“On the seventh year after you disappeared, he sacrificed his life while pursuing a criminal. His colleagues brought me his last words.”

“‘I haven’t committed a single evil act in my life; I’ve fought all my life for ideals and justice. Everyone says I’m a good policeman, but I’m not proud of it. Instead, I feel deeply guilty because to become such a good policeman, I wasn’t a good husband or father. So, my wife and children are separated from me in this life; it’s retribution. After I die, I won’t be buried with my wife and daughter, as they might not want to see me.’ Those were his last words,” Jiang Zhonglin said.

Yu Yao moved her lips, wanting to make a sarcastic remark about the man’s self-awareness, but looking at the cold stone monument, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

She remembered how, as a child, she had a great relationship with her father. When she was in kindergarten, she would proudly tell all her friends that her dad was a great hero. Although he was rarely at home and sometimes missed parent-teacher meetings and birthdays, her mother said that Dad was out there saving people in trouble like Superman, so she forgave him for always being so busy.

As she grew older, she realized that her father wasn’t some extraordinary superhero. Most of what he did outside was mundane and unremarkable—managing disputes and lost items, dealing with problems that arose. Even when he took off his police uniform and came home, he couldn’t rest as the pillar of their family. He was always involved in neighborhood issues, putting aside his own family.

Yu Yao’s first dissatisfaction with her father came during elementary school when she watched him help a neighbor move a gas can, while at home, her frail mother was struggling to carry a gas can upstairs, sweating all the while. She wondered if her father didn’t see that they needed him too.

This was a small matter, but as small issues accumulated, they eventually erupted. That point of eruption was her mother’s death.

When Yu Yao had just started junior high, her mother was pregnant with a second child. Her father was happy and spent more time at home. Yu Yao stayed at school and could only come home once a week. Every time she came back, she would sit beside her mother and look at her growing belly, eagerly awaiting the birth of her baby brother.

In the days close to the due date, Yu Yao was very worried, but her father said he would take a few days off to stay home and take care of her mother. However, when the weekend came and Yu Yao returned home, she opened the door to find her mother’s lifeless body.

She had been dead for a day. Blood had soaked half of her body, and long red trails stretched from the bathroom to the living room. Yu Yao could almost picture how she had accidentally fallen in the bathroom, enduring the pain and struggling to crawl out, trying to call for help in the living room. Yet, her poor health and the severity of the fall meant she couldn’t make that call and died quietly.

Yu Yao dropped her backpack and keys on the floor, rushing to her mother’s cold body, touching her still and lifeless belly. She screamed at her mother, but she received no response—no warm smile, no calling her “darling daughter.” With tears in her eyes, she found her mother’s phone in the couch cushions and dialed her father’s number.

No one answered at first. She cried and called three times before it was finally answered, and her father’s tired voice came through.