Mo Fang slowly read through the webpage. It was very detailed, more so than he had expected. It started off with giving a few examples of when people might search for others, including somebody you had lost contact with or if a person you knew had suddenly gone missing.
Mo Fang wasn’t sure if this would really fit his purpose but then, they couldn’t fit every single possibility into a short introduction. This was likely only supposed to give some examples that happened the most often and would thus reassure the majority of people that they had found what they were looking for. As for him, he’d simply look at the rest and see if he could use anything.
After the introduction, the website didn’t waste any time before getting to the details of how to actually conduct your search. At first, there was a whole list of information you should compile and always keep handy.
Mo Fang copied it down but, unfortunately, he didn’t have much. In fact, it could almost be said that he had nothing. He didn’t have a full name or the exact date of birth, there was no last known address, no specific information about educational institutions or places of employment, nothing. With that, trying to compile a list was completely impossible.
He rubbed his face and leaned back, feeling like all of this made absolutely no sense. Why was he even trying? But then, not doing so … it felt wrong. Not to mention that it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. Anyway, he shouldn’t give up this easily.
He lowered his hands and blankly stared at the screen that was still displaying the list. This simply didn’t fit his needs but that didn’t mean that everything else was useless. He should continue with this one and if it didn’t help at all, he could just try to search with more detail.
He pushed his doubts aside and continued to read. Next up, the article mentioned several steps one could take to find a person in another introductory-like paragraph. After that, it described them in more detail in individual parts.
Unfortunately, a lot of these steps also relied on having tangible information about the person. For example, the article mentioned how gaining more information through the pieces you already had was important to continue your search.
For that, you could distribute flyers with a photo of the missing person and some general information, as well as a way to reach you. If you did so at a place where they had often been like in the streets close to their home or place of work, it’d be more likely that the flyer would make its way to the hands of somebody who knew the person or had seen them recently.
Mo Fang nodded faintly, feeling that this should indeed be helpful if this was a simple case of a missing person. In fact, thinking back, he seemed to have seen this scenario play out in real life once and had also seen it being used in a few movies. Unfortunately, he lacked vital information for this. He didn’t even have a recent photo.
He sighed and continued reading nonetheless, hoping for something more useful. A little further down, he found a list of websites and hotlines that were apparently useful. Some of them had been linked, so he opened them in another tab and looked through the information there first.
The more of them he looked at, the more his brows furrowed. This wasn’t what he was looking for either. Organizations taking care of looking for people that had disappeared during a natural disaster, medical services, a service looking for missing children … He couldn’t use any of this.
Mo Fang closed the websites one by one, the faint hope he had had slowly dwindling. It seemed he really wouldn’t be able to find anything. But then, he wasn’t willing to give up either.
He continued to read until he had gone through the rest of the first article and only then closed that website as well. Looking back at everything he had read, it seemed that this would be even more difficult than he had thought. He lacked any clues whatsoever and he didn’t even know where to start. Well, he had only started today, he couldn’t expect many results.
He glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen and sighed. Even though he had only gotten started, time sure flew when you were busy. He had gone online right after breakfast and now, it was almost time for lunch.
He leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what he should do. He didn’t have any groceries left so he’d have to go out and buy something if he wanted to cook. Staying home alone for the rest of the day though … he wasn’t sure if he wanted that.
Mo Fang closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The last few weeks, he had rung up almost everyone he could to not have to spend every single hour of the day alone. Even though not everyone had had time immediately, after lining everything up, he had been able to go out each day.
By now though, the only contacts he had left were people he wasn’t necessarily eager to see again. So even though he didn’t want to be alone, he also wasn’t about to call them. Well, what else then? Could he just call up everyone he had already seen again? It had been some time since he met the first one the last time …
He shook his head at himself for that thought. It really wasn’t a problem to ask friends to go out every now and then but he couldn’t continue like this forever. He had to find ways to stay alone with himself even if there was nobody familiar around.
He looked around the apartment and finally sighed. Well, since he needed groceries, he should go and get some first. Then, he could try and think of anything else to do. Maybe he’d find something interesting out there.