Chapter 336 - He Left

Huang Jia spent the rest of the morning cleaning every spot that Ms. Shao dragged her to. She had never sighted the other two women again. It was fairly obvious that she would be the one that would be chosen as she was the only option left.

At the end of the morning shift, along with the rest of the other maids, Ms. Shao lead them out of the mansion in a different exit. It was just now that she noticed that there was a smaller house inside the gated property.

Four maids shared a room with bunkbeds. Each had their own closet and a set of belongings. It was saddening to think that the maid's uniform was the newest and nicest clothes that Huang Jia had in a while. 

"During free time, you get to do what you want in this house but you can never be allowed to go out of the property," said Ms. Shao. "If it's an emergency, head straight to me and we'll talk."

Huang Jia sat down on her bed. The mattress was already thicker than the one that she was lying on her own room. "Thank you," she said. 

"There are a lot of activities that you can do in this house, earn extra income. Just ask the other ones what you can do."

She nodded again and the old woman finally went away.

Huang Jia dropped on the bed, feeling the ache on her limbs and the headache that was starting on top of her head.

"We're allowed to use phones, right?" she asked aloud to the others in the room who were already changing their clothes.

"Of course," one answered.

Huang Jia grabbed and rummaged through the small bag that she brought with her and pulled out her outdated phone. She dialed Mr. Dong's number and her heart grew in panic as the ringing continued.

Finally, it was answered. "You bring me something of value or I am going to slice your son's pinky."

The panic started inside her. "I-I… there was something that I found earlier."

"Good," Mr. Dong said just as Huang Jia made her way out of the room and to the common bathroom and locked herself inside a cubicle.

"Can I speak to my son?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Later. When it's decided what kind of information you have. Maybe I'll let you hear him scream."

The call was then transferred. Huang Jia was greeted by a voice that only became familiar over the last two days. He was the one who gave her the full overview of what she was supposed to do. They all called him 'The Boss'. "What do you got for me?"

Huang Jia described the situation with all the details that she could remember. She tried her best to remember the drawing that she saw earlier.

"Huh," said The Boss. "A drawing?"

"Yes, I think they are trying to decode. I'll… I'll try to draw it for you and send it in an hour."

"I can't wait to see it."

Huang Jia immediately found a scrap piece of paper and a pen. It was hard to draw as she did not know what she was drawing either. Nonetheless, half an hour later, the photo was sent to The Boss.

"Can I please, talk to my son?" she asked Mr. Dong, her voice trembling at the prospect of not being able to talk to her little boy.

"You have two minutes."

A second later. "Mommy?"

Huang Jia started to cry in relief. "Hi, baby. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, mom."

"Do they feed you?"

"Yes, I share my meals with Mr. Dong. He's a nice man."

Huang Jia was trying to find something in her son's voice. Something that would make her feel that he was in trouble. But it looked like he was really doing well with the man who was tormenting her.

She said, "That's good to hear. What have you been up to?"

"Mr. Dong has a lot of consoles here. He lets me stay in the gameroom and play with his son."

A son, she thought, Mr. Dong has a son. "Okay, did he tell you where you can sleep?"

"Someone already brought me my own mattress in the gaming room. When are you coming back? I want to go home."

"I'll be back soon."

"Mr. Dong said you have to be away for work. Is that true?"

"Yes, honey, it's true." She swallowed back her tears. "Listen, can you give the phone to Mr. Dong? I promise I'll be home soon, okay? I'll try to call you later but I'm a little busy. I love you and I miss you so much."

"Okay, Mommy, I love you and I'll talk to you later."

"You're going back to the gameroom?" Mr. Dong asked Huang Jia's son in a cheerful manner. 

"Yes, Mr. Dong. Thank you for the phone call."

"No worries, have fun."

Huang Jia heard the door closed and Mr. Dong cleared his throat. All the cheerfulness had now been sucked out of his voice. "You have a good kid, Huang Jia. I'll certainly hate to pull his nails one by one if you fail."

And then the call was dead.

**

It was on the way home from a long day at the office that things started to change in Qing Chen's mind. He was just mainly thinking about Qing Lok.

Going to Pilgrim's Hollow was something that had been keeping him up all night for the past two days. As it was something that would not let him sleep peacefully, clearly it was something he had to focus his attention on.

"I think we should take the next week off," Qing Chen said to Feng Xuan who had been scrolling through her tablet, looking at colorful pie charts and graphs—reports for Gretel's opening week.

"Won't the board be up our butts this time? We just came back."

"We're not going to be taking the whole week off. Just a few days."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to Pilgrim's Hollow." In his mind, the face of his youngest brother showed up. There was too much stress in his voice when they finally made the discovery. He really wanted this. 

Feng Xuan studied him for a moment and then nodded her head. "Okay." She was also one of the people who wanted for this to be over and done with. Heavens knew that this issue had taken too much toll on all their beings.

Qing Chen was more than ready to announce his decision when they finally arrived home. He asked for his brothers to be summoned in the living room they had been using as he changed his clothes.

When he got back on the first floor, only Wuming and Addison and his wife was there. "Where's Lok and Liu Meilien?"

Wuming shrugged. "I think they went out on a date. They had been out the whole day." He turned to Addison. "Right?"

Addison nodded. "I think they left early."

Qing Chen fished his phone from his pocket and scrolled to his message thread with Qing Lok. "Weird, he didn't leave me a message." Qing Lok had always left him a message telling him where he was going to go. 

He quickly thumbed him a message: "Where are you?"

The message was immediately labeled delivered but Qing Chen was getting impatient. He pointed to one of the people. "Can you track his phone?"

The screen was projected to the wall and they all waited as the tracker loaded. It was showing them the routes that the tracker got from the morning. It was not yet even done when Feng Xuan spoke, "I think he's just at my father's house."

The red blinking dot stopped at the address to Feng's residences.

"We'll see about that," Qing Chen said and pressed the phone to his ear. There was already something disturbing that was settling on his stomach. It was like it already knew where this would end. 

The phone rang and Qing Chen put it on speaker phone so everybody would be able to hear.

But it was not Qing Lok who answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Liu Meilien?"

"Qing Chen?!" then with an awful cry. "Oh my God, he didn't take his phone—" then there was a string of indecipherable words from her mouth.

"Wait, what's going on? Where's Lok?" Qing Chen demanded. Wuming was already getting on his feet. "Check the garage."

The screen showed the CCTV in the garage and it showed that a slot was open, the cover of the car on the ground. Wuming cursed under his breath. "Track that car."

Qing Chen got back to Liu Meilien. "You need to calm down—"

Feng Xuan snatched the phone from his hand. "Meilien, you have to breathe, okay?" She was suddenly wishing that Wang Yimin was here. Soothing people was not Feng Xuan's strongest suit. "Take a deep breath. It's going to be okay."

Feng Xuan could hear her step-sister struggling to breathe but her cries finally subsided after a few seconds. "H-he," she hiccuped, "he left this morning. He was going to Pilgrim's Hollow."

Wuming hovered over the phone. "He went on his own?!"

"He did."

The one tracking the car finally spoke, "The GPS was turned off at the airport."

Now it was Qing Chen who was cursing under his breath. "Alright, Liu Meilien," he said. "You're going to pack a bag and we'll be there in less than an hour. We're going to follow him."