How many things had he overlooked before?
He had been so young at that time that when the adults told him that his mother had died in an accident, he never doubted it.
His early return had changed everything from his previous life. How many things had he overlooked before?
After Huo Cheng began to suspect that Fang Ke’s death was not an accident, he intentionally collected information about the car accident back then. Since it was just a car accident and his mother was the only one who died in it, there wasn’t much widespread coverage.
After school on Friday, he and Shen Wanying walked around the campus together. She noticed he seemed to be even more silent than before and couldn’t help but ask, “Huo Cheng, is there something on your mind lately?”
Hearing her voice, he inclined his head toward her. “Well….”
“What’s wrong? Can you tell me about it?”
Huo Cheng pursed the corners of his lips slightly. “I suspect that my mother’s car accident was no accident.”
“Ah?” Shen Wanying felt shocked in her heart. “Why do you think so?”
“I’ve tried to ask my aunt about my mother before, but she was vague about her death. I deliberately tested her, and her reaction indicated that there was indeed a hidden agenda behind my mother’s passing.”
Shen Wanying frowned, Huo Cheng was only seven years old when his mother died – he was so young, it was quite possible that the adults really knew something they weren’t telling him.
“If it wasn’t an accident, then….” She looked over. “Somebody caused it?”
He frowned and told her, “My mother’s social circle was very simple, and she had no enmity with anyone. If someone had indeed caused it, then the most likely suspect….”
Is the man she had been involved with back then.
That was what Shen Wanying surmised as well. Back then, no matter who Huo Cheng’s mother had gone to Starlight Farm with, things had fallen apart there. She became ill after that, and after she recovered, she intended to end it with that man, but he was upset, and his love turned to hatred?
Huo Cheng said, “I have checked some reports from that year, and the police did close the case as an accident.”
“Then could it really have been an accident?” shw remarked. The adults might have lied to Huo Cheng. They told him his mother’s death was an accident but didn’t mention the investigation results the police shared. Back then, the police concluded it was an accident, which means that the possibility of homicide was ruled out, right?
Sure, there would always be wrongly-classified cases and miscarriages of justice, but according to her previous speculation, the person Huo Cheng’s mother cheated with was not a powerful person. Relatively speaking, the Huo family was much more powerful than he was. If there really had been a hidden agenda, Uncle Huo could definitely have had it investigated.
Huo Cheng agreed. He knew that his father loved his mother very much, and if there really had been even the slightest doubt of foul play, there was no way he wouldn’t have looked into it. Since he had accepted the verdict, it meant that it was really an accident. Yet, that day, his aunt’s reaction was just too strange.
“I’ve been looking for information related to the accident for a while now, so maybe I can find some clues.”
Shen Wanying nodded. “Mm, I’ll help you look for that, too.”
Huo Cheng looked at her and smiled imperceptibly. He raised a hand to tousle her hair. “Thank you.”
Fang Yichang, who happened to be passing by, saw the whole thing.
“Huo Cheng, what are you doing!” Fang Yichang threw down his school bag and rushed up to him, “What kind of thing are you displaying in broad daylight?”
Huo Cheng looked askance at him and withdrew his hand. Shen Wanying’s face flushed, in part from Huo Cheng’s intimate gesture, and in part because they had been caught red-handed in such a moment by another student.
Fang Yichang, burning with jealousy and anger, righteously stepped in front of Shen Wanying: “Don’t be afraid, my Lady. If he dares to touch you again, I’ll beat him up!” The approaching Hong Hong, carrying Fang Yichang’s discarded school bag, echoed, “I’ll beat him up too!”
The security guard saw the group of them gathered around, with Fang Yichang, who had a bad reputation, as the ringleader. He immediately called his colleagues and rushed up. “What are you doing? Why are you all gathered here?”
Huo Cheng said, “They said they wanted to beat me up.”
Fang Yichang was at a loss for words. He was going to snitch? And he called himself a man??
The security guard was immediately on alert: “Xiao Fang1Xiao (小): meaning “little”, a diminutive used by adults to refer to children you were doing so well the past few days, are you going to cause trouble again?”
Fang Yichang cracked a smile at the security guard. “Fine, I’ll go outside and beat him up, okay? You don’t have jurisdiction outside the school gates, do you?”
Huo Cheng replied, “There are police outside the school gates.”
Fang Yichang: “……”
Here you are being a hooligan, and you have the nerve to call the police?
“Fine, then you call the police, and I’ll sue you for being a hooligan!”
