Trembling At A High Altitude

"It seems like late-stage cancer, right? It has already spread and metastasized. Which hospital... um... sorry, I didn't pay attention to that when I was there..." the staff member recalled carefully but couldn't remember.

"When did she come last time, specifically which date?" asked Li Teng.

"It has been over ten days, I think? About half a month ago, I can't remember the specific day..." the staff member thought for a moment and answered Li Teng.

"Do you remember anything else she said? Did she mention anything else?" Li Teng asked another question.

"I don't remember, I really don't. Everything I remember, I've told you," the staff member apologized, shaking their head.

"Thank you," Li Teng said goodbye to the staff member and walked out of the Children's Welfare Institute with Yingying in his arms.

After they left, Yingying finally relaxed a bit and stopped clinging so tightly to Li Teng's neck.

"Did you find Mom?" Yingying asked Li Teng.

"Mom is sick and in the hospital. Let's go to the hospital and find Mom," Li Teng replied.

"When you're sick, you should drink more water and eat porridge, so you can get better quickly," Yingying nodded vigorously; obviously, this was something Liu Yin taught her.

"Mmm-hmm, let's hurry to the hospital, find Mom, and tell her to drink more water and eat more porridge..." Li Teng comforted Yingying.

As long as she was still alive, even if it was late-stage cancer, he could save her.

He just feared...

He couldn't delay any longer; he had to find her quickly.

"Yingying, did you find Mom after you ran away from the welfare institute ten days ago?" Even though Li Teng had checked in his dreams, he still asked Yingying.

"No," Yingying shook her head.

"Then... how did you get back to Dad?" Li Teng asked again.

"I walked and walked, for one day, two days..." Yingying counted on her fingers.

"Three days, four days, five days... and then I walked back home, no, a lady on an electric scooter found me on the road and took me back," Yingying replied after thinking hard for a while.

Li Teng fell silent.

The welfare institute was more than a dozen stops away from the shanty.

A four-and-a-half-year-old little girl, not yet familiar with the streets, had to rely on her own two feet, begging and searching for her mother, wandered for four or five days before she was finally brought back to the shanty with the help of a kind-hearted lady.

One could only imagine how scared and helpless she must have felt during those days...

"I thought Mom would be at home. I wanted to tell her that I wouldn't make her angry anymore and ask her not to leave Yingying. But there was only Dad at home, not Mom..." Yingying started to cry again as she remembered.

"Don't cry, Yingying. Dad will definitely find Mom," said Li Teng.

He City's hospitals, big and small, numbered in the dozens; searching them one by one was definitely not feasible.

The time she had left him was running out.

Li Teng decided to go to the police station to report a missing person and ask the police for help in the search.

...

"How long has she been missing?"

"Half a month."

"Why are you reporting it only now?" The female officer taking the case looked at Li Teng with suspicion.

Nowadays, with these cases of missing wives, the most likely scenario was that the husband had committed murder and hidden the body.

"That's because I... I was in a vegetative state before, after a car accident. I'd been asleep for five years and only woke up yesterday..." Li Teng could only tell the truth.

"What?" The female officer looked astonished.

A man who had been in a coma for five years, woke up yesterday, and today he's jumping around and running about?

"My dad has been sleeping, for a very, very long time. Mom called him, but he wouldn't wake up. Dad only woke up from his sleep yesterday," Yingying added a few words from Li Teng's arms.

"What's her name?"

"Liu Yin."

"Her ID number?"

"I don't remember..."

"You don't remember your wife's ID number?"

"Ahem..."

"You've been asleep for five years, can't blame you. But you should at least know her date of birth, right?"

"I know it." Li Teng quickly recited the information to the policewoman.

"Her place of birth, or the location of her household registration…"

"It's probably…"

The policewoman started searching the system with some of the data provided by Li Teng.

"Is this her?" The policewoman turned the computer screen to show Li Teng.

"Yes! Yes! That's her! You are really amazing!" Li Teng praised the policewoman.

"Then leave a contact number, and we will notify you if there is any news," the policewoman said to Li Teng.

"Excuse me, could you expedite the process? She has late-stage cancer, went to have surgery alone, and I don't know if the surgery was successful. There might not be much time left," Li Teng requested from the policewoman.

"We'll follow the normal procedures," the policewoman replied with an expressionless face.

"Okay, thank you. My contact information… wait, I'll come back after I've bought a phone and got a SIM card…" Li Teng said, getting ready to leave with Yingying in his arms.

"Mommy! Mommy! I want my mommy!" Yingying struggled out of Li Teng's embrace, her small hand reaching for Liu Yin's photo on the computer screen, tears streaming down her face.

