Chapter 1

In a small supermarket on Tufang Street, a police officer turned to look at Xiao Yucheng: "Is it your child who's missing?"

"Yes, yes! Have you seen him?" Xiao Yucheng nodded, his expression panicked, breathing heavily.

"How old?"

"Seven!"

"What are his characteristics?" the officer asked again.

"He's not tall, very thin, and should be wearing a blue short-sleeved T-shirt. Oh, and he has severe asthma, a lung disease. He should be wearing a mask when he goes out..."

"Then it's you," the officer nodded, interrupting him. "Come with me."

"What happened to him?" Xiao Yucheng immediately asked.

The officer paused, looking at the crippled father with some sympathy. "It's like this, he had a bit of an accident. He had an attack near here last night and didn't get timely treatment, so..."

Xiao Yucheng only heard half the sentence, his head buzzed, and he stood there, his face deathly pale.

...

An hour and a half later, in the corridor of the Zhanan Central Hospital morgue, wisps of cold air surged, and the large iron door leading to the corpse storage room stood coldly before them.

Xiao Yucheng's legs were already weak as he approached the door, his mind blank.

The officer was young and kind-hearted. He supported Xiao Yucheng with his left hand, comforting him as he signaled the hospital staff to open the corpse storage room. Then they all entered together.

The staff member put on a mask, pulled open a large drawer containing a corpse, and said numbly and coldly, "You'll need to sign later."

After speaking, the staff member turned and left. The officer whispered to Xiao Yucheng, "You weren't home yesterday, were you? It seems your son went downstairs to buy something to eat and ran into some kids who asked him to play soccer with them... I interviewed some witnesses. They said your son didn't play at first, he just sat on the curb eating a pie... But later, he probably couldn't resist and was called to the field by the other kids. He had an attack after playing for a while... There were no adults around, and the kids ran away when they saw something was wrong. In the end, the old man who looks after the field found your child, but by the time the patrol police were notified and he was sent to the hospital, it was too late. He missed the best time for rescue...!"

Next to the large drawer, the officer was explaining the facts to Xiao Yucheng in a gentle tone, while the latter stared blankly at the drawer, his heart breaking with pain.

His son's face was purple and green, his eyelashes and skin covered with frost, and he was still wearing the blue short-sleeved T-shirt. There were several obvious needle marks on his arm, left by the hospital during the rescue attempt.

The emotions of collapse, regret, and disbelief surged in Xiao Yucheng's heart. Looking at his cold, stiff son, he seemed to have no strength left, and all hope had vanished.

Although Xiao Yucheng wasn't an old man when he had his son, his son was his only hope. So many years of hard labor had left him unable to feel any joy in life.

In Cinaloa, he woke up to work and went to sleep when it was dark, with absolutely no personal time. Sometimes he had to get up in the middle of the night when he heard gunfire and hide in a bomb shelter.

Wandering outside, his wife was gone, and he had become disabled. Thirteen years had passed in the blink of an eye. In Xiao Yucheng's memory, he was like a machine constantly running, numbly living his life, earning money to support his family.

Xiao Yucheng no longer remembered his original purpose for coming to Dragon City. His youthful ambitions and ideals had long been shattered by a life of suffering. His wife was gone, and his only hope was to raise his son, who was born with an illness, to adulthood, to give him a relatively healthy living environment, and to save some money for him so that the next generation wouldn't have to live like he did.

But today, Xiao Yucheng's carefully nurtured son was also gone. All his hopes were like a vase falling to the ground, shattering into pieces.

Inside the cold corpse storage room, Xiao Yucheng leaned against the large drawer, slowly squatting on the ground, holding his head, crying with confusion and despair.

The officer next to him didn't urge him. He turned and walked outside to smoke a cigarette.

He didn't know how long had passed, nor did he know who had spoken to him. In short, Xiao Yucheng signed several notices in a daze and claimed his son's body.

The hospital staff member put away the pen and paper, looked up at Xiao Yucheng, and asked, "Cremation? There's a car, five hundred yuan."

Xiao Yucheng replied blankly, "No... no cremation."

"No cremation, and you're not allowed to bury him privately, how are you going to do it?" the staff member frowned and said, "Now private burials are fined and detained. Look...?"

"Then cremate him," Xiao Yucheng replied, his face expressionless.

A dozen minutes later, the car carrying the body drove out of the hospital, and Er Bao, who was responsible for monitoring Xiao Yucheng, followed the car while talking on the phone. "...Damn it, I'm so unlucky, the person I'm following, his son died. Yes, he just came out of the hospital and went to the crematorium... Ah, then what do we do? Give him two more days to deal with the funeral? Damn it! I'm impressed, what's going on!"

Er Bao talked with his superiors on the phone while driving and followed Xiao Yucheng to the crematorium.

...

A person's birth requires the mother's ten months of pregnancy, the dual pain of mother and child, and even new parents who pay attention to it may have to prepare for pregnancy for a year or two. Only after experiencing all kinds of difficulties and obstacles can the child come into this world.

But a person's death and disappearance only takes less than three minutes. A fire rises, burning everything, not even leaving bone residue.

Late at night, Xiao Yucheng walked out of the crematorium holding the urn. The cold wind blew, but no one came to pick him up, and no relatives or friends could feel his sadness, only Er Bao, who hadn't left him for a moment and hadn't even had dinner.

Er Bao, who had been squatting all day, got out of the car, smoked a cigarette, walked up to Xiao Yucheng, and greeted him, "Should I take you back?"

Xiao Yucheng looked at him and nodded blankly.

"Let's go!" Er Bao said.

Two minutes later, the car left the compound. Er Bao sat in the front, dangling and said, "It's really unlucky for you to encounter this kind of thing, but one thing is one thing, the matter of your case still has to be dealt with as soon as possible! I can't follow you every day, it's troublesome for you and troublesome for me. You should find the money quickly and settle the matter."

Xiao Yucheng sat in the back seat, looking at the back of his head, his body as stiff as a sculpture.

"I called Brother Xu at the crematorium just now, and I begged for mercy for you, and he agreed to give you two more days," Er Bao continued, "But what I mean is, if you can raise the money as soon as possible, then raise it quickly, don't delay, so that it will be convenient for you to hold a funeral for your child later. But if you really can't raise it now, then at most two days, you must..."

A gleam of light appeared in Xiao Yucheng's numb eyes, and his eyes turned blood red.

...

The headquarters of the Dockworkers Association.

Jing Yan said on the phone, "Speaker Lu means that after Karl from the Control Department leaves, we can talk about shipping goods to Cinaloa. Yes, I plan to let Gu Baishun do it..."