By morning, the document had five columns: time, person, claim, source, and what remained unconfirmed. Yanchuan kept widening the last one.
An called at seven forty. She had slept beside her phone, which meant she had barely slept. Her husband’s employer had finally sent the name of its local representative. The representative said a report had been made to the police. An wanted a copy, not another assurance.
“They told me they are handling it,” she said.
“Did they send the reference?”
“I’ve asked three times.”
Yanchuan wrote that down, then stopped. A slow response was frustrating; it did not establish why it was slow. He wanted the chronology to be an accusation because accusations had momentum. Dates merely sat there until someone checked them. He added the times of her requests instead of his opinion.
At work, the cooling chart waited on his screen. His supervisor, Chen, stood behind him holding a mug with a chipped handle.
“You sent the wrong version.”
“I haven’t sent a version.”
“Exactly.”
Yanchuan explained enough. Chen’s expression changed, then took on the troubled practicality of a man who still had a client at ten.
“Take today. Send me the assumptions first. Someone else needs to be able to finish.”
The request stung because it was reasonable. For one absurd second he wanted Chen to insist that nothing at work mattered beside a missing man. Chen was offering him the opposite: a way to leave without making somebody else guess at his unfinished work. Yanchuan spent twenty minutes putting warnings back into the notes he had simplified the day before. Then he went downstairs to call his father.
Lin Jianming listened without interrupting. Traffic moved past the office entrance in a shining, impatient line.
“What have the police said?” his father asked.
“We’re confirming the report.”
“Then confirm it before you tell your mother a story.”
There was no mother to tell; she had been dead six years. Jianming corrected himself with a small cough. Yanchuan looked away from the passing cars. Neither of them mentioned the mistake.
At noon, An received a scan and a contact number. The scan named Yansheng, gave a last reported location, and recorded the date his absence had been reported. It did not say he had been seen at that location on that date. Those were different things. An marked the distinction before Yanchuan did.
Through the official contact details they had independently found, she sought consular assistance and forwarded the reference. The reply asked for identity documents, recent photographs, local contacts, and the employer’s account. Nobody promised a rescue team. Someone would help them communicate with the authorities handling the case.
Yanchuan collected photographs. Most were wrong for the purpose. Yansheng in a mask. Yansheng half hidden behind his son’s birthday cake. Yansheng laughing with his head turned, becoming recognizable only to people who already loved him.
An chose a recent photograph from an equipment visit. Face forward, no sunglasses. She cropped it without removing the original.
“He hated that one,” she said. “He said he looked like he was waiting for a complaint.”
Yanchuan almost smiled. Then the company called again.
Its manager, Luo, spoke of an employee who had missed a departure, a hotel checkout, a possible private trip. Each phrase seemed to make the absence smaller.
“Who confirmed the checkout?” An asked, with Yanchuan listening on the shared call.
“Our local partner.”
“A person at the hotel, or the partner repeating what they were told?”
Luo hesitated. “I’ll obtain the written record.”
“And who last saw him?”
“We are checking.”
They ended with a list of promised documents and a time for the next response. It was less satisfying than accusing him of lying. It was also something they could use.
That evening Yanchuan sent An the chronology. She returned it with two corrections: the time of her last call, and the spelling of a technician’s name. Under the police reference she had written, Keep this at the top. Every person asks for it.
He moved it to the first page. For the first time, the family had a number attached to what had happened. He had expected that to feel like progress. Instead, he imagined a drawer somewhere with many such numbers inside it.
His phone vibrated. Du Mei had examined the spreadsheets.
Don’t compare the totals yet, she wrote. Compare what each total is allowed to contain.
He added a new row to the chronology: technical review requested. In the final column he wrote, Relationship to disappearance unknown.
Before saving, he read that sentence aloud. It was the first sentence of the day he could defend without changing a word.