Never Left

"After this video caught Ye Ting, did she show up anywhere else?" Hong Anjie asked with concern.

"No." Though he had expected this result, Shen Xing put his phone away, feeling a little disappointed. "This was the last video of her. After that, none of the cameras facing the entrance to Ivy Apartments showed her leaving. She just vanished."

"Could she have left in disguise?" Hong Bin guessed.

"Right. If she left the complex at night and got into a car parked by the street as soon as she came out, there's a good chance no one would notice," Hong Anjie agreed with a nod.

Shen Xing shook his head. "We've already checked the surveillance footage. During that period, no one came out of the complex and got straight into a car. There were people whose faces couldn't be seen going in and out, but after the officers examined the footage carefully, they found that they all matched other residents of the complex. None of them were strangers."

"Could she have disguised herself as another resident, then left?" Hong Anjie continued to speculate.

After going through his father's bizarre ordeal, Hong Anjie had to admit that even he felt more and more like Sherlock Holmes.

He figured they might as well guess at anything that seemed possible. He now knew all too well that certain things in this world were so strange they went far beyond anything he could imagine.

Shen Xing didn't argue this time. Instead, he lowered his head and fell into thought.

To be honest, he couldn't rule out the possibility. But if Ye Ting really had done that, what was her motive? Why hide herself? Why was she afraid of being seen?

After the three of them discussed it at length, Shen Xing's questions remained unanswered. If anything, he had even more of them.

The mood at the table grew heavy.

To break the tension, Shen Xing took out the half-body wooden carving he'd wrapped up. He opened it in front of Hong Bin and said, "My craftsmanship isn't the best, so please forgive me, Uncle Hong!"

But Hong Bin and Hong Anjie's eyes lit up at the same time when they saw the carving.

"Excellent!" Hong Bin blurted out.

Hong Anjie exclaimed, "It looks so lifelike! Even more than when I saw it before!"

Shen Xing smiled. "I touched it up a bit afterward."

"Impressive!" Hong Bin gave him a thumbs-up. "I love it!"

Hong Anjie transferred the money to Shen Xing on the spot, even adding a thousand more than the amount he'd originally paid upfront.

Shen Xing glanced at the notification and paused. He looked up, about to say something, but Hong Anjie spoke first. "I should be thanking you for what happened with my dad. This is nothing. Don't turn it down."

Although the young man lived in the suburbs, he had a job, and his family also rented out several spare rooms. To be honest, his income was far better than that of Shen Xing, who had come from out of town.

Shen Xing nodded and said nothing more.

They ate until nearly ten that night. All three were tipsy, so they called a designated driver. Hong Anjie and his father left in the car with the half-body wooden carving, while Shen Xing walked alone toward Ivy Apartments across the street.

The cool night breeze cleared his head as soon as he stepped outside, and his thoughts grew calmer.

When he reached the complex's gate, which stood close to the street, he looked up toward a spot slightly higher than the road. As he remembered, there was a camera outside the Liang Doupi Distribution Store across the street, pointed this way. A street surveillance camera near the complex entrance was pointed this way too.

Both cameras were still there and working normally. But when they'd checked the footage before, they hadn't seen Ye Ting leave through the entrance.

Had she left the complex another way? Or had she really disguised herself as another resident and walked out, just as Hong Anjie had suggested? Or...

Shen Xing looked up, stood at the entrance, and stared through the iron bars of the gate into the complex. "Or... she never left at all!"

After returning to his rental, he showered, then compulsively checked the doors, windows, and locks once more before going into his bedroom.

Ever since the Blood Pupil incident, his compulsive symptoms seemed to have gotten worse.

But when he thought about it carefully, it was because he'd become more vigilant. That vigilance showed itself in his compulsive thoughts piling up. Now, when he came home at night and locked the door, he checked the lock three times before he felt at ease.

He closed the bedroom door, slid the bolt into place, then checked every corner where someone could hide. Only after that did he lie down.

Shen Xing knew there was at least one good thing about himself: once he'd finished his compulsive routines, he felt at ease. He could sleep soundly until morning without continuing to second-guess himself.

He got up early the next day. After breakfast, Shen Xing went to Tingwu Shop on Chunyu Street at his usual time, opened up early, and started business.

The shop had a fairly large stock of wooden carvings now. But aside from the new products he'd come up with after being reborn—the anime-themed carvings, which sold quite well—the other pieces were still struggling to sell.

Of course, the anime carvings didn't bring in much money. Their profit came mainly from selling them in volume. The truly detailed pieces were still works like the Blood Pupil and Fake Hong Bin carvings.

Most of his better pieces from before had been of natural scenery, Buddha statues, or carvings with symbolic meaning.

He hadn't sold a single carving all morning. Around noon, Shen Xing closed the shop for a while and went home to gather the documents he needed for the adoption process. He took them downstairs and made a full set of copies.

He packed the originals and copies in a paper folder. Right at the start of the afternoon office hours, he went to the Civil Affairs Office at City Hall, submitted the copies, then filled out the standard adoption application, printed it, signed it, added his fingerprint, and submitted that as well.

He'd made up his mind: whatever happened, he would submit the application to adopt Feifei first and leave the decision about whether it would pass to fate.

But since cases like this were rare, Shen Xing guessed it probably wouldn't be approved.

As he came out of the Civil Affairs Office, his phone rang. He checked it and saw that the call was coming from a landline. His phone's smart caller ID identified it as Qiguang Orphanage.

Shen Xing froze for a moment. Was it already approved? There was no way it could have happened so quickly. And they were calling me directly—were they really that eager to send the child out?

He answered, and an unfamiliar man's voice came through. "Hello, may I speak with Mr. Shen Xing?"

"Yes, this is Shen Xing."

"Please hold on a moment. Lin Feifei wants to talk to you." The man sounded like a staff member in the orphanage office.

After saying this, he passed the phone to Feifei, who was waiting nearby.

A familiar, childish voice quickly came through the phone. "Uncle Shen, where are you right now?"

Shen Xing could tell something was off in her voice. He asked, puzzled, "I'm out on the street. What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

"No." Feifei suddenly lowered her voice, as if deliberately trying to keep the people around her from hearing. Then she whispered, "Do you have time? Could you come here? I think Sister Xiao Yu is acting strange..."

"Who?" Shen Xing paused, then realized what she meant. "You mean the volunteer, Song Xiaoyu? Is today her volunteer day again?"

"No, she wasn't supposed to come today, but she did, and she's acting really strange..." Feifei sounded frightened over the phone. "They don't believe what I just saw. Can you come?"

"Okay. I'm on my way," Shen Xing said with a nod.

He hung up, hailed a taxi by the roadside, and headed straight to Qiguang Orphanage.