Chapter 119: Doggerel

Before Huang Lan spoke, I never would have expected a daughter to call her own biological father a beast.

Huang Boyuan had told me his eldest daughter went abroad because she opposed his remarriage, but it now seemed there was more to the story.

'That old fox really didn't tell me the truth.' I calmed myself and straightened out my thoughts. Although I had accepted Huang Boyuan's commission, the involvement of the Two-Faced Buddha meant I had to find out the truth behind what happened back then.

'Maybe I can get a clue about that mysterious Blank Scroll from this woman.' My biggest advantage right now was that Huang Boyuan didn't know his daughter had come to me. I could dig up his secrets from Huang Lan, then approach him and beat around the bush to verify her claims.

Thinking this over, I took out my pen and paper to take notes. "Take your time," I said. "Don't get agitated. I can consider your commission."

Huang Lan took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I just remembered something unpleasant."

"It's fine." Naturally, I didn't mind. "You said Director Huang has been lying to you for twenty years. What exactly did he lie about? After all, you're his biological daughter."

"My mother didn't commit suicide. She was driven to her death by Huang Boyuan! You could even say he murdered her!" Huang Lan gritted her teeth. "When my mother needed him the most, that man chose to abandon her!"

"Wait, when your mother died, Director Huang was supposed to be out of town discussing business with a southern medicine merchant. Based strictly on the time of the crime, he should be ruled out."

"That was all a lie. Huang Boyuan spent a long time planning to drive my mother to her death."

Huang Lan's words shocked me. If that were true, Huang Boyuan was a truly terrifying man.

"I felt something was wrong even when I was very young. On the day my mother died, I can still vaguely remember half a cup of hot tea sitting on the table. My mother hated drinking tea her entire life, so that cup must have been brewed for someone else. An outsider came in while I was away."

"Could it have been the landlord or a neighbor?" Drawing such a conclusion from just a cup of tea seemed a bit arbitrary.

Huang Lan was displeased that I had interrupted her. In her heart, she seemed to have already concluded that Huang Boyuan was the murderer. "If a cup of tea doesn't prove anything, I have other evidence."

"Just a few days after my mother died, Huang Boyuan started working at a pharmaceutical factory and got passionately involved with the boss's daughter. Within a few weeks, they got a marriage certificate and remarried. With that kind of speed, do you really think I'd believe they weren't having an affair beforehand?"

There were some flaws in Huang Lan's logic, but I didn't think much of it. "Perhaps the Heavenly Yi Nobleman Destiny is just that fierce."

"What did you say?"

"Miss Huang, can you provide any other evidence? I have no way of tackling things from twenty years ago, let alone investigating them for you."

"Evidence? What other evidence do you want?"

"For example, witnesses or physical evidence. I need something I can see and touch, something I can examine and understand to build a complete chain of evidence. Only a conclusion reached that way will be convincing, and only then will the heavy stone weighing on your heart finally be lifted." I lit a cigarette. "Although you call Director Huang a beast, you probably still hold a sliver of hope in your heart that he isn't the murderer. That's exactly why you came to me, isn't it?"

Huang Boyuan was Huang Lan's biological father. Even if he really had committed an unforgivable crime, the bond of blood between them wouldn't change.

"I am utterly disappointed in that man, and I hope you will stop spouting these self-righteous remarks. Also, I hate men who smoke." Huang Lan pulled a brocade handkerchief from her purse to cover her mouth and nose, her brows tightly knitted.

"Sorry."

Huang Lan waited for me to stub out the cigarette before she continued. "Before I went abroad, I secretly traveled south several times behind Huang Boyuan's back to find the merchant who bought his prescription. I went four times in total. Heaven rewards the faithful, and I finally found that medicine merchant in prison."

"He was just a con artist. From him, I learned that Huang Boyuan had apparently seen through his scam early on and never traded with him at all. That means Huang Boyuan never went south."

If Huang Boyuan never went south, he would have had plenty of time to commit the crime. Furthermore, Huang Lan hadn't been out of the house for long, yet the culprit accurately seized that brief window. The hot tea on the table was also a key detail. Regardless of who brewed it, it at least proved that the person who entered the room was very familiar with Huang Lan's mother.

