My father's name is Shen Yan.

He used to be a police officer.

Two years ago, Dad was sent on a secret mission and could only come home occasionally late at night.

Moreover, the days he came home were irregular.

One time, I asked why.

Dad stroked the top of my head and said gently, "Daddy is playing hide-and-seek with other uncles. He can't let them find him."

The night Mom had an accident, one of Dad's colleagues took me to the police station to spend the night.

The police aunt responsible for looking after me placed a box of birthday cake in front of me and said, "This is what your dad instructed. He said today is your birthday, and you must eat the cake for it to count."

But in my heart, only hearing "Happy birthday" from Mom and Dad would count.

The candles on the cake were fragile, as if they would extinguish in the next second.

"Will my dad come back?" I asked.

The aunt seemed unsure how to answer that question.

She hesitated and pushed the cake closer to me. "He will. Make a wish, blow out the candles, and Dad will come back."

At 14 years old, I was already old enough to see through "kind lies."

But I still nodded, took a deep breath, and blew out the candles in one breath.

Indeed, Dad came back.

He lay stiffly in the mortuary, with droplets continuously falling from the corner of his clothes, forming a small puddle.

From then on, his hands with calluses could no longer stroke my head.

He could no longer carry me on his shoulders after I messed up a math test and say, "It's okay, if your mom scolds you when we get home, Dad will carry you."

I hid in a corner of the mortuary and listened to the forensic examiner explaining Dad's cause of death to the uncles and aunts from the police station.

He said Dad was tied to the driver's seat of a car.

Then, that car was pushed into the city's moat in the early morning hours.

Three days later, Mom and Dad were buried together in a inconspicuous cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

There were no names or photos engraved on the tombstone.

All Mom and Dad left me were those two thin death certificates.

An older uncle patted my shoulder and said with a heavy tone, "This was also done to protect you."

After speaking, he took out a letter from his pocket.

I reached out and took it, seeing that the surface of the letter was wrapped in several layers of transparent tape.

"This was found under your dad's car. He might have wrapped it in tape to protect this letter, then stuck it under the car."

I read that letter over and over again.

As it went on, Dad's handwriting became more and more messy, as if he was in a hurry to do something.

At the end of the letter, he wrote: "Daddy will always love you.

"In the days to come, Dad will become the wind that blows by your side, the rain that falls on you, and will always, always be with you."