On the first working day of 2027, Yanchuan received a photograph of the service compound’s gate.
It came from a man who said a mutual acquaintance had mentioned the family. He offered to visit, ask around, perhaps find someone willing to let him look inside. His fee would depend on what the visit produced.
Yanchuan read the message in a stairwell at work. The stairwell smelled of wet cement. He had been waiting there for an agreed call that had been postponed twice.
The photograph showed a gray gate, a partly painted wall, and a faded delivery sign. It was current, the man said. He could go again that afternoon.
How much? Yanchuan typed.
The reply arrived before he had descended a flight of stairs.
For several minutes he considered paying it himself and telling An only if something came of it. A small inquiry. No entry unless someone agreed. He could phrase it so that it sounded like the work he already knew had to be done.
Then the man sent another message: Tell me what evidence you want photographed.
Yanchuan stopped on the landing.
He forwarded the conversation to An. She called immediately.
“Have you paid?”
“No.”
“Have you sent the case documents?”
“No.”
“Good. Send this to Wanjiru.”
“He might find someone. We’re still waiting for an acknowledgment of the acknowledgment.”
“And what happens when he tells everyone at the gate who is looking?”
Yanchuan leaned against the wall. He could picture a worker noticing the photograph, a supervisor asking who had sent him, a useful witness deciding the family could not be trusted with a name. He could also picture nothing happening for another month.
“I can’t keep doing this,” he said.
An was silent long enough for him to hear a bus door hiss at her end.
“Which part do you think I’m not doing?”
He shut his eyes.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. Say what you mean anyway.”
He tried. He was afraid the search would slow until everybody could politely forget it. He was afraid his brother was somewhere measuring each day against the promise that his family would come. He was afraid the careful record they had built would become an excuse for never moving.
An let him finish.
“Yesterday I bought his toothpaste,” she said. “I reached for it without thinking. Then I stood there deciding whether putting it back meant something. I need you to help with this search. I can’t also stop you turning every fear into an instruction to someone else.”
He looked down at the message asking what evidence he wanted. The question had seemed eager. Now it sounded like an offer to manufacture a result-shaped absence.
He did not hire the man. He sent the contact and the exchange to Wanjiru, without supplying further details of the inquiry. She advised him to preserve the messages and stop engaging while the connection and proposed activity were checked.
By evening, Amina had learned that an unfamiliar caller had already asked a maintenance worker about the compound. The worker had not answered. It was unclear whether this was the same man. Yanchuan’s stomach tightened. His private shortcut had a life outside his phone.
He told An, including the uncertainty. She thanked him for telling her before asking him to make tea and call back in ten minutes.
When he did, she had made a list. One named contact for new material. One shared record of requests and replies. A regular time to review what had actually changed. They could still respond urgently to urgent information; they would stop making every silent day an emergency they had to solve before sleeping.
“You make it sound like a job,” he said.
“Somebody has to keep being able to do it.”
After the call, he checked his father’s messages. Jianming had sent a photograph of a new fitting on the repaired lamp. Yanchuan replied and asked about the wrist, then waited for the answer instead of returning to the gate photograph.
Before bed, he wrote the date at the top of the chronology. January had arrived without news of Yansheng. The new line recorded an action he had decided not to take. He sent An the updated chronology without adding another apology.