After not hearing Qin Hao's reply, Gu Chen seemed to understand something and didn't ask any more questions, but just silently shed tears.
Another half hour passed, and Qin Hao and his bodyguards couldn't sit still any longer after confirming that they still hadn't found Gu Zheng.
He glanced at Gu Chen, gritted his teeth, and decided to go out and look for him himself, otherwise even if the bodyguards found him, they probably wouldn't be able to bring Gu Zheng back.
"Xiao Chen, can your uncle talk to you about something? Your uncle is going to find your dad and bring him back. You stay at the hotel and wait for us to come back, okay?"
It was really inconvenient to go out looking for someone with a child in tow, so Qin Hao had no choice but to leave the child behind.
Gu Chen didn't throw a tantrum; instead, he obediently nodded.
"Okay, I'll be a good boy and wait here for you to come back, Uncle. You must help me find my eldest father. I don't have a younger father anymore, and I don't want to lose an older father too."
Hearing this, Qin Hao felt a pang of sadness and said,
"Okay, your uncle will definitely help you find your dad. Be a good boy, and if your uncle doesn't come back, don't open the door for anyone, okay?"
"Okay, Uncle, don't worry, I'll be good."
Gu Chen sat up on the bed, looking obedient.
After Qin Hao helped Gu Chen put the TV away, he went out. Of course, when he left, he still asked the hotel receptionist to watch the child and not let him go out.
Qin Hao was completely unfamiliar with the area and had no idea how to find Gu Zheng. He had originally wanted to call Xia Ran, but considering Xia Ran's attitude today, he decided against it, and besides, he didn't have Xia Ran's phone number.
Gu Chen sat alone in the room for two hours, but he couldn't sit still any longer. He pursed his lips; he was a little hungry.
He's so hungry, if he goes to his stepfather, will his stepfather feel sorry for him and forgive him?
But what if my uncle comes back and I can't find him?
Gu Chen hesitated for a moment, but in the end, his desire to get his stepfather to forgive him won out.
Gu Chen put on his shoes, opened the door, and went out, remembering to close the door behind him.
He's always been smart, and he knows how to use an elevator. He pressed the button for the first floor, and got out after the elevator doors opened.
Qin Hao had asked the receptionist to watch the child, and at that moment he turned around to find something, so he didn't notice a small figure leaving.
Gu Chen walked outside the hotel, looking at the somewhat unfamiliar place, and tried hard to recall the route to his stepfather's house.
He walked slowly, unaware that someone had been following him all along the way.
Even if he found out, he wouldn't think much of it; after all, Gu Chen was still just a child.
Qin Hao found Gu Zheng almost three hours after he left the hotel.
Seeing Gu Zheng sitting on a bench by the roadside, Qin Hao was furious. He walked over and growled.
"Gu Zheng! What exactly are you trying to do? You ran away without a word. Did you even consider that someone might look for you? And the child is terrified, he keeps asking me if you're all going to abandon him!"
"Gu Zheng, Gu Zheng, you can't even handle a little setback? How can you expect Xia Ran to forgive you like this?"
Qin Hao was also angered, so he directly called out Gu Zheng's name.
Honestly, if this person weren't his brother, he would never have bothered with all this mess.
Hearing Qin Hao's words, Gu Zheng did not react at all, but just stared at Qian Nian.
Seeing Gu Zheng's expression, Qin Hao could only helplessly sit down next to him and ask,
"You've been sitting here the whole time? What's so great about sitting here? I know you're in a bad mood, but even if you're in a bad mood, you shouldn't neglect the child, right?"
"The first time I brought my child to see Xia Ran, Xia Ran brought me here." Gu Zheng suddenly spoke, his voice not loud, but loud enough for Qin Hao to hear clearly.
Qin Hao felt both angry and helpless upon hearing this.
"But so what? We can't go back. What you need to do now is get Xia Ran to forgive you. Didn't you swear back then that you would wait for Xia Ran for several years? Now, only a few days have passed and you can't even take it anymore?"
Gu Zheng: "It's not that I can't stand it, I just couldn't accept it when I heard Xia Ran say that he didn't like me anymore. He clearly liked me so much, how could he not like me anymore now?"
Gu Zheng muttered to himself, it was unclear whether he was speaking to Qin Hao or to himself.
Qin Hao sighed and rubbed his throbbing temples.
"This is the path you have to take to get Xia Ran to forgive you. Now hurry back, the child is still alone in the hotel, he will be scared."
As Qin Hao spoke, he stood up and went to the roadside to find a taxi, while Gu Zheng also stood up and got into the taxi.
Qin Hao breathed a sigh of relief; he had been quite afraid that Gu Zheng wouldn't want to go back with him.
Chapter 215 Gu Chen is Lost
What Qin Hao didn't expect was that something even more devastating awaited them after they returned to the hotel.
Looking at the empty hotel room, Qin Hao's mind went blank. He had searched the bathroom and balcony, but there was no sign of Gu Chen.
Gu Zheng, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke up when he saw that the child was not in the hotel room.
"Where's the child? Didn't you say the child was alone in the room?"
Gu Zheng's face was extremely pale, but it was not hard to see his worry at this moment.
"I told the child to wait for me here when I went out." Qin Hao's expression was also not good. "By the way, I also asked the receptionist downstairs to keep an eye on things. I'll go ask her."
Qin Hao practically stormed out of the door. If anything really happened to the child, not only would Gu Zheng not let him off the hook, but he himself wouldn't let himself off the hook either.
Gu Zheng followed him out with a cold face, and Qin Hao's face turned pale when he heard from the receptionist that the child had not left.
"If he's not in the room, where could he have gone?"
