That voice let out a soft chuckle.It also sounded like a sigh.
Yet at the same time, it felt like a lonely soul as if it was mourning.
"Nineteen years ago, the economic development in Jin City was actually worse off than the Nanmu now. At that time, before the explosion of information made available due to the internet, people"s lives were relatively simple, and they were not as wary of people. At that time, everything was very different from now. Specifically, a ray of light, a gla.s.s of wine, a drop of tear, a leaf from a tree… the brightness of the sky everyday, were different."
The sound from the stereo was low and slow, like reading a mournful essay.
"At that time, people who had just gotten out of the hard times were not as keen on traveling as they are now. Therefore, the ones who go on trips were generally enjoying a higher standard of living and came from relatively wealthier families…
"On that fateful day in Jin City, the weather was very good. A travelling coach carried 22 pa.s.sengers out of Jin City and went to a tourist attraction in the mountains. In the months of June and July, rainstorms could suddenly appear in the mountains. The coach met a terrible rainstorm while on its way to the attraction; it got washed out of the road due to a landslide caused by the torrential rainstorm. The coach was sliding toward the cliff, their lives were on the line…
"The pa.s.sengers on the coach were really afraid. This was the first time that they experienced such a disaster. It was their first time so close to death… The coach was filled with cries. They had thought that they would soon be swept away by the flowing debris, into the roiling flood… but they were lucky, the coach was actually stuck halfway down the mountain that after a few nerve-racking tremors, the coach actually did not continue to descend further…
"However, when the coach tumbled down earlier, some windows were broken. On one of the broken windows, a woman was hanging desperately by the window frame with both of her hands. Her little daughter was hanging completely on her arm. With the help of her mother"s strength, the little girl did not fall down to the waters. The drenched child was so terrified that she forgot to cry. She just looked at her mother, as well as at the roaring torrential rainstorm and flood beyond…
"The woman cried out for help from the people in the coach… she did not ask them to save her, but she was pleading them… to save her child. She begged them to lend a hand by pulling her daughter back into the coach, so the little girl could get a chance to survive…
"At that time, the coach was slanted. Everyone was holding onto anything that they could hold on to. n.o.body dared to let go easily, as they did not know if they would become the next person to fall out of the coach and become a part of the flash flood…
"The woman"s appeal for help was weak like a sob. There was silence inside the coach. Besides the roar of the torrential rainstorm and howling winds, no one responded to her cries…
"Everyone chose to keep quiet, as if they had heard nothing. In the face of a sudden natural disaster which concerned their life and death, there was probably only one thought in everyone"s heart—to survive. They wanted themselves and their family to survive. As for others… even though the lively little girl was happily singing children"s songs half an hour ago and greeted everyone happily—uncle, aunty, grandpa, grandma… even if the mother of the little girl was beautiful and gentle… they couldn"t lend a hand…
"The men, women, elderly… they just looked on. They watched how the ignorant little girl who was grabbing her mother"s arm suddenly let go and threw herself to her mother. She was frightened and wanted her mother to hug her. She totally did not know that her mother had no more strength to hold her… Both mother and daughter fell and got swept away by the flood. In no time, their figures disappeared in the destructive, riled waters… However, the heartrending cries of the woman calling her daughter"s nickname at the last moment before she fell was as though still hovering inside the coach…
"Before the woman died, she must have felt the world"s cruelty and indifference. She had died with despair… But what she did not know was that everyone inside the coach was actually crying… they had cried silently, mourning silently… they cried for the deaths of the woman and her child… they also cried for how insignificant they were as well as their powerlessness against the situation…
"Of course, consequently, they were rescued. They were a very lucky group of people. The coach that carried their lives did not fall and had waited for the rescue workers to arrive… The rescue workers said that both wheels were stuck by a boulder, which, in turn, saved their lives…
"Whilst everyone was commenting about how lucky these group of survivors were, the survivors themselves did not feel glad about it… Something was bothering their heart, they had a question… but no one dared to open their mouth. They did not even have the courage to ask or make a guess. If they had worked together at that moment, hand in hand, to pull them back, could they have saved the mother and daughter? At the very least, they could have pulled back that poor little girl?
