A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

That notebook was brought up from Dongyang by Lin Yuqing.

Six months ago, she returned to Dongyang and pried open the locked drawer in her father's study, pulling out a notebook from the bottom. The notebook contained her mother's handwriting—thin, slender, with the last vertical stroke slanted to the left.

She tore off only one page from the top and took it to Heqi Cliff.

The page had four characters: Today's Da Ning.

She compared those four characters to the three characters in the nineteenth pair on the cliff—the same hand, the same last vertical stroke slanted to the left. She hadn't dared to look at the rest.

That notebook had been in her bag for the past six months. She had taken it up Heqi Cliff, down into the well, and on countless airplane trips.

She had never opened it before. This time she opened it.

She locked herself in that room at the health center for two days and two nights, refusing to see anyone. Zhu Wanqing delivered meals twice, leaving them at the door; when she went to collect them the second time, the first meal was still there.

On the morning of the third day, she brought the notebook to the Zangmai Hall, spread it out on the jade table, and turned to the middle.

"These three pages," she said.

The text on those three pages was denser than elsewhere.

The first page begins with four characters: "Winter of the Jia-Shen Year".

Ye Feng leaned closer to look. "What year is the Jia Shen year?"

"2004," Lin Yuqing said. "My mother passed away in January 2005."

"This was two months before she died."

That page recorded something, and it was very simple:

"We have a guest today. His surname is Zhao. He calls himself Guanlan. He spoke of his family affairs. After listening, he did not reply."

The second page is from three months ago:

"In the autumn of the year Jia Shen, Guan Lan returned. He brought a book. The book contained more than three hundred names, all of whom were children. He read it until midnight and could not sleep."

The third page contains only one line:

"Before the first month of the year Yiyou, Guanlan visited three times. This time I did not refuse. I told him: Wait until my daughter grows up."

Lin Yuqing's finger stopped on the last line.

"He contacted her three times," she said.

"right."

"None of the three times they came to kill her."

No one spoke in the hall. Ye Feng flipped through the book, reading each page one by one.

The notebook was filled with trivial details: which day it rained, where she went, who visited her, and what prescriptions she wrote for people.

One page reads: "Yuqing can walk today. She fell seven times."

One page read: "Yuqing had a fever. She didn't sleep all night. The fever subsided by dawn."

On the next page, it says: "Yuqing turned four. Her dad bought her a red ribbon. She tried to tie it herself for a long time but couldn't, and she cried. I tied it for her, and she cried again. When I asked her why she was crying, she said she wanted to tie it herself."

Lin Yuqing paused when she reached this part. She took her hand off the notebook, turned around, and stood with her back to everyone for a while.

No one spoke. After a while, she turned back and continued scrolling down.

The handwriting became increasingly shaky towards the end.

Turning to the last few pages, the writing was no longer legible—one line of text had to be written in two lines, and the strokes were very long.

The last page contained only five words: "March. North. Six days."

That was the trip she took north to Heqi Cliff. Ye Feng closed the notebook.

"Old sir."

The master sat in a rattan chair. "There's a sentence in your notebook," Ye Feng said, "that I read aloud at Luoyankou."

Which sentence?

"I have never met the one who actually gave the order."

"Yes," the old man said, "I've never seen it before."

"But she's seen it."

"...She met him three times."

The old woman tightened her grip on the handrail. "She never told me that."

That afternoon, the people in the hall connected the two lines together.

Article 1: Forty-two years ago, a sixteen-year-old boy sat outside the gate of Nirvana Mountain for three days and was dismissed.

Article 2: Twenty years ago, the same person went to Dongyang three times to find Zhao Weining, not to kill her, but to persuade her.

Cheng Jiuyuan drew the two lines into one on the paper. After finishing, he looked up.

"He hasn't made a move in twenty years."

"For the past six months, we've been telling him he's waiting, that he's waiting for two things to ripen at the same time."

"Maybe this isn't what he was waiting for."

"What is that?"

Cheng Jiuyuan didn't continue. Lin Yuqing answered.

She stood by the jade platform, her hand on the book.

"He promised her."

Everyone in the room turned their heads. "The last time, my mom told him, 'Wait until my daughter grows up.'"

"He agreed."

"If he hadn't agreed, he would have taken action twenty years ago."

I was six years old then.

The hall was so quiet you could hear the wind outside. It was Ji Qingyao who spoke first. She had rarely spoken in such settings in the past six months.

"But your mother still died."

"right."

"Died in the first month of the lunar calendar."

"That is, three months after he went there for the third time."

Lin Yuqing looked up. "It wasn't him," she said.

How did you know?

"I have no idea."

She closed the notebook. "But I know something else."

"explain."

I was at home the day my mother died.

Everyone in the hall was looking at her. "I was six years old. I was in the courtyard the morning my mother died. I remember people came that day."

"Three people arrived, dressed in black, in a black car."

"After they went inside, my dad carried me out and took me to Old Wang's house next door."

"When I got home that night, my mom was gone."

"You remember things from when you were six years old so clearly?" Zhu Wanqing asked.

"I remember."

"Lin Yuqing—"

"I remember Old Wang's family was making dumplings that day!"

Her voice suddenly rose to a high pitch. "I remember that afternoon I was squatting in their yard watching ants! I remember their dog was named Heizi! I remember what was playing on their TV!"

"I remember everything!"

No one in the room dared to speak.

Lin Yuqing stopped herself. She put her hand to her mouth, held it for a while, and then put her hand down.

"...I'm sorry."

Lin Yuqing's voice was very steady, abnormally so.

"I've investigated those three people over the past six months."

"What did you find?"

"We found out that the car was rented, and the person who rented it was from the Li family."

"The Li family?" Zhu Wanqing frowned. "The Li family of Dongyang?"

"right."

"But the Li family has been living off orders from our Zhu and Lin families for the past twenty years. Where did they get the audacity—"

"They don't have the guts," Lin Yuqing said. "They were being instructed by someone."

"Who ordered it?"

Lin Yuqing didn't answer. She picked up the notebook and hugged it to her chest.

"For the past six months, I've felt that the answer is Zhao Guanlan."

"He approached my mother three times, but she refused, so he resorted to violence."

"That makes sense."

She looked up. "But it doesn't make sense now."

Why?

"Because he tried to persuade them three times but they didn't take any action."

"He waited for twenty years."

"He never even touched a hair on my head."

Lin Yuqing tightened her grip on the notebook. She asked the most difficult question she had faced in the past six months.

"Then my mom—"

"Who exactly caused this?"