-20- The third version

Once again, Zhan had a sleepless night behind him in which he asked himself many questions that he could not answer. Again and again he looked at the place next to him in bed or turned on the light and looked around in his room. And every single time he hoped to see Yibo. But, he didn't see him. He was still gone and slowly Zhan didn't believe he would come back to him again.

In the shower, Zhan decided he would not wait for Yibo anymore. He felt the absence of the lost soul slowly making him angrier and angrier. Why didn't he contact him at least once in a while to let Zhan know he was okay? Zhan hadn't hurt him after all, so why had he left him ignorant and worried? What did he do to deserve that?

Just before Zhan went to work, he was on the phone with his little brother. He reminded Zhan that he hadn't been home with his family for a long time and asked him to come that weekend. His parents and siblings miss him and want to see him again. So he promised his little brother that as soon as he came home from work he would pack a few clothes and then come to see them.

Cheng was right, Zhan hasn't been home by his parents for months and lately they haven't been talking on the phone much either. Mostly only when Zhan had some questions about his grandmother. It was time to visit his family again and let his mother spoil him for a day or two.

Zhan has always been his mother's favorite child. Of course she didn't make any difference between them and loved them all three equally. But she always said Zhan was her favourite and her absolute wonder child. Thanks to the fact that Zhan shouldn't have been alive in the first place.

Shortly after his birth, Zhan was very sick. The doctors had given him a four percent chance that he could make it. And not a single doctor could explain what Zhan had, so they didn't know how to treat him. So they just treated his symptoms but not what caused all this.

For almost a month Zhan was in a coma as a baby and then, from one day to the next, Zhan not only woke up, he was perfectly healthy again. The sudden serious illness and his sudden recovery could never be explained. From then on, Zhan was many things for his mother. Her absolute wish child, her problem child, her wonder child and her favourite.

Zhan sat in his office and waited for the former police chief. In less than half an hour Mr. Lou was supposed to appear here and Zhan hoped to finally get the missing pieces of the puzzle. And as always when Zhan had to talk to someone from the police, he was very nervous. Even though he had never done anything wrong, he always felt like he had done something and now had to hide it before a policeman.

When there was a knock on the door at the 10 am on time, Zhan literally flinched and his heart beat almost to his throat. With a rough voice he called Mr. Lou in and sat up straight when the former police chief entered his office.

Without waiting for the invitation, Mr. Lou sat down on the desk in front of Zhan and said, "Let's get this over quickly. So I can finally get my peace of mind and you can stop bothering me with your phone calls."

"I wouldn't have had to bother you if you'd been cooperative from the start. All I want is some information about Wang Yibo's disappearance."

"Now before we play an annoying question and answer game, I suggest I just tell you what I know. My point of view and don't worry, I even brought some evidence." Replied Mr Lou.

Zhan turned on his voice recorder, handed Mr. Lou a form to sign, confirming that he is voluntarily providing this information and that Zhan may use it for his research and a possible article. And after Mr. Lou signed it, Zhan said, "Now you can begin, you have the word." Mr. Lou nodded, cleared his throat and put a stack of papers in front of him on the table, then he was ready.

"Well, if you think I've been stalking Wang Yibo all this time and warned him over and over again just because he's gay, you're wrong. Because my own son is also gay and that never bothered me. But my son started a career in his life that was not good for him, alcohol, drugs and gambling. He had been in prison three times because he kept getting into debt and not paying it. The judge said the next time he saw him, he would put him in a cell forever. So I did everything to keep him away from the bad influences. But that wasn't enough, because he still had a lot of debts."

"What does this have to do with Wang Yibo?" Zhan asked the former police chief.

"Just let me tell you, then you'll find out"

"OK, sorry... Keep talking."

"So as I said, my son was deeply in debt. My wife and I did all we could, to pay off his debts, but it just wasn't enough. No matter what we sold, no matter how many loans we took, it just wasn't enough. And then suddenly Mrs. Wang came up to me and offered me 2 million yuan if I managed to chase her youngest son out of the village. She gave me one million immediately, and the second million I would get when I finished my task."

Mr. Lou put some papers in front of Zhan and said, "These are the Wang's bank records, showing that Mrs. Wang has been putting money aside for many years. They are not penniless, nor did they have to get rid of their youngest son for financial reasons."

"But I had been inside the Wang's house. It' s absolutely run-down. Even the wallpaper is peeling off the walls. The fabric on the seating furniture is partly torn." Zhan replied.

"This is nothing but a façade. Half of the houses in the village belong to the Wang's. Everyone knows that. Except maybe the sons of the Wangs themselves. Because they gutted them financially like Christmas geese." Said Mr. Lou.

Zhan was completely stunned and couldn't believe it. But on the table in front of him was the clear evidence. "Okay, what else?" Zhan finally asked.

"To help my son, I made a deal with Mrs. Wang. I went after Yibo and threatened him. Mrs. Wang even told me what I should say to him. And she said, unless she tells me to stop, I must continue. This whole game lasted two years. And whenever I had enough, because I just felt sorry for Wang Yibo, she gave me a quarter of a million Yuan and I continued. Eventually, however, rumors spread in the village that the family had made up and that they didn't want to get rid of Yibo after all. So I spoke to Mrs. Wang. She laughed and said it is just an act. They would now try to pretend that they could deal with Yibo's homosexuality and secretly they tried to get him to leave. Did she tell you what they were arguing about the night when Yibo ran off late at night and had the accident?"

