Meanwhile, Lu Yizhan and his colleagues were investigating the disappearance of the children from the welfare home.
"Say, shouldn't this matter be under the supervision of the criminal investigation department or some special unit?" one of Lu Yizhan's colleagues muttered, his expression grim. "Look at the surveillance footage of the children disappearing. This isn't something we can handle!"
"Four children heard the sound of a flute early yesterday morning. They lined up and went out to the playground to play. The strangest thing is that they didn't seem hypnotized or sleepwalking. They deliberately avoided the cameras. That means all four of them were fully conscious. They played on the swings, and then an hour later, they suddenly vanished from the surveillance footage!"
The colleague began swearing. "Damn it. The kids are gone, but the playground equipment was still moving. I couldn't sleep after watching that footage last night…"
He rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. "There are five children left now. They were supposed to be transferred to another welfare home, but then the hospital suddenly intervened and said everyone had to stay here for investigation. It's too damn weird!"
Lu Yizhan frowned. "Let's go see the dean first."
"The dean? I doubt she'll say anything," his colleague muttered. "That old woman never reported the missing children at all! If it hadn't been for the mushroom poisoning incident that killed a child and escalated the case, we wouldn't have come here and realized the headcount was wrong. No one would've known these children were missing!"
"Then we have to ask her," Lu Yizhan replied calmly. "She must know something."
In the dean's office, Mu Ke's father had just finished discussing a donation and left to speak with others. Only the old dean remained. She sat in her chair and looked at Lu Yizhan as he approached.
"You're asking why I didn't report the missing children?" Lu Yizhan nodded.
The old dean suddenly laughed. With trembling hands, she opened a drawer, pulled out a stack of documents, and handed them to him.
"Young man, are you new here? I reported it every single time they disappeared. Did I ever get a child back? No. So I stopped reporting it. Besides, this welfare home is about to close down anyway."
Lu Yizhan frowned as he flipped through the documents.
The oldest report dates back ten years. Every single one recorded missing children, but the conclusion was always the same: the children had run away on their own. No further action was taken.
"Every year, our private welfare home holds a Children's Day performance for the kind-hearted sponsors who invest in us, so they can see the children they're supporting. But children always go missing after the annual performance. The investigation always concludes that they ran away."
The dean spoke slowly. "Back then, you police officers suspected we were abusing the children and that they wanted to escape. But the investigation found no evidence of abuse. Even if they ran away, we hadn't done anything illegal. No organ trafficking. No pedophilia. The police investigated thoroughly and found nothing."
She raised her eyes. "It's common. Children run away and disappear. It's hard to find missing children. Small children are like grains of rice dropped into a sea of people. Looking for children who are deliberately hiding is like searching for a needle in a haystack. So every year, they disappear."
Lu Yizhan's colleague couldn't help but interrupt. "But this time, the surveillance shows the children sitting on the swings and then disappearing! That's not running away!"
"What you're describing is too strange. How could that even happen?" The old dean waved it off. "Our surveillance system is old. Perhaps it malfunctioned."
His colleague nearly choked with anger, feeling as if he might have a heart attack. He was about to press her further when Lu Yizhan stopped him.
"It may have been our failure not to find the children," Lu Yizhan said evenly, "but you still should've reported it. It seems you haven't filed a report in over a year. I checked—there haven't been any for the past few years. You said children go missing every year. So what's the truth?"
The old dean fell silent for several minutes. Then she stood, walked to the bookcase behind her, and pulled down a large, dust-covered file bag. After brushing it off, she untied the string and removed a thick album.
The first page read: The 200X Children's Welfare Home Art Show. It was clearly the archive of this private institution.
In the photo, dozens of children stood stiffly beside a group of men in suits and polished leather shoes. The children wore cute, rehearsed smiles they had practiced thousands of times. Lipstick marks dotted their foreheads, and their lips were painted a garish red in an outdated style.
