Xie Lian felt rude that this man could remember him but that Xie Lian could not remember his name. How did he recognize him? He hadn't had strangers recognize him recently, and this man certainly has not seen him for many, many years. "Hi, I do recognize you!" He responded kindly. "You're that boy from the group home from nearly two decades ago! I'm afraid I don't remember your name, though, I'm sorry."

"Nonsense, I'm honored that you remember me at all, gege," the man responded. "Please call me Sanlang. It's only natural for a star like you to not remember my name."

Xie Lian blushed. "Please, I haven't performed for years and years," he responded as he waved his hands. "How have you been? When I started working at the group home, you weren't there, so you must have either been adopted or aged out of the system."

"You work at the group home now? That's perfect for you, you were so good with us," Sanlang replied. "Thanks to your generosity, I've been able to go to university after I aged out of the home. I work in the music industry now, after your inspiration."

Xie Lian blushed even further. It made sense now why he wore such flashy clothing, he worked in the music industry. "You flatter me too much, Sanlang, I did the singing and dancing, but so many people worked to create the songs and dances and market it and such."

"Nonsense, I've heard of how much direction you gave in terms of the overall vision for your brand," Sanlang replied.

"Oh, don't be so modest yourself! Look at you, the statistics for people like you aging out of the system is awful, but you've put yourself through university! You should be very proud of yourself." Xie Lian meant it. Even with Xie Lian's financial help, not many of the children from the home could make it to a university. It wasn't that all of them needed or wanted to, obviously, but Xie Lian remembered some of them trying hard but still not quite making it. Some of the children even ended up homeless despite his attempts at helping, and he did his best to lend them money, connect them to local resources for seeking jobs, connect them to drug rehab centers, and so on. Xie Lian always thought that this boy—now man—seemed like one of the less damaged ones. From what he heard, Sanlang was in the system because his parents died in an accident and he had no relatives who could take him. His parents were poor, but loving, and that seemed to have made a lot of difference. Unfortunately, though, he entered the system too old and could not get adopted, and aged out as a foster child. "You say you work in the music industry—do you work for a record label?"

"I do, yes."

Xie Lian had a gut feeling. It couldn't be—could it? There were many record labels out there, from large, established ones to small new ones, and Sanlang could be working for any one of them, but still. "You wouldn't happen to work for Ghost City Records, would you?"

Sanlang widened his eyes. "How did you know, gege?"

"Just a wild guess!" Xie Lian replied. "I have a friend who works there. It's very impressive how much it's grown in such a short amount of time!"

Sanlang shook his head. "The Internet became prominent and piracy became common, so Heavenly Capital started heavily cutting the artists' share of the profit due to poor sales. But now that people are buying music again, artists realized that they weren't getting paid what they deserve, so we give them a far bigger cut with more or less identical services and they come flocking to us. The market was ripe for disruption, anyway."

"Interesting!" Xie Lian replied. "Heavenly Capital must have done the same eventually to be competitive, though, right?"

"That's a good question," Sanlang said. "Indeed they did, but it was too late. Ghost City Records is currently better at marketing in new media on the Internet anyway, among other advantages."

Xie Lian nodded. "That's an amazing accomplishment. One of my friends despises any and all record labels, though, and there seems to be more people who think that way these days than back when I was active. What's going on with that?"

"Well, most artists either have no clue how to do the business or legal side of things, or they don't have the connections to do it," Sanlang replied dryly. "Artists can do whatever they wish, but Ghost City Records is very fair to them I believe."

"I see, I see. You must have been a business major, I'm guessing?" Xie Lian said, impressed.

Sanlang nodded with a smile. "Gege is sharp, as always."

Xie Lian didn't think so, from the way Sanlang talked he sounded like someone who was in upper management, or at least someone who cared about the big industry picture rather than just focusing on the small day-to-day tasks at hand—not that those were any less important, though, of course. Who did they say was the CEO of the Ghost City Records? Hua something, if Xie Lian remembered correctly. Xie Lian didn't know why he even considered the possibility of Sanlang being this Hua person, they were in a suburban grocery store in the middle of nowhere for gosh's sake, and there must be so many people working at Ghost City Records, but here he was considering the rather remote possibility.

Oh well, Xie Lian should really get going now, he'd dilly-dallied long enough! "It was really pleasant to make your acquaintance, I'm so happy to see you doing well. I'll stop holding you up now, ha ha. I'm done with my shopping as well, I should really go check out and get back to the home." Xie Lian said as he started heading toward the register.

"Hold on, gege, I'm just here to pick up some magazines." Sanlang replied as he picked some magazines off the shelf and started following Xie Lian. "I'm enjoying our conversation, I'd like to continue it a little bit longer, if you don't mind."

Xie Lian shrugged. "Sure, why not? I'm enjoying talking to you as well," he said as he looked up at Sanlang next to him. Sanlang was smiling pleasantly at him, and Xie Lian felt himself flush again, for some reason.