"No, she didn't tell me that." Zhan replied.

"She dropped her mask that night and told Yibo to quit both of his jobs, because the money wouldn't be enough for the family anyway. He should finally give in and go away, after all, he was old enough to take care of himself now. On this day she found out that she was excluded as heiress for her father's fortune because she has a gay son. At least she blamed Yibo, but I don't know if this is true. He didn't run away willingly either. She had packed him a bag and thrown him out late that night."

"But Hai Kuan should have known something. It seems that only Mrs. Wang could have done that. Didn't Mr Wang say anything?

"Mr. Wang has no authority at home and depends on his wife, so he does what she asks. Hai Kuan was not at home that night. He' been in a relationship for a long time. He often stayed out all night. But he always told his parents he had to work."

"Then what about the accident? Mrs. Wang said they were looking for Yibo and found his motorcycle."

"The question you should be asking is why did Mrs. Wang leave the house just after Yibo and drive off with the car again?"

"Are you saying she caused her son's accident?

"Wang Hai Kuan and Yibo are not even her biological sons. She is their stepmother. After their biological mother died, Mr. Wang found himself a new wife. A wealthy and clever one on top of that. For years, she was a loving mother to the two boys. And had it not been for Mr. Wang's eye illness, which prevented him from receiving his high salary, she might have continued to be a loving stepmother. But I' m not so sure about this. Everything happened almost simultaneously and Yibo was the one who had to suffer. And, yes, it was she who caused Yibo's accident."

"And is there any evidence of this?" Asked Zhan. He was already confused. This is the third version he hears about the whole thing around Wang Yibo and without the evidence he had in front of him, he wouldn't know which of the three versions to believe.

"Ms. Wang called me in the middle of the night and said she had taken matters into her own hands now and finally got rid of Yibo. She told me to make her car disappear. And not to let anyone look for him under any circumstances. I told her that it would not be that easy and that in any case, even without his intervention, Yibo would be searched for. So she told me to just pretend. I should call in search teams, but tell them some kid is missing. She promised me to transfer another million yuan that night. So I agreed to do it. In the morning, I received a report in the office that Yibo's motorcycle had been found on the country road and Yibo was missing. I did what Ms. Wang told me to do. And while the villagers searched for Yibo, the police searched for a missing child, which was not exists."

"You do realize that you've committed a crime and you'll go to jail for it, right?" Zhan asked angrily.

"What more do I have to lose? My wife died of cancer three months ago and my son is finally getting better. He's undergone therapy and started a decent life. He's out of debt. Now I don't care about anything else." Mr. Lou replied.

"And what was that about the clinic when you found Yibo there?"

"I told Mrs. Wang that Yibo might have been found. She got angry and said, that she dragged him to the river and threw him in. When I heard that, my blood froze in my veins. And then she said if it was really him, I should get him out of there and bring him to her, she would take care of it. That I just shouldn't say who he is. She kept calling me or coming to the police station and threatening me. She blackmailed me into revealing my involvement in everything. But when I kept telling her they wouldn't give him to me because he was in a coma, she was so close to freaking out. And I got so fed up, I quit my job. I took my wife and my son and left the village as fast as I could. After that I never heard from her again until you called me."

"If you really don't care, why didn't you surrender to the police yourself? Why did you keep covering it up? If you never wanted to say anything, why did you secretly gather evidence to prove Mrs. Wang's guilt?" Zhan asked.

"Isn't it obvious? I just thought I had to protect myself from her, so I gathered all the evidence I could. So if she kept trying to blackmail me, I'd have something to stop her."

"You realize I'm going to have to report this to the police, don't you?"

"Of course. But I went to the police this morning and filed a complaint against myself. The officer allowed me to have this interview with you afterwards. He's waiting for me outside. You know each other, so he agreed."

"And Mrs. Wang? What will happen now?"

"I've brought her into this. The investigator sent two men to arrest Mrs. Wang. She won't get away with it." Mr. Lou replied.

Zhan didn't know what to say. Luckily there was a knock at his door. It was the investigator who came to get Mr. Lou and bring him back to the police station.

"So the only question is, where is Wang Yibo now?" The investigator asked.

Zhan nodded and said, "I'm on it. I'll find him."

After Zhan let all the new information sink for a moment, he went to his chief editor and played him the recording. He kept shaking his head, and finally said, "Make an article out of that. Give out everything you know and publish the picture of Wang Yibo. Maybe your e-mail was overlooked. Find him and bring the two brothers back together. And then write an article about it."

Zhan wasn't sure if he really wanted to write a second article. But he would definitely write the first one. He wanted everyone to know what Wang Yibo had to suffer, only he wanted to leave out that it was because of homosexuality. He would leave this out, and his chief editor also said: "You don't have to tell anybody that he is gay. Just write that there was an incident in the family that started all this because the stepmother couldn't handle it. You'll think of a way to write it."

It took Zhan a full six hours to write the article, but by the time he finished and his chief editor gave the green light, he was ready to be published. And the very next day, his article would not only be in the newspaper, but also on the Internet. Right on the cover.

The truth is finally out! But is that really all? And has Zhan really given up waiting for Yibo's return?

A/N: Actually this chapter should be split into part 1 and 2. But I changed my mind and put it into one chapter. A long chapter.