"Children go missing every year," the dean said slowly, looking at the photo. "But I don't report it every year. Even if someone invests in this place and keeps it afloat for a year or two, it won't be long before it goes bankrupt again. So it doesn't matter if I tell you these old stories."
"Many of the children are hard to discipline. To put it nicely, they have strong personalities. To put it bluntly, they have wild tempers and like to sneak out."
"Some didn't run away from home. They ran away to escape a crime."
She turned the page. It resembled an internal disciplinary record. At the top, it read:
[Orphans Bai Liu (6), Xiao Ke, and five others assaulted the investors who attended the June 1st performance. They robbed the investors of their property and mobile phones. Punishment: cleaning the entire facility and fasting for one day. Further punishment pending improvement. Additional penalties may be added.]
"For example, these children beat up the investors after the show and ran away that very night. I didn't report it. I let them go. Because if they stayed, they wouldn't have had a good outcome in a welfare home funded by those investors."
Her fingers tapped meaningfully on the word punishment. "At the very least, it wouldn't have been just a day of fasting."
"Dean, may I look at this group photo?" Lu Yizhan asked. His expression had grown unusually solemn.
She handed him the album. Lu Yizhan flipped back to the page titled The 200X Children's Welfare Home Art Show. His eyes scanned the children quickly before locking onto one boy standing in the corner.
Even with lipstick smeared across his face and a large red dot between his brows, he didn't look ridiculous. There was a subtle, almost feminine beauty to him—but it was ruined by his unwavering gaze. There was a precocious coldness in his eyes, as though he regarded the other children as fools. He stood out immediately.
No one was more familiar with that face than Lu Yizhan. His eyes froze. He pointed at the boy. "Who is this child? What's his name?"
"This one?" The dean leaned closer, her expression distant with memory. "He led the others in beating the investors and running away. I remember him well. When he first came here, he said his name was Bai Liu (6)."
"No." Lu Yizhan slammed his palms onto the table and stared at her. "His name is Bai Liu. He was once called Bai Liu (6), but he changed it at fourteen. He never used that name again. He grew up in the same public welfare home as I did. He couldn't have been here!"
(Note: So to explain this part, Bai Liu's name uses the character Liu = Willow. The Bai Liu mentioned by the dean uses the Liu = 6. Hence, the nickname I mentioned in a previous note. This comes up often in the novel, and it is hard to distinguish, so I will put a six next to it in parentheses when it means the Bai Liu (6) name.)
"But…" The dean looked confused. "Perhaps you're mistaken? This boy, Bai Liu (6), was found by one of the investors shortly after he ran away and brought back. He couldn't leave. And soon after… he died."
"Died?" Lu Yizhan's voice turned strange. "What was the cause?"
She sighed. "It was very odd. He accidentally swallowed a strange coin with a hole in the center. It lodged in his trachea, and he suffocated within minutes. Considering the things he suffered before coming here—and after being brought back—we suspected it might have been suicide."
Lu Yizhan's gaze stiffened.
In the black-and-white photo, Bai Liu's expression was blank. His eyes were slightly lowered, as if drowsy. Damp strands of hair clung to his forehead, as though soaked in sweat after the performance.
Lu Yizhan felt an invisible weight pressing heavily against his chest. He stared at the thin boy in the photograph, struggling to breathe.
This was Bai Liu from ten years ago.
-----------------
Bai Liu stepped forward and picked up the doll lying beside the seesaw. It was handmade. The reference was clearly himself, though the fabric was old and worn. A faint trace of ribbon thread still clung to the doll's leg. It looked like a gift doll. Usually, such dolls would have a production date or a gifting date written somewhere.
He examined it carefully, searching for a date. Finally, he found one handwritten inside the torn-off head.
It had indeed been made ten years ago.
Bai Liu had only started working two or three years ago. He began wearing white shirts and suit pants around that time. The coin hanging around his neck had appeared only after he joined the game; it was the physical manifestation of the system.
Yet the doll, made ten years ago, was dressed exactly like his current self. Its head had been twisted off and left here.
Bai Liu's eyes narrowed.