"It's highly likely that Huang Boyuan was hiding near your home at the time, waiting for an opportunity to strike," I blurted out. "According to you, Director Huang discovered the prescription buyer was a con man. His last shred of hope was shattered. In utter despair, he had to choose between his wife and his daughter, so he..."

Such speculation was perfectly logical, but it was still just speculation.

"Do you have any other clues?"

Huang Lan rummaged through her handbag and pulled out a photograph. "I can't explain it clearly. Look for yourself."

I took the photo. On it was a line of elegant handwriting, likely written by a young girl: "Dad chose me. I have to survive. I have to live on for Mom."

I read it several times but couldn't understand it. "What does this sentence mean?"

"This is a photo I secretly took of my younger sister's diary. She never lets anyone see it." Huang Lan scrolled through her phone; there were many similar photos inside. "Huang Boyuan chose her, which obviously means he gave up on our mother. My sister was the only eyewitness present, so her words should be credible."

"Your sister was only a few months old at the time. What could she possibly know?" I highly suspected that Huang Lan's strong psychological preconceptions led her to see everything as proof that Huang Boyuan had murdered his wife.

I habitually pulled out another cigarette, but this time I didn't light it. "Miss Huang, perhaps you should be a bit more considerate of Director Huang. He was probably forced by circumstances back then."

"Considerate? You couldn't possibly know what kind of life we were living back then. My mother's health worsened by the day, and later on, she even became delirious. She would often talk to a painting by herself, pouring out the pain in her heart."

I keenly caught a particular detail in her words. "Your mother often talked to a painting before she died?"

"Yes. At that time, my mother's health was already on the verge of collapse. Huang Boyuan wasn't home for most of the day, yet my mother still had to take care of me and my infant sister. She was suffering from both physical and mental torment." Huang Lan had clearly misunderstood my meaning.

"Could you tell me more about that painting?" A painting had been mentioned in both Huang Boyuan's and Huang Lan's accounts, which made me very curious.

Although Huang Lan didn't know why I was asking about the painting, she still recalled it carefully. "Huang Boyuan brought that painting back. It was a Blank Scroll; there was absolutely nothing on it."

"Are you sure? Did you miss any details?"

"In any case, I couldn't see anything on it, but my mother hung the painting in the room and often muttered to it."

After listening to Huang Lan's words, I pondered silently. 'The Two-Faced Buddha gave this painting to Huang Boyuan, so there must have been an ulterior motive. Her mother often spoke to the Blank Scroll, which means she definitely discovered something.'

I put down my cigarette and studied Huang Lan. "Did anything unusual happen in your home during that time? Don't rush; take your time and think back."

Too much time had passed, and Huang Lan thought for a long while before speaking. "There was one unusual thing. Around the time Huang Boyuan brought the painting home, a beggar came to our house asking for food. My mother was kindhearted and served him a bowl of freshly cooked noodles. In the end, the beggar ate every last bite and didn't even say thank you. He just flipped the bowl upside down on the table and hurried out of our rented room without looking back."

"When my mother lifted the large bowl, she discovered a piece of yellow paper hidden underneath. A doggerel poem was written on it."

I vaguely felt that something was amiss. "Do you still remember the poem?"

Huang Lan nodded. "It was a very strange poem. It didn't rhyme at all, but I thought it was fun at the time, so I memorized it."

She recited the poem from memory. Its contents were indeed very bizarre: "Add wood and it is a tree. Add a person and it cannot be its own master. Drape it in hemp and it is a monster. Offer it a king and it is a flower."

"A beggar came to the door for no reason and left behind a doggerel poem?" I wrote the four lines down on paper, feeling that they read less like a poem and more like a character riddle.

After reading it over a few times, my expression changed drastically. "Huang Lan, the person who killed your mother might not have been Huang Boyuan."

I placed the four lines in front of Huang Lan. "If this is a character riddle, which Chinese character do you think fits these four lines?"

"A character riddle? What character?"

"There is a base character. Add the radical for 'wood' to it, and it forms the character for 'pagoda tree.' Add 'person,' and it forms 'puppet.' Add 'hemp,' and it forms 'demon.' Add 'king,' and it forms 'rose.'" I looked into Huang Lan's eyes, and we spoke at the exact same time: "That base character is 'ghost'!"