Bear virus

Uncovering the Past

### Chapter Title: Uncovering the Past

Leaving the Bos Hotel, my mind was in turmoil. Lao Xie and Lao Zhu’s words kept echoing in my head, like waves relentlessly crashing against my previously held beliefs.

The truth had come so suddenly and unexpectedly that I needed time to process it. I went home with Cheng Zhuo and Lao Xie. Since meeting Yang Xiaomeng, I had moved out, taking with me the cat my mother had kept, so I hadn’t been back in a long time.

I took off my coat and glanced at my mother's portrait on the wall, now covered in dust. My mother had passed away during my university years, succumbing quickly to a severe illness.

Remembering these events cast a shadow over my mood. I walked to the sofa and sat down, deep in thought.

Cheng Zhuo asked, “Time is running out. Where should we start looking?”

I looked up and thought for a moment before saying, “Let’s start with my father’s bedroom.”

We spent the next few hours searching my parents' bedrooms, but we found nothing.

Feeling discouraged, I said, “So much time has passed; maybe it’s just not here anymore.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Cheng Zhuo urged. “Think hard. Could your father have hidden the vaccine sample somewhere else?”

I sighed, “I can’t remember. It’s been too long. Maybe my father never brought the sample home.”

“He must have brought it home,” Lao Xie insisted. “Do you recall anything strange your father said to you when you were young?”

Strange words? In the time before my father’s death, he did talk to me a lot, but I was too young to notice if his words held any deeper meaning. Now that I think about it, he might have embedded the information about the vaccine sample in my memory.

Sitting on the sofa, my gaze wandered around the room and settled on a small object by the foot of a cabinet. It looked familiar.

I squinted and realized it was a toy bear. My father had bought this bear for me at the zoo when I was six, after we couldn’t see the real bears. There were two bears, a male and a female. The female bear’s head broke off when I accidentally dropped it on the stairs, and I was upset for a long time. My father comforted me by burying it under the camphor tree in our yard, saying that when the male bear was damaged, we’d bury it there too, so they could be together forever. Since then, I had taken great care of the male bear, and despite its worn appearance, it remained intact.

I walked over and picked up the male bear. “I remember now.”

Lao Xie asked, “Remember what?”

“I know where my father hid the vaccine sample.”

Without further explanation, I found a small shovel in the storage room and headed to the old camphor tree in the yard. The tree had died years ago due to environmental degradation, leaving only a bare trunk.

I examined the camphor tree, recalling the spot where my father and I had buried the female bear. After a moment, I pinpointed the location and started digging with determination. Call it a father-son connection, but I had a strong feeling that my father had buried something important here.

As I dug, my heart pounded with anticipation.