"Monitoring." Gu Zheng said coldly. Even at this moment, he still had a cold expression. If it weren't for his hands being clenched into fists at his sides, you really couldn't tell how worried he was.
"Yes, yes, the surveillance footage, quick, let us see the footage." Qin Hao also realized what was going on and hurriedly urged the front desk to let them see the surveillance footage.
Since the child was missing, the receptionist didn't dare to delay and immediately showed the information to Gu Zheng and his team.
Because the receptionist firmly believed that she did not see the child leave, she directly retrieved the surveillance footage from the hallway outside Gu Zheng's room. However, they did not know when the child left, and the receptionist could only obtain a rough estimate of the time.
Ten minutes after they watched the surveillance footage, Gu Chen appeared on the screen. He left the room, closed the door, and walked out into the corridor.
The front desk could only retrieve the surveillance footage from the corridor elevator during the same time period, and then they discovered that the child pressed the elevator button on the first floor, and then they saw the child walking out of the hotel.
In the footage, it's clear that the child left the front desk while looking for something with their back to the door.
The receptionist's face also turned pale, and she quickly said,
"I'm so sorry, I...I...I was looking for something and didn't notice. I'm so sorry, I'll have someone go out and look for it right away, and I'll call the police immediately."
Regardless of the circumstances, the child was lost at their hotel, so it's only right that they help.
"Then I'll trouble you to send more people out to search. If you find it, please call us. Thank you."
Qin Hao had left his phone number with the receptionist when he went to see Gu Zheng, so he wasn't worried that the receptionist wouldn't be able to find him.
Gu Zheng went out of the hotel without saying a word to look for it, but the place was so big that Gu Zheng didn't know where to go for a while.
"Brother, you go that way, I'll go this way, let's look along the roadside."
As soon as Qin Hao finished speaking, Gu Zheng strode forward. Qin Hao couldn't help but curse under his breath, and then went to look for him as well.
As for the bodyguards who were still on their way and hadn't returned, Qin Hao called them again to go find the child.
The sun was gradually setting, but they had not found the child at all, nor had the people at the hotel on the other side. They had called the police, and the police had helped search, but two hours had passed and there was still no sign of the child.
They originally tried to find it by following the surveillance footage at the hotel entrance, but there was a blind spot that the cameras couldn't reach, and there was also a small alleyway next to it leading to another street.
They checked the surveillance footage from the blind spot, only to find that the child was nowhere to be seen.
When Qin Hao met up with Gu Zheng, he saw that Gu Zheng was clearly distraught, and he couldn't bring himself to say what he wanted to say.
He originally wanted to scold Gu Zheng, since he had left the child alone while looking for Gu Zheng.
"Ranran!" Gu Zheng, who had been staring blankly at the street ahead, suddenly said, "Maybe the child went to find Xia Ran. Yes, she must have gone to find Xia Ran."
In fact, Gu Zheng had thought about going to find Xia Ran at the beginning, but the thought only flashed through his mind and he didn't dare to go to Xia Ran at all.
He was afraid that Xia Ran would blame him for not taking good care of the child.
Qin Hao realized what was going on after hearing this.
"I'll call He Xiu and ask him to check with Xia Ran. We're on our way there now."
They were so anxious that they couldn't think straight and could only keep looking for the child.
Gu Zheng didn't answer Qin Hao's question, but went straight to drive to find Xia Ran. Their car was currently parked in the parking space in front of the hotel.
Seeing Gu Zheng's actions, Qin Hao could only call He Xiu while following in Gu Zheng's footsteps.
When He Xiu received Qin Hao's call, he was planning to go back to Xia Ran's house with Da Zhuang. He had just eaten with Da Zhuang, but after eating, he made an excuse that he wanted to see more of this charming old town, so he asked Da Zhuang to take him around.
He Xiu listened to Qin Hao's words on the phone, and then looked at Da Zhuang with a complicated expression.
"What's wrong?" Dazhuang was puzzled by He Xiu's gaze. "Is there something you need to do? If so, you can go ahead. I'm just around the corner."
“No.” He Xiu hung up the phone. “It’s Gu Chen who’s in trouble. He’s gone missing. He’s been missing for several hours now. Qin Hao and Gu Zheng can’t find him, so they called me and asked me to ask Xia Ran if the child has come looking for her.”
"What?" Dazhuang was dumbfounded. "How could the child just disappear like that?"
Although he hated Gu Zheng, he was still very worried about the children.
Gu Zheng: "I don't know. They only said that it has been missing for several hours now. The police are searching everywhere, but they just can't find it."
"Stop talking, let's go ask Xia Ran first. Maybe the child really did go to Xia Ran, otherwise Xia Ran won't be able to bear it if something happens to the child."
Dazhuang turned around and headed towards Xia Ran's house. They were almost there; they were just around the corner.
Dazhuang knew Xia Ran quite well. Although Xia Ran said she hated and didn't like children anymore, she was actually very worried about and liked that child.
He Xiu frowned; the child's disappearance was indeed a very serious matter.
He had previously encountered many cases where children were kidnapped and could not be found, and the parents and families of those children were unable to accept it and suffered from psychological problems.
Chapter 216 The Child Cannot Be Found
Some children remain mentally unstable their entire lives, and even those who are eventually found often suffer from mental illnesses.
Thinking of the children he had taken in before, He Xiu frowned even more, hoping that the children were alright.
Dazhuang rushed into Xia Ran's house. Xia Ran was about to go out to find her grandfather to come back for dinner when she unexpectedly saw Dazhuang rushing in.
"What's wrong, Dazhuang? Why do you look so pale? Didn't you say you were going to look around for a bit before coming back? Why are you back so soon?"
"Xia Ran, the child is missing. Has he come looking for you?" Da Zhuang told him directly.