The security guard didn’t believe him at all. “Xiao Fang, that’s going too far, he seems more like the one being tricked by a hooligan. You don’t want to make a scene here.”
Fang Yichang: “……” He understood now. Good-looking people always get preferential treatment. 🙂
“Sorry, it’s all a misunderstanding.” Shen Wanying smiled as she explained to the school security. “Student Fang Yichang didn’t mean any harm. We’ll disperse.”
“That’s fine.” The security guard gave Fang Yichang another warning glance before turning around and walking away. Huo Cheng circumvented the other boy and walked over to Shen Wanying. “I see your chauffeur’s car, why don’t you leave first?”
“Okay, see you tomorrow then.”
“What?” This was yet another outrageous thing to Fang Yichang. “Isn’t tomorrow Saturday? What are you meeting for?”
Huo Cheng said coldly, “It’s none of your business.”
“How is it none of my business? My Lady’s business is my business!” Fang Yichang hated it, he had concentrated on his studies for just a few days to maintain his grades on the re-test, and Huo Cheng and Shen Wanying’s relationship had suddenly taken off?
But wait, they got such good grades. When had they been studying?
“Chang-ge, I heard that a while ago Huo Cheng was sick and took a leave of absence, and it was Lady Shen herself who went to see him.” Hong Hong told Fang Yichang after Huo Cheng left. “I bet it was just a ploy to make her pity him.”
Fang Yichang cursed, “That’s despicable!”
“I know! Hey, what if we tried to do that too?”
“Will it work?”
“Well, when you were wrongly accused of cheating, Lady Shen was very concerned.”
“You have a point.” Fang Yichang rubbed his chin and pondered the feasibility of this plan.
♥
Early on Saturday morning, Huo Cheng picked up Shen Wanying and drove them both to the mountain villa. Only this time, instead of singing in the basement, Shen Wanying was curled up with a laptop, helping research the incident that resulted in his mother’s death seven years ago.
The butler had put some snacks and drinks in the room, and the two sat across the table from each other, each focusing on what they had to do.
“Look at this.” Shen Ying turned her computer around so that the screen was facing Huo Cheng, “The car accident happened at Sanqin Bay at the time. I searched the travelogues for the area that were posted online during that time and saw this.”
Huo Cheng’s eyes glanced towards the screen; the author of the lengthy travelogue mentioned the car accident at that time. Shen Wanying had specifically marked out that paragraph for him to see.
“The focus is on this comment below,” she said. “Someone said they saw this car parked on the road at Sanqin Bay at the time, and it had two people sitting in it.”
Huo Cheng frowned lightly. Indeed, someone had posted such a comment below, but the authenticity of the comment could not be verified. After all, when the car was fished out of the sea at the time, his mother had been the only casualty.
The police must have been the first to investigate after the accident. There were so many surveillance cameras on the road, they would have known how many people were in the car from the footage alone. If there was another person accompanying his mother, it wouldn’t have been hidden.
“But that doesn’t prove that it was the person in the car who did it.” Shen Wanying turned the computer back to face herself. “If there really was a second person, who do you think it could be?”
Who was the last to see Huo Cheng’s mother alive?
He had the answer in his mind: his dad had been with him at the time of his mother’s car accident, planning to go to the villa to bring her home.
It was most likely the other man.
Huo Cheng’s gaze swept to the painting leaning against the wall. He stared at it for a moment before suddenly getting up and bringing it over.
“What’s wrong?” Shen Wanying followed suit and stood up, curious.
After studying the frame for a moment, he moved to take it down. “Just a sudden thought.”
Shen Wanying did not say anything else and watched quietly. It was the hotel that had framed the painting; it was not an expensive frame and could easily be dismantled.
After Huo Cheng took the oil painting out, he turned it around to look at the back.
On the bottom right corner there were some faint traces of something. If you looked carefully, you could make out two words:
Xiang Chong.
♥
T/N: Thanks again Bright Eyes for helping out with this chapter! Hohohoho so we have arrived at the point where we have a name. A…. familiar…..? name? All will be revealed! Soon!! I think. At this point, I’m about a chapter ahead of y’all. I’m so excited to bring y’all the next chapter, honestly, prepare yourselves for the cliffhanger of your freaking lives. Do you wanna know? D’you really really wanna know? Do you want advance chapters? 😉 Let us know. See you in the notes of chapter 57! There will be screaming. There will be a lot of screaming.