The Night of the Broken Promise

But the police came bearing news of the mother's death.

In 2025, Wen Qitong returned to the county town to help her father move. Her father had first brought home an eight-year-old girl, planning to feed her dinner and wait for her mother to come get her.

The girl's mother, Hao Lingyi, had died in the break room of the transport company where Wen's father worked. The suitcase and phone she'd left there had both disappeared.

Twenty-four years earlier, after drinking, Wen Shaoting had driven his car into Lingyi's six-year-old brother and killed him. He served his sentence and paid compensation. Over the years, he'd also done a lot for the Hao family.

Before the murder, Lingyi had already bought a ticket to leave. Her child was waiting, and the ticket was still there, but she never made it to their meeting.

Jia He investigates the missing suitcase, while Wen Qitong is forced to face her father's past. The visits to pick up the child, drop off clothes, and fix things for others had all once been called taking care of them.

But Lingyi had clearly been preparing to leave. Why, in the end, couldn't she get out of that room?