"I'm glad," Sanlang said. "Who is your friend working at Ghost City Records? I'm curious, I might know him."

"My friend's name is Feng Xin, he used to write songs for me. It seems that he works with you guys now," Xie Lian said as he settled on a register to get in line for. He thought that it was strange that Sanlang was only here for magazines when he could just buy the electronic copies from home these days. He must also be living closer to the city if he was working in the music industry, so this grocery store must be rather out of the way for him as well. Maybe Sanlang had some nefarious intentions, but maybe he was just visiting his old group home or something? Xie Lian felt that the latter was more likely.

"I do hear of him from my coworker, Yin Yu," Sanlang said.

"Great!" Xie Lian said as he walked forward a little bit as the line shortened by one person. "We should all hang out together sometime. What are you doing all the way out here, by the way? Visiting your old group home?"

"That's exactly it," Sanlang replied with a smile. "My career finally settled down, so I was thinking about volunteering at the home. I took a day off of work today and was visiting the old familiar places around here."

Ah, that makes a lot more sense, Xie Lian thought. "That's amazing to hear! I'm sure the kids will appreciate someone like you, who understands what it's like to be part of the system," Xie Lian said excitedly. "We have someone new joining the home today, too—"

Suddenly, Xie Lian's phone started to ring. Oh no, Xie Lian thought.

Sanlang's brows forrowed. "Is it the home?"

Xie Lian nodded as he saw the caller ID on his phone. "Hello, Jian Lan… Yes, what's wrong?... What?!"

They were now at the register, and Sanlang started putting Xie Lian's groceries in front of the cashier for him. He was familiar with the home, so he thankfully made no comments about the feminine hygiene products and condoms and such. The cashier lady was making funny faces at those, though, but she thankfully made no comments either.

"Have you tried… Uh huh… I see, call the police and I'll help go search around immediately," Xie Lian said on his phone and then hung up.

It was then that Xie Lian realized that Sanlang was trying to pay for all the groceries, including Xie Lian's. "Sanlang, no need to do that, let me pay for those," he said as he got out his credit card.

"No, no, I already had them scan my magazines as well. Please let me do this for you, it's the least I can do after all that you've done," Sanlang countered as he handed his card to the cashier. "What happened?"

Xie Lian sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "All right, thank you Sanlang. The new child—his name is Lang Ying—who came to the home today disappeared from his room. The staff overseeing him left him for a minute, and he's nowhere to be found in the house! He's only twelve!"

This kind of situation was unfortunately too common. Xie Lian had heard from too many foster kids about how they often felt the need to escape to somewhere that felt more like home, even though no such thing existed for them. It could be very bad for the child for obvious reasons—what if they became homeless? Be trafficked? Turn up dead somewhere?

"Gege, I'm familiar with the area here, I can help you search. Here is my phone number, can you send me a picture of Lang Ying?"

Xie Lian felt slightly relieved. "Thank you so much, Sanlang," he said as typed Sanlang's phone number into his phone and texted over a picture.

Sanlang's phone buzzed, and Sanlang took a look at the text. "Now I have your number as well. Call me if you find him, and I'll do the same."

Xie Lian nodded as he grabbed his groceries and ran to his car, and Sanlang ran to his.

Xie Lian kept darting his eyes back and forth between the road and the sidewalk as he drove around the suburb where the group home—an old office building converted to a home—was located. It had been less than ten minutes since Lang Ying disappeared, and unless Lang Ying had a bicycle or something similar, he likely hadn't left more than one mile from the group home. Since Lang Ying was a foster child, Xie Lian doubted that he had those things with him, so Xie Lian focused in the area. He could not find him in that roughly one-mile radius around the group home, after another five minutes, though, so Xie Lian expanded the area he was searching, and even stopped and ran around certain areas like parks, small groves, and abandoned buildings.

Another five minutes passed, and Xie Lian still could not find him. The more time passed, the more places Lang Ying could have ran away to, and the harder it became to search. Xie Lian was thankful that Sanlang and the police were searching as well, at the least.

Xie Lian drove around while looking around some more, and kept expanding his area of search. Under the bridge? At the local pharmacy? How about the library? Its bathrooms? Unfortunately, the boy was nowhere to be found.

As he searched and searched, he felt more and more anxious, his thoughts getting more and more intrusive. This wasn't the first time Xie Lian dealt with one of the kids attempting to run away, but the kids were usually found relatively quickly. The kids who weren't found quickly, well—all he and the group home staff could do was to hope that the police found them, which they usually did not. Xie Lian did not know what happened to those poor children.

Suddenly, Xie Lian's cell phone rang, and he saw that it was Sanlang. Hopeful, he answered the phone immediately. "Hello?"

"Gege, I think I found him!"

Xie Lian breathed a huge sigh of relief. "That's amazing, Sanlang, thank you, thank you so much! Where did you find him? How did you find him?"