"For something that had already happened, there was no way they could turn back time, no matter how many a.s.sumptions they had… All of them had tacitly chosen to avoid this question. They did not dare to question their humanity. After they were rescued, they parted ways in a haste and did not leave behind any means of contact… All of them hoped that they would not meet each other again in their lifetime. They even wished that they had not made this trip, they wished that they had not gone through such a desperate and horrific ordeal…
"Later on, they got to know from the news that the torrential rainstorm and flash flood had caused a wide area of landslides in the mountains and there were many casualties. They were indeed lucky to have escaped unscathed. Nonetheless, although they felt fortunate, they would also think of the woman and her child—the desperate pleas of the woman, as well as her voice when she cried her daughter"s nickname "Lili". These sounds would frequently be heard and appear in their nightmares…
"They never managed to find anything about that woman and her child from the cold, reported numbers of casualties shown on the news…
"Years went by, as they carried on with their lives, they started to forget about what happened to them that summer, that vacation trip… as well as that torrential rainstorm, flash floods, and landslide… But occasionally, the heartrending cries of the woman would still come back to haunt them in their dreams…
"More years had gone by, some of them became famous entrepreneurs, while some of them became elites in their respective work industries… The society developed very fast. It was a period of rapid economic development where everyone had the opportunity to strike it rich and the society developed tremendously… That year when the disaster hit them, mobile phones were not as ubiquitous. Back then, people were still carrying pagers and used public phone booths to make calls… That time, they also carry smart cards around…
"Of course, at that time, the internet was not as advanced… The husband of the woman was away in a distant province, working on a major technical innovation… Oh, he was a technical engineer, one of the industry"s top talent and elite… With determination and ardor, he had left his hometown for he hoped to provide his wife and daughter a better life and future…
"That day, he had run a long distance just to take a phone call from his hometown, and was informed that his wife was dead, his daughter… went missing!
"In that kind of situation, missing or death had no difference at all… but he had been searching for his daughter, never giving up…
"He also wanted to find out what happened that day. Why was it that all of the other pa.s.sengers survived, and that the coach did not come cras.h.i.+ng down the cliff, yet only his wife and daughter suffered such a fate…
"His family was ruined because of a vacation trip, and he couldn"t understand why. Originally, his wife was reluctant to spend money and go for the trip. He was the one who insisted her to go enjoy herself, so she took their daughter along… He left his job. With a depressed and grieved heart, he went back to Jin City, to the source of the fateful event…
"The one he found first was the female tour guide during that trip, and he learned the truth from her. He also realized that those people who did not save his wife and daughter were still continuing to live their lives well. How could he not feel bitter?
"That year in Jin City, a strange case which claimed two lives took place… The deceased was a tour guide from a travel agency. It was said that she got found out for having an affair with a man and committed suicide in shame… Hur, why was it a strange case? This was because prior to the supposed suicide, a peculiar, fresh tattoo was found on the body of the deceased. The police visited all of the tattoo shops in Jin City, but they could not get an answer…
"The investigation and material evidence technology back then was far less developed than they are now… As there were no signs of homicide on the death scene and no possible third person found in the case, the police had to conclude the case as suicide and cla.s.sifed it under cold case… However, this was not the end… It was just that there were some things that no one knew about… There were many incidents in those years that had turned into a mystery, and the dossiers were forever sealed in the archives!
"Consequently, that man left Jin City and visited many other places over the country. He was searching for his daughter relentlessly. He would paste the missing person notice of his daughter everywhere, struggling as if that was the only reason he was alive. As long as he received any news that might be related to his daughter, no matter the location, he would go there to find out more…
"Soon, he used up all of his savings and lived a life worse than a dog! Looking at the high-rise buildings, the neon lights, the prosperous cities… He realized that he would require a lot of money to find his daughter and execute his plans for revenge… At this time, he did not care about the humanity in him anymore… He did not care if he were to commit crimes or bother about the life or death of others…
"In actual fact, as the years went by, his memory could no longer show a clear image of how his daughter had looked like. The little girl in the picture who had a sweet smile always remained at the age of three years old…"