If the Deep Sea Forgets You

What Mo Han did not know was that she did not sleep at all after he had left.

She could not sleep at all. A few days ago, while she was roaming the streets wearing her hospital gown, she had not felt any desire to sleep. All she had felt was pain and coldness. During those two days, she had hidden underneath a playground slide and nobody had discovered her. If it had not been for the day when she had been so hungry she had to go to a supermarket to ask for some food, she would have continued staying in that corner.

The light in the room was switched off, leaving only the faint evening light to illuminate her room through the windows. She changed into the clothes he gave her and sat on the bed for some time before she felt a faint warmth. She could clearly hear Mo Han outside, washing up, closing the door, before a long silence.

She had just begun to feel sleepy. Her head rested on the bed and she felt drowsy. But then she heard the commotion outside. She wanted to get up to take a look, but her mind was groggy. Her head felt heavy.

She was not aware she had fainted, because she had sunk into that bottomless sea again.

That deep, vacuous ocean where she had found herself submerged when she had been at the hospital.

Mo Han went to the police station one more time.

He temporarily left aside a secondary appeal case which he had been preparing. What he really wanted to figure out now was the true identity of that little girl who was now in his house. He also wanted to know how to deal with this tricky situation.

He was a frequent visitor to the police station, since he had had to handle a great number of criminal offenses over the years, so he had a good working relationship with many of the police at the station. He had also received a great deal of useful information from the police.

“Is Old Zhang here today?” Mo Han queried one of the junior detectives.

The junior detective did not recognize the famous Barrister Mo, so he distractedly pointed to one of the rooms. “He’s in the interrogation room. Why don’t you wait inside his office for a while.”

Mo Han walked into Old Zhang’s office and waited patiently.

Roughly one hour later, Old Zhang finally returned to his office. He opened the door, shocked to see an erect but silent Mo Han. “Barrister Mo, why are you here?”

“I have an issue that I might need your help with.”

Old Zhang touched his head tenderly and smiled. “Why are you being so polite? Just now, Little Zhang told me somebody was looking for me. I was thinking who it might be! Turns out it’s you! It’s been a while since you paid us a visit, right?”

Old Zhang put down his documents, walked to the drinking fountain, and passed a cup of water to Mo Han. “Barrister Mo, it must be something important for you to come down to our police station personally. What is it? What do you need my help with?”

Mo Han cut to the chase. “I want you to help me investigate someone.”

Old Zhang saw the severity of Mo Han’s facial expression and understood that this was no trivial matter. He let Mo Han sit on the chair opposite him and asked, “Who are you looking for? What is his or her name?”

Mo Han replied, “She doesn’t have a name.”

Old Zhang was taken aback. “No name? How am I to investigate?”

Mo Han paused for a moment. “She’s… lost her memory. Her family hasn’t come to look for her either. I want you to help me do a search on her background.”

Old Zhang ruminated. “In that case… it’s going to be a bit tricky.”

Mo Han thought to himself. “Can you help me check the closed circuit television of the hospital’s entrance from one month ago, on April 14th? She was discovered there.”

Old Zhang rose from his seat and took Mo Han to the monitoring room. He rewound the tapes and looked for the video recordings from that day at the hospital.

The two sat on chairs with grim and serious expressions. Carefully, they inspected the video recordings, unwilling to miss even one suspicious segment. Mo Han tried to recall the exact time he had visited the hospital, watching the tape from an hour before his visit.

At last, half an hour before he had arrived, Mo Han discovered something strange.