Chapter 1

I can still remember the bloodstains at the village entrance that never washed away.

Back then, my dad Ryan brought people to beat the human trafficker who tried to kidnap me to death right there.

Years later, I left that isolated mountain village behind. I succeeded in my studies, and both my career and love life were thriving.

My boyfriend was a cop, currently chasing down a trafficking case.

One day, while chatting with him, I casually mentioned this old story. After hearing it, he stood frozen for a long moment.

"Sophia, what kind of human trafficker goes deep into the mountains to kidnap children?"

"Have you ever considered that the people your dad beat to death might have been your biological parents who traveled thousands of miles to find you?"

Zachary's words exploded in my mind like thunder.

"Impossible!"

I instinctively wanted to argue back.

"My dad loves me so much. For me, he'd do anything!"

My dad Ryan was known throughout the village as a genuinely good man.

Growing up, even when our family was too poor to afford food, if I wanted meat, there'd be steak on the table the next day.

The year I went to college, he sold our family's only cow and cried at the village entrance like a child.

What kind of human trafficker would treat a bought child this well?

Zachary looked at me and smiled bitterly as he apologized. "Sorry, Sophia. My occupational hazard is acting up."

"This case has been so oppressive lately, I'm starting to see everyone as a suspect."

He was apologizing verbally, but I could see it clearly.

That trace of doubt in his eyes hadn't faded at all.

That night, I struggled to fall asleep for the longest time.

Every time I closed my eyes, those dark red bloodstains that had long since seeped into the soil at the village entrance appeared vividly before me.

My father's honest, weathered face from my memories now seemed blurry in my mind.

The motion of him raising his hoe to strike that couple played over and over in slow motion, like a slideshow.

"Bastards! How dare you traffic my daughter!"

My father's roar back then had been the warmest source of security in my heart.

Now, it had become the nightmare that kept me from sleeping.

I suddenly sat up in bed, drenched in cold sweat.

At three in the morning, as if possessed, I got up and searched through boxes and cabinets, looking for old family photo albums.

One, two, three...

I flipped through them page by page.

There was one of me at five with pigtails, sitting on my father's shoulders and laughing happily.

There was one of me at ten receiving an excellent student certificate, with my father proudly posting it on the most prominent wall in our home.

There was one of me at eighteen getting into college, with my father secretly wiping tears as he saw me off at the village entrance.

But I searched through all the albums and couldn't find a single photo of me before age three.

Not a single one.

Doubt grew like wild grass in my heart, suffocating me until I couldn't breathe.

I had to go back.

I had to personally verify that terrifying, suffocating suspicion.

My hands shaking, I booked the earliest train ticket home.

Because my hands were trembling, I entered the wrong payment password three times.

After booking the ticket, I sent Zachary a text message.

"Company suddenly arranged a team-building trip to a neighboring city. I'll be back in three days, don't worry."

I didn't dare tell him the truth.

I was afraid.

Afraid of the what-ifs.

Afraid of implicating him.

Even more afraid that if my suspicion turned out to be true, since he was a cop, how could I face him?

I set out alone on the journey home.