Finding Someone
With a bandage applied to the cut on his face, Wen Xubai arrived before the ebony door on the second floor. He hesitated for a moment before raising his hand to knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Father, it’s me.”
After a moment of silence from the other side, a muffled voice responded.
“Come in.”
Wen Xubai pushed the door open and entered. He closed it behind him until it clicked shut, then locked the latch.
When his father was in a private conversation, he detested interruptions—especially when discussing matters not meant for the public eye.
“Father.” Wen Xubai bowed respectfully to the man behind the desk, then lowered his head and stood silently in place, waiting to be addressed.
But after a long while, there was still no sound.
The man in the chair had his eyes closed, one hand propping up his head. It was unclear if he was resting his mind or contemplating something.
The old man’s face, mottled with wrinkles, carried the same imposing solemnity as always. Although his hair was gray and his features had aged, it wasn’t hard to see the commanding presence he had possessed in his youth.
Tick, tock, tick.
It was the sound of the old pendulum clock in the room.
Aside from that, the room was dead silent; even the sound of a pin dropping would have been clearly audible.
Of the two people in the room, one sat steadily while the other stood; one looked up (internally) while the other looked down; one was calm, the other apprehensive.
Since the man didn’t speak, Wen Xubai naturally dared not make a sound, nor did he dare to move.
His legs were already starting to ache. Wen Xubai estimated silently that he had been standing there for nearly an hour.
“Xubai…” The man finally spoke.
“I am here,” Wen Xubai answered immediately.
“How long have you been with the Wen family?”
Wen Xubai was stunned for a moment, unsure why Wen Tingyi was suddenly asking this, but he answered honestly, “Since I was six years old. It has been eighteen years.”
“Eighteen years…” The man seemed to sigh with emotion. His closed eyes finally opened. However, he didn’t look at Wen Xubai; instead, his gaze bypassed him, looking toward the floor-to-ceiling window…
Outside the window lay the most prosperous streets of the city.
“Xiao Qing and Xiao Chi… they have also been gone for eighteen years…”
Wen Xubai froze.
Everyone in the Wen household knew that the Third Young Master, Wen Xubai, was not Wen Tingyi’s biological son. The real Third Young Master had disappeared in a car accident eighteen years ago, along with the previous Mrs. Wen—Ruan Qing.
That year, Mrs. Ruan had taken the young master, who was only six, out for a drive. For reasons unknown, they collided with a private car and were subsequently hit by a truck that couldn’t brake in time. The car lost control, crashed through the roadside barrier, and plunged into the lake beside the highway.
That year, both the police and the Wen family expended enormous manpower and financial resources.
The Wen family driver had been thrown from the vehicle by the immense inertia. He survived but was left in a vegetative state, lying in a hospital to this day. The truck driver was sentenced to twenty years in prison for reckless driving.
Mrs. Ruan’s body was recovered that same evening.
Only the Wen family’s Third Young Master remained unaccounted for.
In the private car involved in the crash, a couple died on the spot, leaving only the child they had protected in their embrace as the sole survivor.
After the incident, the Wen family held a press conference. The tall, imposing man stood before the cameras with red-rimmed eyes, bowing to the media and humbly begging the public to help find his missing son, his speech broken by sobs.
At that conference, he publicly announced that the Wen family would adopt the orphan who had lost his parents in the accident. He established a charity fund in the boy’s name, claiming it was to accumulate blessings for his lost wife and child…
Overnight, the Wen family’s stock prices surged, earning them a fortune. Wen Tingyi’s reputation as a “Pioneer Philanthropist” and “Devoted Husband” became a household name.
Although these two titles sparked some controversy after Wen Tingyi remarried and had another child, the dissent was forcibly suppressed by the Wen family’s immense financial power.
And that adopted child was him.
Today, his own parents had also been dead for eighteen years.
Wen Xubai couldn’t help but clench his fists.
Philanthropist?
Ridiculous.
It was nothing more than… exploitation.
“Xiao Bai, tell me… if I had raised you from the moment you were born, you would be an adult by now, wouldn’t you?”
So, he was waiting for this.
Wen Xubai suddenly understood.
Everything that had happened since he stepped into the Wen house—Qin Yalin’s abuse, Wen Xuyi’s humiliation, and the punishment of standing here for so long…
All of it was merely… to put him in his place. A show of power.
Thinking of this, Wen Xubai forced down the corners of his mouth that wanted to sneer. He slowly unclenched his fists behind his back, squeezed out a smile, and feigned composure. “Yes, Father. I will never forget the Wen family’s kindness in raising me for as long as I live.”
“Sigh…” Wen Tingyi let out a deep sigh. He suddenly stood up from the sofa, leaned on his cane, walked over to Wen Xubai, and gently patted his head.
The movement was incredibly gentle, like a loving elder caressing a junior of his own family.
Only Wen Xubai felt a chill run through his entire body at the sudden touch.
