CHAPTER 586: 228, LAUGHING SO GENTLY, HE’S SCARED.

Shen You’an went back to her bedroom to get the photo.

Xiang Chenyu had never felt time pass so slowly.

In about half a minute, Shen You’an emerged from the bedroom, holding a photo frame in her hand.

Xiang Chenyu lowered her gaze, not daring to look.

Shen You’an thoughtfully held the frame out to her: "This is my dad. Isn’t he handsome?"

The photo depicted a young couple. The woman was nestled in the man’s arms, her gaze lowered as she gently touched her round belly. Her beauty radiated a divine maternal glow.

Beside her stood a tall man.

In his early twenties, he had a sharp buzz cut, healthy bronze skin, sharp brows, and starry eyes, with a kind of striking handsomeness that cut like a blade. His high nose and deep-set eyes almost gave him the look of a mixed race.

Yet the smile on the man’s face was so bright and sunny that it softened the sharpness of his features, giving off a sense of warmth and approachability.

In other words, he had a face so handsome it could stir envy—a face that could easily top any international list of the most attractive male celebrities. Yet beneath this stunning visage was the unmistakable aura of a good family man.

Xiang Chenyu suddenly grabbed the photo frame, clutching its edges with desperate force.

She stared at the man’s face in the picture, a helpless, bitter smile emerging on her lips.

Tears "plop, plop" fell onto the glass of the frame.

The boy as brilliant as the blazing sun had forever been left behind in that spring day among the apricot blossoms.

Separated by ten years of time—he had grown mature, more steadfast.

He had married a beautiful wife and had a child.

The smile on his face indicated that his life had been happy.

Shen You’an quietly watched as the woman before her cried over the photo of her father, her eyes deep and turbulent as though holding back unspoken emotions, until they finally settled into a sigh.

"Very handsome."

Xiang Chenyu sobbed, words escaping her.

This day had come at last.

She had found the person, but he had already been dead for ten years.

In those years she didn’t know, he had been tucked away in remote Qingzhou as an ordinary firefighter, marrying a wife and fathering a daughter.

Xiang Chenyu felt her breathing tighten, suffocating.

In truth, when Yu Fuli first disappeared, she hadn’t felt much at the beginning. But as time passed, she occasionally dreamed of him—vivid dreams that began growing more frequent, his silhouette filling every corner of her thoughts.

On her eighteenth birthday, she revisited the apricot blossom forest where they had first met.

Underneath the blazing sun, her tears fell suddenly, unannounced.

It was then that she finally understood, albeit belatedly.

Everyone around her had told her that Yu Fuli had died, that he would never come back.

But she refused to believe it.

Secretly, she began gathering evidence in defiance of the Yu family’s wishes. The fire that had broken out back then had indeed been caused by the Yu family. Yet, strangely, no body had been found afterward. The Yu family, unsettled, sent people to search in secret but remained without news.

To outsiders, everyone believed Yu Fuli had perished in the fire. But the Yu family and their closest allies knew the truth—Yu Fuli was simply missing. Without his body, they couldn’t reach a conclusion.

But as the years passed and no news ever came, the Yu family gradually relaxed, convinced he must have died somewhere out in the world. Even if he did return one day, it wouldn’t make much difference.

Xiang Chenyu wiped away her tears and looked up at Shen You’an.

Suddenly, she smiled.

"You look like your mother, but your eyes—they’re so much like your father’s."

Shen You’an’s appearance had inherited the very best of both her parents’ features, truly well-crafted by nature.

Shen You’an blinked, and those lively black eyes instantly struck a chord deep in Xiang Chenyu’s memories.

Her heart grew heavier.

And yet, mingled with the sorrow was a small measure of solace.

Thankfully, traces of him still lived on in the world. The pair of beautiful eyes before her proved that he had indeed once existed.

"Officer Xiang, did you know my dad?"

Shen You’an asked softly.

Xiang Chenyu looked into Shen You’an’s eyes. Each glance she took seemed to soften her cold and hardened heart, little by little.

The young girl’s gaze was calm, as though she were asking the simplest of questions.

Shen You’an’s father had passed away when she was five. How much of him could she still remember from her childhood?

In other words, had he ever told his daughter the truth about who he was?

Xiang Chenyu thought, probably not.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hidden away in Qingzhou, ignoring his poor, heartbroken parents.

Back then, he must have encountered something unexpected. Perhaps he had lost his memory, and that was why he no longer remembered his identity.