"Cough, at home… we don't even have a photo of her, the child really misses her mother…" Li Teng awkwardly explained to the policewoman.

The policewoman was silent.

"Yingying, be good, don't make trouble. The auntie still has work to do! Daddy will definitely find Mommy," Li Teng coaxed Yingying.

"I want my mommy!" Yingying cried breathlessly while looking at Liu Yin's photo.

Li Teng had no choice but to forcefully carry her away.

"Wait a moment," the policewoman called out.

Li Teng stopped.

"I'll check her ID card's linked mobile number, see if we can contact her." The policewoman glanced at the photo on her desk of her and her daughter, her eyes becoming a little red.

"Okay, thank you," Li Teng said, sitting back down with Yingying in his arms.

The policewoman tapped on her computer from time to time and made a few calls. After about fifteen minutes, she got a mobile number and the recent call history associated with that number.

"She only has this mobile number registered to her name, but I'm sorry, her mobile phone has been out of service due to unpaid charges since half a month ago," the policewoman informed Li Teng.

"Then, could you help me top up her phone?" Li Teng handed over two hundred yuan.

He used to know Liu Yin's mobile number, but he couldn't remember the specifics after five years. With so much changing in her life, he didn't know if she had changed her number either.

"I've already topped it up, and then I tried calling, but it's turned off," the policewoman replied to Li Teng and refused to take the money from his hand.

"Could you give me the number and the recent call records?" Li Teng asked the policewoman.

"No, that would be against the regulations," the policewoman shook her head.

"Alright, thank you anyway," Li Teng turned to walk away.

"Hold on, this is my mobile number. After you get a phone and a SIM card, just call and give me your contact details so you don't have to make another trip here," the policewoman wrote a number on the back of a piece of paper she had just printed and handed it to Li Teng.

"Okay, thank you."

Li Teng took the printout and left the police station with Yingying in his arms.

It was only after stepping outside that he turned the paper over.

Printed on it were Liu Yin's mobile number and her call records leading up to her disappearance.

Li Teng took Yingying to have lunch.

There happened to be a small park nearby, with a slide. After lunch, Li Teng took Yingying to the park to play on the slide.

There were already a few kids on it, and Yingying wanted to join but was too shy to approach them on her own.

With encouragement and protection from Li Teng, she finally climbed onto the slide and after a while began to happily play with the other children.

Taking this opportunity, Li Teng concentrated on gathering Soul Power, creating One Hundred Yuan Banknotes in the palm of his hand.

Two hours later, when Yingying grew tired from playing, Li Teng had also managed to create eight hundred-yuan banknotes.

So Li Teng took Yingying to a nearby phone store and spent seven hundred yuan on the cheapest smartphone available, and got a SIM card using his ID card.

After getting the SIM card, Li Teng called the number on the printout to provide his contact details to the policewoman.

"I've checked several major hospitals already but haven't found any record of her being admitted. There are some other hospitals I'm still looking into," the policewoman updated Li Teng on the situation.

"Thank you," Li Teng expressed his gratitude.

"It's okay, take good care of your daughter."

"How should I address you?"

"My surname is Liu."

"All right, Officer Liu."

"I also found some information…"

"Mm-hmm, go on..."

"Liu Yin, is she the daughter of Liu Qian, the once richest man in He City?"

"Yes, that's right."

"No problem, I was just asking."

"What did you mean by 'once' just now?" Li Teng detected some implications in the officer's words.

"I've been in a coma for five years, I don't know many things, and I haven't asked around yet," Li Teng hastily added a few more words.

"Well... you should look it up yourself." Officer Liu stopped short of saying more.

...

After hanging up the phone with Officer Liu, Li Teng thought it over and decided to visit the Liu Family.

Liu Yin was in the late stages of cancer and at a dead end; might she seek help from her parents?

Perhaps her parents would know her current whereabouts?

If so, that would be the best outcome.

But the fact that her only mobile phone number had been out of service due to unpaid bills half a month ago gave Li Teng a very bad feeling.

No matter what, he had to continue searching.

"Yingying, do you want to see your maternal grandparents?" Li Teng asked Yingying.

"No! Don't want to!" Yingying reacted very violently, her body trembling severely and she shook her head vigorously.

It seemed she had some very bad memories of her maternal grandparents.

"Don't you want to find Mommy anymore? Mommy might be at your grandparents' house," Li Teng tried to soothe Yingying.

"Want Mommy... miss Mommy so much..." Tears flowed from Yingying's eyes.

