Chapter 301 - I'm Scared

Wuming's eyebrows furrowed. "What? Are you going to do a manhunt just based on grandmother shifting in her freaking seat?!"

Feng Xuan felt Qing Chen's body tensed. It reminder her of an animal just about ready to spring for its prey. She put her hand on his thigh and squeezed, willing him back to calmness.

Qing Chen gritted his teeth.

"Don't be a fool, Qing Chen," said Wuming.

There was another moment of silence between the four of them. It was Qing Lok who broke it after half a minute.

"Can't we try?" he asked. "It would be a quick search. Let's do everything we can to find out if something else happened that night."

"I don't want to waste my time on that."

"A month," pressed Qing Lok. "Give us a month. Lend us your help. Trust me. It would help you sleep more peacefully at night. If nothing comes out of it, then at least we know, right? Then we could set all our energies in trying to find sister-in-law's mother."

Feng Xuan made a small gasp. She didn't think that she would be part of this conversation. Much less, that Qing Lok had already thought about finding her mother even though she hadn't decided about it yet.

A month, she thought. She had a month to think about if she was going to find her mother. But there was nothing to be found. Her mother was not alive. She was dead. She saw it with her own eyes.

But then again, so did these boys.

Wuming groaned and rested against his seat, scrunching his face with his fingers. "I hate you. I hate you and Chen. I hope you know that."

"We know that," Qing Lok answered with his head down. "The Zookeeper is dead. If you're going to leave—go back to your mountain and your way of living then go. We are not going to stop you. I am telling you, Qing Chen and I are still going to try to find mom. Right, Chen?"

Qing Chen lifted his eyes and nodded at his youngest brother. It was a relief to know that he had someone on his side. Everything would be so much harder if Qing Lok would not be in his team.

Wuming did not answer and they stayed silent the rest of the way. It was a long trip and all the four of them did was look out the window and slept.

**

Qing Chen and Feng Xuan had to return to work tomorrow. One of the reasons why they had to visit Qing Zihao that day was they needed to take pictures. They filed for a vacation leave in the office "to go visit the retiree in his holiday home". They did multiple clothes change and snapped about a hundred pictures.

It was an early night for the couple. Once they got out of the car, nobody said anything. Each of them thought they were going out of their minds and thought that the other thinks that they were going crazy. They were quiet as they cleaned up and got to bed.

Feng Xuan hugged Qing Chen's chest. He was staring at the ceiling, wishing that something appears that would help him know where to start.

"What do you think Wuming would do?" she asked.

Qing Chen took in a deep breath. "I don't know, wife. He could get really unpredictable. He might be gone by tomorrow morning."

Feng Xuan bit her lip. It must've been hard for Qing Chen. She heard her father-in-law shouting earlier. It was something that Feng Xuan had never heard from her own father. Her hands shook with the tray as she listened, waiting for the right time to enter the room. It was good that Qing Chen was unfazed by it and still managed to look at the symptoms of his father lying.

"What are YOU going to do?" she tried again.

"I wish I know," he answered truthfully, feeling more hopeless than he did when he left his father's beachside house. "Probably start in databases. Face searches—that could take months." Just thinking about it, Qing Chen could feel the weight on his chest. "For all I care, my mom already had plastic surgery. Another way to go is the CCTV cameras from when our mother was taken from us to be cremated. That would be the only time that we had been separated from her body."

Qing Chen's mind was running. It was not easy trying to dig up memories from something that happened many years ago. What else happened that day his mother died?

His body froze.

Feng Xuan felt Qing Chen's muscles go hard under her fingers. "What is it?"

Qing Chen had to sit up, the hairs on his arms and legs standing up. He pulled off his shirt.

"Chen, I don't think this is the time for something like this," Feng Xuan said.

"No," he said. "My tattoo." He reached for it. He had it for years that he hadn't really thought about what it meant. Could it finally make sense? "Do you think… it's my mother's last painting."

Feng Xuan also felt the shiver in her body as her fingertips touched Qing Chen's back. "I mean… it's possible. Why won't it be?" she said, breathless. "But what if it's just a painting?"

Qing Chen bit his lip, feeling his wife's touch on his back. "I don't think so."

He remembered that afternoon. He was one of the first people who noticed that the house was getting on fire. His mother went back inside, thinking that Qing Lok had not yet come out but he was already with Wuming on the backyard, safe. She went inside and Qing Chen followed, trying to pull her mother out.

She was shouting for Qing Lok, hysterical. Then when they passed her painting room, she took the canvas from the easel and pressed it to Qing Chen's chest.

There was something about the look in her eyes. They stood for a moment in silence. It was like she wanted to say something. But whatever it was that his mother wanted to say, she didn't say it. The house was already burning and her last instruction to him was to burn the painting. It would only make sense if she would just leave it to be turned to dust.

Then she shoved Qing Chen to the hallway, telling him that she would be out the moment that she finds Qing Lok.

That was the reason why Qing Chen had it tattooed on his back. It was because of that instruction. All these years, he thought about what it meant but had gotten nowhere.

But now, it might be a lead.

No one has seen her inside that house. Everyone else was outside. She was the only one left…

Could that be something?

Qing Chen reached his back and told his wife. "Now, I'm totally scared."

Feng Xuan seemed to be shaken also. "I am too."