Zhaoyuan 兆沅 was playing by the village store when he disappeared. His worried grandparents found the toddler’s small footprints in the path by the local temple. And then, nothing.

The villagers waded through the ponds and probed the wells. They combed through the abandoned houses and sugar cane fields. After a few hours, they called the boy’s father home from his factory job in the nearby city. He called the police.

That was January. Nearly a year later, there are no clues. Every morning before his factory shift begins, Zhaoyuan’s father Chen Shengkuan 陈升宽 searches preschools and parks in Zhanjiang, a small city in southern China. Squatting on the curb he scans passing children in the hope that whoever took Zhaoyuan will one day take him out to play.