“Child, the events of that year were too sudden. So sudden that… neither you nor I were prepared. Now, you have grown so big… All these years, I have given you the best resources, let you enjoy the best life. Seeing you grow from that pitiful little thing into the talented man you are today… I truly regard you as my own flesh and blood.”
His words were moving, so much so that even Wen Xubai was momentarily stunned by them.
But in the next second, the man’s voice pulled him back to reality.
Wen Tingyi spoke unhurriedly, “Child, I am old. I don’t know how many more years I have to chat with you face-to-face like this… Regarding what happened back then, I still have many regrets, and a knot in my heart that has never been untied…”
Wen Xubai lowered his eyes, understanding the implication.
“Father, please speak. As long as it is something I can do, I will do my utmost… to help Father achieve it.”
He spoke sincerely, and the man revealed a satisfied smile.
“Good child, good child…” Wen Tingyi leaned on his cane and walked back to the desk.
His body was no longer as burly as it was in his youth, but he was still tough. Although he walked with a limp due to an accident years ago, it couldn’t hide the vigorous bearing he once held.
Wen Tingyi was a man who had carved a bloody path out of a den of desperadoes.
But now, this man who “didn’t care about dying” was talking to him about “lifespan,” which Wen Xubai found incredibly strange.
Wen Tingyi slowly picked up a brown paper bag from the table and handed it to Wen Xubai.
“This is?” Wen Xubai took it doubtfully. There was nothing written on the bag.
“This is all the information regarding Xiao Chi that I have collected over the past few years.”
“You want me to… help you find him?” Wen Xubai asked hesitantly.
Wen Tingyi nodded, but then added, “There is also an old acquaintance of mine. I need you to go see him for me as well.”
An old acquaintance?
After Wen Xubai walked out of Wen Tingyi’s study with the file bag, those two words echoed in his mind.
Wen Tingyi didn’t tell him who the acquaintance was, nor what kind of person they were.
But Wen Xubai thought that for a person to be remembered for eighteen years, unforgettable even in one’s twilight years, there were likely only two possibilities:
One was a nemesis hated to the bone; the other was… a lover etched into the heart.
For someone like Wen Tingyi, who clawed his way to the peak of life through sheer toughness and ruthless methods, Wen Xubai felt the most likely option was… an enemy.
Or perhaps, it was both.
And that child…
Wen Xubai couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.
It wasn’t strange for a father to want to find his son. What was strange was that Wen Tingyi hadn’t found him in eighteen years—so why did he believe Wen Xubai could find him in such a short time now?
Furthermore, three years after the incident, the entire Wen household had tacitly accepted that the Third Young Master was dead. To avoid upsetting the Master, the new Madam, and him—the “Third Young Master” who had taken the replacement spot—the matter was rarely mentioned in the Wen house.
Unless…
Wen Xubai’s heart slowly sank.
Wen Xuchi… regarding this person whose name he had heard growing up but whose face he had only seen in childhood newspaper clippings, he wasn’t sure what kind of feeling he held in his heart.
Unknowingly, Wen Xubai had walked out onto the balcony.
The cool evening breeze clarified his chaotic thoughts and suppressed much of the irritability in his heart.
Wen Xubai rested his hands on the balcony railing, closing his eyes to relax for a moment.
Just as he opened his eyes and reached for the brown paper bag, the phone in his pocket rang untimely.
Hearing the vibration, Wen Xubai’s slender fingers pulled the phone out. He glanced at the caller ID; it was a completely unfamiliar number.
After a moment’s thought, Wen Xubai answered it. Sliding his finger across the screen, he placed the phone to his ear.
Before he could speak, the person on the other end beat him to it:
“Hey, Boss, it’s me!”
Wen Xubai remained silent for a moment. He had already guessed who was on the other end, so he said indifferently, “I know.”
“Eh? How did you know?”
The voice on the other end was strange, laced with static and electronic distortion—clearly processed through a voice changer. The caller had likely assumed that because of this, Wen Xubai wouldn’t recognize his voice, hence the confidence.
But now that he was exposed immediately, the voice on the other end weakened instantly.
“Talk business,” Wen Xubai said, pinching the bridge of his nose to cut off the other person’s “confusion.”
“Oh, oh,” the person snapped back to reality, took a deep breath, and said, “Boss, that person you wanted to find, I found him for you!”
Wen Xubai’s hand, resting on the railing, paused. He listened as the person on the other end lamented about how thrilling the investigation process was, how difficult it had been, how rigorous his reasoning was, and how accurate his guesses were… It wasn’t until the person was about to reveal the final location that Wen Xubai interrupted in a deep voice: “I will come find you tomorrow.”
He then hung up the phone.
If someone were watching from a distance at that moment, they would see a man with exquisite, sculpted features sitting on a rattan chair on the balcony, his long lashes slightly lowered, lost in thought.
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