Sanlang chuckled on the other side of the phone. "I'm happy to be of help, gege. I think that I was just lucky—I doubt that I was doing anything special that gege wasn't already doing. I happened to see him run into a store and into its bathroom, it looked like he wanted to lock himself in the bathroom so that no one would come in."

Xie Lian nodded. "Can you drive him to the home? We'll have Jian Lan confirm that that's him, she's the only person who's seen him in person so far."

Sanlang agreed, and Xie Lian started driving back to the group home. On the way, he contacted Jian Lan to let her know. She let out a long string of swears, talking about how she kept looking inside and outside the house this whole time and how she felt like throwing up from feeling worried, but overall she was happy to hear the news.

Xie Lian got back to the group home, and saw that Sanlang and Lang Ying had arrived first. Xie Lian was taken aback when he saw Sanlang's car in the driveway—a bright red convertible, very expensive looking. Maybe he is the CEO or someone close to that position after all, Xie Lian thought wryly.

Jian Lan had come out of the home to see Lang Ying just now, another staff member—Xiao Ying—behind her. When Jian Lan saw Lang Ying, she cried, "YOU LITTLE RUNT!"

Xie Lian took it as confirmation that the boy was indeed Lang Ying.

He knew Jian Lan's temper, but he was concerned it was too much for the poor boy right now. According to his case worker, he never could quite fit into any of his foster homes, whether because one of the foster parents didn't like him, or one of the other children didn't like him, or he himself didn't like the parent or other children. Some of the homes he'd been to sounded down-right abusive. He didn't have any history of violence or crime, though, so that was a plus. It sounded like he had decent grades in his schools as well. He just had a history of running away from nearly all of his homes.

"Now, now, Lang Ying is safe and sound here, see, Jian Lan?" Xie Lian said calmly as he got out of his car and walked toward everybody. "I appreciate your concern, but there is no need to yell, I'm sure that Lang Ying is feeling horrible as well."

Jian Lan was breathing heavily. Xie Lian could tell that she was holding back a lot of words, and he could understand where she was coming from given how he himself felt extremely stressed and anxious just a little bit ago. He decided to change the topic of conversation. "How are the other children? They must be back from school by now?"

Jian Lan replied, "They're all right, they're in the home. Now's time for their independent study, they're all in their rooms now."

The group home was one of the better ones, because the building was an old office building with many, many rooms, so each child had their own room, though the rooms were small. They found that having the children share rooms tended to create more problems than not, so they invested in a building with many, many rooms.

"They're probably not studying," Sanlang remarked.

Jian Lan glared at him. "Xie Lian, who is this?"

"He aged out of this very group home, and now he's very successful!" Xie Lian replied. "He wants to volunteer for us."

Jian Lan raised an eyebrow. "You sure bring a lot of volunteers here, Xie Lian. Come here, Mr. Hotshot, I'll get you some paperwork and training material. Xie Lian, I'm assigning Xiao Ying here to be Lang Ying's main caretaker, you guys go spend time together."

Sanlang crossed his arms and silently followed after Jian Lan. For some reason, Xie Lian thought of Sanlang as someone who always smiled, but right now he looked neutral—a little frowny, even.

Xie Lian turned toward Lang Ying, who was silent this whole entire time. "We're just glad that you're safe, Lang Ying. I know you must be nervous, since this is your first day here—at our home, we give you an allowance to spend on buying things for your new room, to help you feel like it's yours."

At this, Lang Ying perked up, his eyes wide.

Xie Lian smiled. "It looks like you like that idea? How about we go shopping, with Miss Xiao Ying here? There's a nice mall that we can take you to." Usually, only one staff went with the child for this sort of thing, but since Lang Ying was an obvious flight risk, Xie Lian felt that it was best if he went along as well.

Lang Ying nodded rather exaggeratedly, and Xie Lian smiled wider. He took Xiao Ying and Lang Ying in his car and went to the mall. On the way, Xie Lian called Jian Lan and made sure that she contacted the police about finding the boy, which she did. Xie Lian was relieved to see that Lang Ying seemed to get along well with Xiao Ying, and Lang Ying bought some clothes, as well as lamps, paintings, sheets, and such that he picked out himself. Like a typical boy, he seemed to like buying blue things. He also seemed interested in a guitar, so Xie Lian bought him a cheap one and promised to teach him how to play it—Xie Lian hoped that it would help him make friends at his new school.

Lang Ying bought a few more things for himself, and then they returned to the group home. Lang Ying seemed like he was in a much better mood, so he left him and Xiao Ying so that they can go decorate his new room.

Xie Lian then went to see Jian Lan, and asked how onboarding Sanlang as a volunteer went.

"Sanlang?" Jian Lan said, puzzled. "That's not the name he wrote on his paperwork."

Xie Lian blinked, slightly surprised but not really. "Oh? What's his name, then?"

"Hua Cheng."

Later, Xie Lian decided to search "Ghost City Records Hua Cheng" in a search engine, and lo and behold, the CEO of Ghost City Records was also named Hua Cheng.