comparison.



Three days later, the report was placed on his desk. Probability of parent-child relationship: 99.99%. His Nian'nian was still alive. In this city.



The third page was about another person. Hu Xiufang. Born Hu Yulan. Fifty-seven years old. Currently working as cleaning staff at Wand Tower. Her husband was called Li Guodong. One autumn in 1993, he scraped Shen Zhengye's car near the entrance of Cuihu Garden. A three-hundred-yuan matter. The insurance company came. Shen Zhengye didn't even remember the other person's face. Li Guodong later developed liver cancer. No medical insurance, no money for treatment. Died at home. Hu Yulan never showed her face again. Until October 1994. Cuihu Garden. A woman claiming to be from the subdistrict office knocked on the Shen family's door.



Shen Zhengye closed his eyes. Twenty-four years ago, he had scraped against someone's tricycle. He simply couldn't remember it at all. But that one scrape had burned into a raging fire in another person's heart. It had burned away his own daughter's entire life. The only wrong thing he had done was not knowing how great a person's hatred could be.



He couldn't forgive himself.



He locked the report in a drawer and dialed a number he hadn't dialed in over twenty years.



"Zhilan. Nian'nian has been found."



Dead silence on the other end of the phone. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds.



"What did you say?"



Gu Zhilan's voice was trembling.



"DNA was done. 99.99%."



Another long pause. Then from the other end came a stifled sob, pressed down to the extreme. Not crying. It was the sound the body instinctively squeezed out when struck by something immense.



"Where is she?"



"In the provincial capital. At Hongtu Real Estate."



"What's her name?"



"Su Wanting."



Gu Zhilan repeated these few characters several times. As if using her lips to memorize them.



"I'm coming immediately."



"Tomorrow's earliest flight. It's too late right now-"



"I'll take a taxi."



"Nancheng to the provincial capital is six hours. It's not safe for you to travel in the middle of the night."



"I can't wait until tomorrow. Zhengye, I've waited twenty-four years. I don't want to wait one more minute."



The phone hung up. Shen Zhengye put down his phone and looked up at the ceiling. He thought of that morning twenty-four years ago. When he received the police station's phone call, he was on the highway. His first reaction wasn't sadness. It was disbelief. Nian'nian couldn't be lost. The night before, he had read her two stories. Only after the second story did she close her eyes. Before closing her eyes, she had pulled his shirt corner and said:



"Daddy, no traveling tomorrow."



He said okay. Then before dawn the next day, he drove away. He didn't keep his promise.



He picked up the phone and dialed another number:



"Tomorrow at the bidding meeting, add more security personnel. Investigate a cleaning staff member named Hu Xiufang. Don't startle her. Let her come."



"Shen, what's the situation?"



"Tomorrow I want her to watch with her own eyes."