Chapter 378 - How Brave

Feng Xuan did not know how to act. Suddenly, her heart was thumping so hard she felt like she was palpitating. She shouldn't feel this way, right? But how would she be able to stop this? It was like her hearing had been sharpened and she heard the footsteps from the hallway.

They were light but it carried enough weight that the heels echoed. Then there she was… the woman she had only seen in pictures. She aged but she looked just as beautiful.

It was amazed at how blue her eyes were. It was even more surreal when she got close. Now she saw where her husband's beautiful eyes came from in the flesh.

But Feng Xuan did not expect her posture. It made her embarrassed that she was trying to stand tall when this woman looked like she was having trouble just keeping her spine upright.

She looked embarrassed and out of place.

"Hello," she breathed out when she reached them. Qing Zihao was standing next to her with the same tired expression she was wearing, but underneath all of that there was defeat. "I guess you are the women dating my sons. How brave."

"Ha-ha-ha-ha."

Feng Xuan almost cringed at how fake Addison's laugh sounded. It seemed like she was not the only one uncomfortable.

"I'm Addison," she said, reaching the woman's hand and Qing Zihao's. They hadn't met officially. "I'm dating Wuming… or I think we are."

The expression on the mother's face changed. Like she could see Addison in her entirety. "I assume you are in the same business."

"Uhmm… yes we are."

The woman nodded her head. The roots of her hair were already showing white. "I guess he finally learned that he should not be alone in this world. As he shouldn't be. As assassins shouldn't be."

As she was saying those words, it was like she was also talking to herself. Then she turned her attention to Liu Meilien. "Well, aren't you a pretty one?" 

Feng Xuan almost missed it but the woman's eyes moved so fast, in a blink she had been able look at her half-sister from head to toe. "Let's see… beautiful skin, a beautiful face… you must be an actress."

Liu Meilien let out a polite laugh. "I'm actually a model, but hopefully I'll also make it in a TV show someday."

The woman let herself smile. "I know you'll make it." She nodded at Liu Meilien before walking down the line and finally in front of Feng Xuan. "Ah!" she sighed. "I had been looking forward to this event. I didn't actually think that I would be able to meet Qing Chen's wife. I'm sorry I didn't make it to the wedding."

Feng Xuan forced her hand to remain steady as she shook the woman's cold hands. "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Qing."

"Oh," she laughed with a wave of her other hand. "Forgive me. I hadn't been called that in years! YOU are Mrs. Qing. It's no longer me. I hadn't been that person for a long time."

Feng Xuan did not know what to say to that so she said the thing at the top of her head. "I'll try my best to fit the job description."

The woman laughed once more, it sounded like chimes. "Believe me, you're already doing a better job than I did."

She had kind eyes, whispered her mind. It was a wonder how she could've let her kids. She must be regretting it now. But who knows? In her opinion, she acted in favor of the safety of her children.

"Well?" Wuming entered the room. "What are we all standing here for? Let's get started!"

**

The team was once again assembled in the living room. There were already cups of tea and coffee being passed around and snacks in small plates.

"First things first," Qing Chen said, holding a marker in front of a clean whiteboard. "You have to tell us what's on that list in that notebook of yours. There are a lot of stuff in there."

Hao Suyin looked small in the chair. "That's the list of all the missions that I remember from The Order. A lot of them have insufficient information because I never got to handle them personally. It was only a small amount of all the things this secret organization get involve in."

"There were civilians. Who are those?"

"Right," she said. "That was part of the last mission that I had. The one that I didn't finish. They were the first targets for the trials of the drug that was being invented at that time. A drug stronger than caffeine that would allow a person work more than twenty-four hours a day with very little consequences.

When this mission had been passed down to me, the experiment was failing. The drug was causing heart problems and brain damage to the subjects. It had been going on for years already and no one was talking about it because the people who wanted it made have strong hold with the government. They were continuously producing the drug, adjusting it doing more human trials."

"And you didn't finish this mission, right?" Qing Chen said, looking at the papers with pictures of people that was handed to him. "These people are dead already."

"Yes," she nodded. "I believe Checks hunted them all down. Finishing the job."

"Cleaning up after you, in his perspective?"

"Yes."

Qing Chen handed her the papers. "So… Checks is after you because you killed your old boss?"

"And some of the others that I got in the years that I was gone."

"You're hunting each other down, in short? But you're not able to catch him?"

Feng Xuan could tell that she didn't really want to answer. She turned slightly red with the question even though Qing Chen asked the question with the same tone if he would be asking you if you like sugar in your coffee.

"Yes," she answered quietly. "It's been quite hard."

He nodded and took one of the cups from the passing housemaid. "It's okay. We'll try. I'm pretty sure that we would be able to find him? Lok?"

Qing Lok replaced him from the middle of the room. "It's not going to be easy. We don't have a face for this Checks guy. We don't know anything about him. If you can draw him or anything… I have been trying earlier to find him but it looks like he had been wiped out to every database that I could infiltrate."

"Draw?" the mother asked.

"Yes, then we're going to make a 3D face and access a bunch of cameras around the world in the hope that we would be able to find him."

"We've tried that already," said Qing Zihao. "It didn't amount to anything."

Qing Lok forced a smile on his lips. "You didn't have me then, Father."

The mother nodded at the sketchpad and pencil that was handed to her. "I haven't drawn in years."

"That's okay," he said, looking away. Qing Lok looked like he was having a hard time with the conversation. "I'll take things from there."