"With Daddy here, no one can hurt Yingying, Daddy will hold you tight and will never abandon Yingying, just like when we were at the Welfare Institute earlier, Daddy held you tightly without letting go, right?" Li Teng continued to comfort Yingying.

"Mhm!" Yingying nodded vigorously.

"So, shall we go to Grandma and Grandpa's house to find Mommy?"

"Okay."

...

Li Teng had been here before.

He had come with Liu Yin.

It was also the last time in his memory that he had been with Liu Yin.

They had come full of hope that her family would bless their love.

But the ending was just as melodramatic as in novels and movies.

He was despised and driven away.

On the way back, the bus he was on had an accident...

Back then, this place was a villa Mountain Villa located in the suburbs of the city.

But now, it had turned into a construction site.

The villa, waterscape, and pavilions had long disappeared, leaving only an unstarted construction site.

After searching for quite a while, Li Teng finally found a living person.

An old man guarding the construction site.

However, when asked about the Liu Family, he was utterly ignorant.

...

Back in the city, Li Teng turned on his phone and logged onto the internet to start searching.

To his utter amazement, he searched for Liu Qian, Liu Hui, Liu Yin, Galaxy Technology, and other related keywords, but found no results connected to the Liu Family or their company.

It was as if the Liu Family had vanished from the internet!

Or rather, all related information had been erased.

What on earth had happened to the Blue Planet in these five years?

After considering for a while, Li Teng decided to visit his home to check on the situation of his parents and Anna.

The result...

The entire community where his parents lived had been demolished.

The place he once called home no longer existed.

Now, all that was left was a construction site, a site where only the foundations had been dug before work stopped.

Li Teng tried hard to remember his parents' and Anna's mobile numbers, but couldn't recall them at all.

It seemed that he would only be able to uncover those phone numbers by using Soul Power in his dreams to dig up his past residual memories.

But if the parts of his brain related to memory had been damaged while he was on the Blue Planet, there was no guarantee he could find their numbers, and he would need to seek help from Officer Liu.

...

After dinner, Li Teng called Officer Liu.

"I've checked another seven or eight hospitals and still no news of her," Officer Liu began as soon as the call connected.

"Officer Liu, could you check if there are any... unidentified bodies that haven't been claimed recently?" Li Teng began to consider the worst-case scenario.

"I've already checked. There aren't any for the time being, at least not in our city... and I haven't found any information about her traveling by plane or train this month... don't give up hope," Officer Liu consoled Li Teng.

"Thank you. There's another thing I need help with. The community where my family stayed, Qingtan Community, has been demolished. Do you know where they've moved to, or can you find their contact information?" Li Teng brought up the issue to Officer Liu.

"That... I'll see what I can do. You could also try posting a plea for help online; maybe the internet can help you find your wife and former relatives," Officer Liu suggested.

"Yes, I will," Li Teng replied.

...

The sky gradually darkened.

Night.

A cold, clear night.

Under the streetlights, two weary figures, one large and one small, walked along the sidewalk, their shadows stretching out long behind them.

Li Teng did not take Yingying back to the shanty, but instead paused in front of a hotel.

He checked into a room at the hotel and took Yingying to stay there.

After a discount, the room cost just over two hundred yuan per night, a vast improvement over the dingy guesthouse.

The room had a refrigerator and a television, and the refrigerator was stocked with snacks.

Yingying was thrilled, jumping around on the bed and the carpet, running around nonstop.

Li Teng found an animated movie, and Yingying watched it with rapt attention.

It had been a long time since she had watched cartoons.

Around eleven o'clock at night, Yingying still didn't want to turn off the TV.

Li Teng had no choice but to forcibly turn off the TV and the lights and tell her to go to bed.

"Daddy, we should go home," Yingying said to Li Teng.

"We're sleeping here tonight," Li Teng explained to Yingying.

The conditions in the shanty were too poor; he couldn't let Yingying sleep there anymore.

"I don't want to sleep here, I want to go home; if we don't go back, Mommy won't be able to find us," Yingying protested.

"Yingying, be good. Daddy will continue the search for Mommy with you tomorrow," Li Teng persuaded Yingying.

"I want Mommy now! I want Mommy right now!" Yingying burst into tears.

"Yingying, don't cry. Daddy is here with you! Daddy will still take you to look for Mommy tomorrow," Li Teng tried to comfort Yingying, attempting to hug and soothe her.

"No! I want Mommy right now! Mommy, please come back... I want my Mommy..." Yingying pushed Li Teng away and turned her back to him, crying bitterly.