Wu Xin: The Monster Killer

Chapter 83 Secret

Sheng Yi returned first in the afternoon, her face covered in a gaudy mess of black ash. When they rushed to the mourning hall in the early morning, the second concubine had already been picked out and placed into a large iron plate, scattered here and there, a dozen or so pieces of charred bone of varying sizes. Ma Yinghao hadn't slept all night, his handsome face looking somewhat disheveled. Leaning on his cane, he stood on the ruins, his eyes half-closed, swaying unsteadily.

Perhaps it was due to the repulsion between people of the same sex, but Sevie particularly disliked the Fourth Miss, and Sheng Yi also felt annoyed whenever she saw the Eldest Young Master. Sevie tried to be perfunctory and pretentious, but Sheng Yi simply stood there with a blank, expressionless face. The new coffin arrived, and today was supposed to be the day of the funeral. The remains were placed in the coffin, and the Ma family didn't care about filial piety or family traditions. The Eldest Young Master made the decision, and the funeral proceeded as planned.

Sheng Yi's grief had been somewhat offset by the exhaustion from running around the city. He washed his face, changed into a suit, adjusted the black armband, and then, ignoring everyone, sat on the daybed in the outer room of the bedroom. As he sat, he slowly glanced at Wu Xin, feeling a slight sense of peace, as if finding some solace. Wu Xin, still dressed in her work pants and white shirt, stood quietly to his side, refusing to disturb him.

A moment later, Saiwei returned, looking just as disheveled as Shengyi had been. She went to the bathroom to thoroughly cleanse herself, only reappearing an hour later. Tucking her wet, short hair behind her ears, she knew she was in mourning and couldn't wear makeup, but without any makeup, her complexion looked pale and sallow. Rationally, she had no intention of dating Wuxin, yet she desperately wanted him to fall for her. Hesitantly, she applied a little face cream, feeling satisfied only when she thought she looked rather clean and fresh.

Seeing that the two men had arrived, Wuxin quietly explained his plan to them. The two listened and nodded, their relaxed nerves tensing again. After dinner, the room lights were on, and the three of them neither rested nor moved, but instead sat around the daybed playing cards. Occasionally, the maids and servants would come and go, but they didn't mind. They played cards until eleven or twelve o'clock, when Saiwei had someone bring them a late-night snack. After the three of them had eaten and drunk their fill, they finally made an excuse to rest.

They didn't sleep, and neither could the servants; they stayed up until midnight, when they were all so tired they were practically falling over. Finally, when they got some rest, they immediately scattered to their rooms like birds and beasts. Sevi drew the curtains, locked the doors, and turned off the lights. A large, silvery moon hung high in the sky outside, its light filtering through the curtains and casting shadowy patterns inside the room.

Sheng Yi made the first move, squatting down in front of a glass cabinet in the corner and carefully pulling out the lower drawer. Sai Wei, on the other hand, got barefoot onto the bed and carefully felt under the mattress from head to toe.

Sheng Yi wasn't as quick-witted as Sai Wei, but when it came to delicate tasks, his hands were incredibly skillful. After searching the glass cabinet, he squatted down in front of the dressing table and silently pulled out a small drawer, placing it on the floor. As he rummaged through it, he suddenly whispered, "Damn it, someone's touched it."

Savi immediately looked up at him: "What?"

Shengyi held up a small, golden butterfly: "A hair clip mixed in with a silk flower."

Wuxin glanced down and saw three small drawers on the floor, filled with a chaotic mess of colorful items, completely disorganized. Saiwei, however, suddenly realized what was going on and whispered to Wuxin, "The clips are gold-plated; they should be kept with the beads."

It turns out that the second concubine had a particular trait: she loved to categorize things on her own initiative, and once she categorized them, she insisted on putting each item back into its own category. Items of the same category would be mixed together haphazardly, making it look messy and untidy, but that's what she found pleasing and comfortable.

Sheng Yi continued searching, and Sai Wei continued crawling all over the bed, his gaze inattentively drifting to the black stains on the dressing mirror frame. He reached out and touched the mirror, but found nothing, so he instinctively looked to his right. Sheng Yi and Sai Wei were busy and didn't pay him any attention.

After a long while, Saiwei had almost kneaded the bedding until it was practically raw. Kneeling there empty-handed, she sighed and was about to speak when a "thud" suddenly came from under the bed.

She was startled, and Shengyi stopped moving as well. Then, a low tapping sound came from under the bed, accompanied by Wuxin's voice: "There's something under the bed!"

Saiwei quickly jumped off the bed, squatted down, and lifted the long bed sheet. To his surprise, he found that Wuxin had crawled in at some point and was now lying in the darkness.

The bed was a metal frame bed with wooden bed boards, and spring mattresses were placed on the bed boards. Without thinking, Wuxin pulled a folded piece of white paper from the gap between the bed boards and the metal frame.

He crawled out, a wisp of dust on his head, and waved the white paper at the siblings. Savi, quick as a flash, snatched it and unfolded it. Shengyi peeked out, then gasped, "What is this?"

Saiwei handed the paper to Wuxin, who looked at it and was equally puzzled—the paper was only the size of a palm, with just a few strokes that vaguely depicted a small mountain, a pavilion on the mountain, and a heavy circle in the center of the pavilion. That was all.

He looked at it again and again, completely baffled. Savi muttered to himself, "What is this painting about?"

Sheng Yi replied, "Anyway, Mother hasn't left the city for many years. If it's really a realistic painting, it won't be far off."

Savi snatched the piece of paper and looked at it again. Then, he held up a finger to the two people in front of him and said in a strange, almost mystical voice, "I know! It's not far. It won't take us more than a few tens of minutes to walk to the place in the painting."

