Chapter 328 - Regrets

Nothing. There was nothing on the phones. There was nothing else suspicious on the two agents that Wuming had just killed. They were really just finding Qing Zihao, nothing else. 

"What's wrong with you?" asked Qing Chen. It was the weekend and weekends were already allotted into trying to decode the tattoo. It had been for weeks already.

"I think we may have unncessarily killed two innocent men."

"They are not innocent," said Qing Chen and sipped on his coffee.

"It's not like they could really touch us here in Chengshi," he countered. "We have every official in our side. The maximum time that I stared at a jail wall was an hour." 

Qing Lok had been a slight delinquent while he was growing up. There was something inside of him before that raged at everything. He got into a lot of fights, was arrested for trying to race in the highways, destruction of police property, vandalism—it was as if he was trying to clear a bucket list in the minor crimes division.

The most punishment that he got was being locked in a jail cell where he tried to catch sleep or order donuts for everybody inside.

"The only way that we're going to lose," he said, "if they would make the case against father a public one."

Qing Chen nodded. "They might just do that. There are a lot of people in our pockets, but the people outside of it is far more numerous." He was looking at the updates from when they were sleeping. "How's your girlfriend? Is she liking the house?"

"Yeah," he nodded. Liu Meilien was in the kitchen preparing breakfast with Feng Xuan. "I thought she would be more shaken with everything that's happening but she's coping well."

"Should I call for a trainer? She needs to learn how to defend herself."

"It's a conversation we have yet to have," he answered, clicking away in the new patterns, trying to see if something looked familiar to him. But who was he kidding? There was no way he would recognize any of this. He had never been much of a fan of maps. Besides, this could be a dead end anyway.

Until it wasn't.

**

Feng Xuan was busy in the kitchen. The cook was still out for the weekly grocery so she took it upon her hands to make breakfast for everyone. She liked to have the kitchen to herself but when she saw that Liu Meilien was not doing anything, she just had to make her step-sister busy.

"Does your mother know that you are staying here?" she asked Liu Meilien as she flipped the pancakes. 

Liu Meilien was standing at the counter, finishing the plates by adding fruits on top and on the sides. "I bet step-father already told her."

"Does your mom know that you are dating Lok?"

"If she didn't before, now she does."

Feng Xuan could not help but smile at that answer. Liu Meilien had really came a long way from making decisions on her own. "Do you have any plans on reconciling with her? She's still your mom, after all."

Liu Meilien did not answer.

"I'm surprised all the mom talk inside this house was not making you think about yours."

Liu Meilien sighed. "What do you mean it doesn't? It does. I just… I just don't want to think about her. I want to be in charge of my own life. I've had enough with her making choices."

"Yeah, but can't you be in charge and be friends with her?"

Liu Meilien did not answer again.

"I just don't want you to feel regret when it's already too late. Your mother is not getting any younger. While she's still here you have to at least try with her again, if it doesn't work then cut her off." 

Feng Xuan also did not know where she was coming from. She did not even recognize the words as hers. But after what happened yesterday at the opening of Gretel's, she could not shake off the feeling that her mother had sent her that rosebud.

She didn't want to take it home. She didn't want to think about it. But the flower was now in a vase near the dining area. She did not know much about plants so she was wondering if it would still blossom. 

Did her mother know that she already have an idea that she might be alive? If she were alive, were she keeping tabs on The Zookeeper too? If she were alive, where the hell was she?

The CCTV cameras around Gretel's offered little to her curiosity. There had been sightings of the woman in green but none of the cameras caught a picture of her face.

It kept her up last night.

She turned the stove off and smiled at Liu Meilien. "You know, those boys might not say it, but they do regret that they hadn't been that close to their mother while she was still around. They were all guilty of wanting to please their father."

"Yeah," Liu Meilieng said quietly. "I notice that about Lok. It was why he was working so hard into finding her. I think it's his way of making amends."

Feng Xuan chuckled at that. "The things that regret make you do."

**

Wuming and Addison were up early. They had already decided what they wanted to do for their mass killing on thay day. 

They got in the shower and dressed together.

"Are you sure it's going to work?" Addison asked, putting on normal clothes for once. Nothing too shabby. Nothing too extravagant. She looked like an ordinary citizen with her plain white shirt and denim jeans which hugged her shapely legs.

"When was I ever wrong?" Wuming asked, shoving his foot inside a shoe. "I've read that in a Sidney Sheldon novel ones. Thought it was really cool."

"I just hope it's not all fantasy."

Wuming smiled. "You're going to see mass murder, Wuming style."