His disappearance

Three hours had passed, and there were still no signs of Cree.

Qiao Ruo bit on the edge of her straw, trying to ease her nervousness. She stared at her smartphone screen while thinking of hundreds of possibilities of where he could have gone. A glass of the anti-anxiety smoothie she had prepared from a recipe scoured from the internet sat innocently on the coffee table. The recipe suggested using avocado, some dates, bananas, almond butter and cacao powder and claimed that drinking a glass of such a drink could alleviate stress.

Everything was just too overwhelming, and her insecurities were starting to hound her as Cree did not return as promised. She found herself dialling Cree's number, and before she could terminate the call, it had connected to his voicemail. She was dismayed that he had switched off his smartphone as if he was hiding something from her.

She reminded herself that she had performed the same to him earlier, and his words rung in her ears.

"Xiaoruo, is there something you need to tell me?"

"Xiaoruo, you know you matter the most to me. If something is bothering you, you have to tell me, alright? I promised you that I would make you happy, and I have to fulfil my promise. You touched my heart, and I will do all I can to give you a blissful and comfortable life. Do you know how it worries me to see you unhappy?"

"Cree, you're saying it as if you are proposing marriage to me," she had told him shyly.

"What if I am?" he teased, and her cheeks increased in redness.

"Cree, you know it's not the time for us."

"I know. I was kidding," Cree said with a smile and held her hands tightly to his chest. "But you do know I have your interests at heart, Xiaoruo. You're the only woman who I would ever want to spend the rest of my life with."

She scowled. "How long will those words last? You're a rich and successful young man, what if more beauties come your way?"

"Then it's up to you to chase them away."

She pouted. "Always me."

He chuckled and whispered in her ear, "Yes. Always you... in my heart."

Qiao Ruo finished her drink, unsure about the unsettling sensation in her heart. Something appeared to be amiss, and she didn't like the lingering feeling. Instead of calming down, her heart was palpitating, and she couldn't wait for her uncomfortableness to be gone when Cree returned home.

........

"I hope you are ready for this." Ye An handed over a brown envelope containing the information that he had requested for earlier. From the discomfort written in his assistant's eyes, Cree fathomed that it could not be good news. The men exchanged stares, and neither said anything for what seemed like forever. The food on the table was getting cold, but Cree didn't care. He sipped the cup of tea before him, and slowly unscrewed the string holding the envelope together.

Even the ordinarily calm Ye An was appearing to be disturbed. Before the meeting, he had predicted that his friend and supervisor would not take to his well, and this filled him with concern for Cree. It was the first time Cree had fallen in love, and finding that his beloved woman had connections to his parents' demise was not something Cree could handle well.

"Bro, do tell me you are alright." Outside of Qing Tian and the publishing company, Cree saw and treated Ye An as a brother and good friend. One look at Cree's eyes and the observant Ye An could tell that although Cree was hiding it well, he was hurting on the inside. Cree carried his emotions mostly in his eyes, and due to this reason, Cree would often wear sunglasses or tinted spectacles to shelter his feelings in his eyes from view by others. He detested having his feelings being conspicuous to others, and being Cree allowed him to continue appearing ethereal to those who knew him, except Ye An, and now Qiao Ruo.

Behind his shades, Cree's eyes were large and bulging, and he had been staring intensely at the page in front of him for several long minutes. Ye An had the biodata of a person printed on the sheet, and it showed the actual identity of the woman he deeply loved in his heart. Qiao Ruo. Her beautiful face smiled back at him on the sheet of paper. Still, it was the facts about her identity and birth presented alongside with her name and personal information that cut into him like a knife: her birth, her connections to the very people who had taken his parents from him, and her biological parents. He was overwhelmed with pain. But even then, how could he ever hate her for being the daughter of her parents?

"I can't believe... she is... her," he gulped and took a few long strides to leave the restaurant. In contrast to being the Head of Designer of Qing Tian Group, bringing glory to his adoptive father's businesses, and everything he had achieved and done in his life, this realization had practically ruined him in just one minute. The excruciating pain in his heart was too much for him to accept, and he needed to take a few breaths outside, distancing himself from everyone.

"Wait up, bro!" Ye An shouted, but Cree paid him no heed. As soon as he was out of the restaurant, he took to his feet and ran. Cree was attempting to relieve himself from all the pain and emotions coursing through his body. To him, sports and running helped him to deal with stress. The only drawback was that compared to those times he was exercising, currently, he was dealing with extreme anxiety.

Moreover, he was in a risky position. The builders of the restaurant had it inconveniently located far from the bustling city, carefully selected by Cree as to not divulge his whereabouts. However, getting to the restaurant involved taking a long and dark route through a dark alley, exposing him to danger.

What happened next had been unexpected. Without warning, a man in a surgical mask emerged behind him in the alley, armed with a baseball bat. The man appeared to be extremely adept in his moves, as the attack landed squarely on Cree's back before he had enough time to react. The impact had sent him sprawling across the hard pavement. From a distance, Ye An witnessed what had happened to his friend. Ye An didn't know who Cree had offended, or why his assailant had dealt him such a vicious attack. Immediately he had rushed to the scene, but the last he glimpsed was a group of masked men in black carrying a sack, vanishing into the darkness of the alley.

Ye An's heart sank like a stone, but unlike Cree, he was not fit enough to catch up with Cree's kidnappers in his pursuit. By the time he reached the end of the dark passage, all he had spotted was the back of a truck departing the lonely street. Out of the corner of his eye, a smashed up smartphone lay in the corner of the road. Recalling Cree in possession of such a smartphone earlier, he carefully retrieved it from the ground and pocketed it.

The only thing he had left to do was to call Qiao Ruo. Albeit her real identity, she was still Cree's woman and had the right to know of his abduction. He scrolled his phonebook to stop at the number saved as 'Sister-in-Law'.

He had left her about fifteen unanswered calls when she finally called back.

"I am Qiao Ruo, who is this?" Over the phone, she had sounded as if she had been crying and seemed a bit disoriented.

"This is Ye An. Something has happened to Cree," he told her emotionally. Her response was calm, and she did not fret.

"You have to find a way to save him. I promised him that we could be together, but I have been receiving threatening messages for over a week. I ignored them, thinking it was a scam, but now that something has happened to Cree, it doesn't sound like a coincidence any longer. Please, I beg you, save Cree."

"I'll do my utmost, Miss Qiao Ruo. But do you have any leads?"

"Li Yao." She had sounded so determined and convinced that Li Yao was the culprit. To coerce her into leaving Cree, it appeared that she would do anything, and that included keeping him from her by abducting him. While Qiao Ruo was concerned for his safety, how would he come to any danger if his mother was the mastermind behind his abduction? But what if she was wrong, and the mastermind was not Li Yao?

"Are you sure?" Ye An asked in a faltering tone.

"I am about eighty per cent confirmed, but I do not know if Cree has ever offended someone in his business dealings."

"Miss, I promise you that I will look into it," he pledged his loyalty.

"Thank you," she told Ye An, and the call promptly disconnected.

In the solitude of her room, Qiao Ruo huddled in a corner, staring at the framed photograph sitting on the dresser. It was a selfie photograph of them taken at the beach. Tears trickled down her cheeks when she recalled how happy they had been just almost a week ago, behaving as if they were the only people existent in the world. Her heart throbbed with pain, but she maintained her composure and reminded herself to be strong for him.

"Cree, where are you?" She could only face the blank ceiling above her head and pine for him, worried for his safety.