Before the two could ask any questions, she smiled mysteriously and flicked the piece of paper in her hand: "Isn't this our backyard?"

The back garden of the Ma residence also has a history of several decades, and like the Ma residence itself, it is the legacy of Ma's father. Saiwei and Shengyi don't have a deep impression of their grandfather, only knowing that he started from scratch and was very capable. The back garden is the size of a small park, and the scenery inside is entirely artificial, yet it does have hills, water, flowers, and woods. Although it's autumn now, the scenery in the garden is still quite beautiful; however, the Ma family has become accustomed to it and no longer finds it beautiful, and might even be too lazy to go.

Even though Savi and Shengyi were still confused, they realized something was wrong. The three of them squeezed onto the bed and started chattering. Savi said, "It must have been Mom who drew it. Look, she even used an eyebrow pencil."

Sheng Yi pondered for a moment and said, "Did something happen to Mother? Did she try to escape beforehand but failed? Is she forbidding us from going home because things aren't peaceful at home?"

Savi lowered her head: "What big thing could happen in our family? It's nothing more than a civil war." She put the piece of paper on the bed: "Unless something goes wrong with the pavilion, our family is going to split up, and the civil war turns into an external war."

Sheng Yi sneered, "Hasn't the cripple already split off?"

Saiwei replied, "Do you think Fifth and Eighth Aunts are honest? Don't underestimate Fourth and Fifth Aunts just because they're young; they're both cunning! Father has a powder keg temper; I can't even be bothered to look at him. Do you think Fifth and Eighth Aunts could have any real feelings for him?"

The siblings launched into a tirade against everyone in the household, but came to no conclusion. Unwilling to let them ramble on, they waited until they'd had their fill before steer the conversation back to the main point. Since Ma Yinghao was always home, it felt like someone else was in charge; so they decided to wait until he returned to Tianjin and then conduct a thorough investigation of the garden pavilion.

Two days later, seeing that things were peaceful at home, Ma Yinghao was ready to return to Tianjin. His younger siblings were somewhat wary of him, and when they heard he was leaving, they all said goodbye and wished him a safe journey.

The Ma family had connections with the Japanese as early as the grandfather's generation. Master Ma was an official in the Japanese government, and Ma Yinghao also worked for the Japanese, but they operated independently, not as members of the same faction. The War of Resistance against Japan lasted six years, becoming increasingly evenly matched, and Master Ma seized the opportunity to gain immense power. While Ma Yinghao couldn't match his father's abilities, he was still very influential in Tianjin.

He traveled by car from Beijing to Tianjin and returned home on a bright autumn afternoon. The Ma Mansion in Tianjin was an unremarkable little Western-style house, its location and style excessively plain, hardly befitting his wealth and status.

Five years ago, his wife divorced him, so he is now a bachelor. He dragged his right leg, which had been lame since childhood, and walked unsteadily into the building.

He sat down in the small living room to catch his breath, drank a cup of hot tea, and then stood up, leaning on his cane. There were no proper servants in the building; the person beside him was an old man who had served him for a long time. The old man followed him for a few steps, and seeing that he still hadn't given any orders, he withdrew as well.

As Ma Yinghao walked, he pulled a bunch of brass keys from his pocket. He stopped in front of a small door at the end of the corridor, bent down, and used one of the keys to open the door.

After entering the room, the door was immediately closed again with a click, the lock sealing tightly. A tug on the light cord beside the door turned on the ceiling light. The room was likely a storage room; it had no windows, but it was also empty of clutter, except for an enormous glass tank against the wall. A thin iron pipe pierced the ceiling, descended the wall from the second floor, and curved into the tank—a rather ugly automatic water-changing device.

The room was filled with a stuffy, salty smell, because a glass tank, about half the size of one wall, was filled with seawater. A dozen or so brightly colored sea snakes swam within, their movements extremely agile.

Ma Yinghao himself was not very agile, so he was quite eager to admire the sea snake's agility. He stared intently at the large glass tank for a good half hour. In the very center of the tank stood a haphazard cluster of steel pipes, serving as land. A sea snake, isolated and helpless, coiled on top of it, its small, pointed head raised, seemingly meeting his gaze for a while.

Ma Yinghao wasn't one to let frivolous pursuits distract him from his studies. After looking at his pet for a while, he turned and walked to the corner opposite the glass tank. A square iron plate, about a meter in size, was laid on the floor in the corner, with a hinge on one side, resembling an iron door for a cellar. The door also had a handle and a lock. He bent down, unlocked the lock, then gripped the handle and forcefully lifted the small iron door open.

Beneath the iron gate lay a dark, unfathomable abyss. A cool, musty smell rushed in, assaulting his nostrils. Ma Yinghao slowly crouched down, reached inside, and groped around the doorway until he finally found the light switch. He pressed it, and a faint light immediately filled the room.

He deftly extended one leg, stepping onto the iron staircase below. His body slowly sank down with each step, revealing a basement level below.

In the very center of the basement floor, there was still an iron plate covering the floor. However, unlike the iron door on the previous floor, this iron plate, while also complete with hinges and locks, was much larger, and a neat two-foot square air vent was cut into it. A row of thick iron bars was welded to the vent, reminiscent of a prison.

The cane slammed heavily onto the iron plate beneath his feet, producing a dull thud. Ma Yinghao stood motionless, then heard a series of bell sounds approaching from the space below. The stench grew stronger and stronger; he pulled out a handkerchief and, unable to bear it any longer, covered his mouth and nose.

In the dim light, he lowered his eyes and saw a pale, dirty face slowly rising towards the vent. The face was slightly tilted, and a single blue eye was visible through the disheveled hair.

(End of this chapter)