Chapter 303 - Don't Tell Me She's Still Alive

Qing Chen had the courtesy of ordering a bunch of food before he arrived in his father's house. He had already sent a message to Qing Lok and he was glad that his brother and the IT team were waiting for them.

"Hey," Qing Lok said and got up. Everyone already looked busy with their laptops. "I've already got a few pictures of mom and ran through the systems and CCTVs. I know it's going to take a while." Then he lowered his voice. "Are we really going to do this?"

Qing Chen smiled. "Well, you already got started." He inclined his head to the side, "Come on, I want to show you something."

Feng Xuan began to open up the containers from the Chinese restaurant and the smell of food made her stomach grumble. She quickly followed the brothers.

"Where's Wuming?" Qing Chen asked, climbing the stairs. "I need him here."

"He's sleeping I think," answered Qing Lok. "He hadn't been out his room since this morning."

Qing Chen did not even bother knocking and went inside Wuming's room. The room was dark and cold. He was relieved to find the heap under the blanket.

"Get up, Wuming," he said, pulling the sheet off his brother. 

Wuming groaned and turned away from him. Qing Chen flicked the light on and Wuming turned to his stomach with an angry growl.

"I want you to see something."

"If this is about mother," Wuming said, his voice muffled on the mattress. "I don't want to see it."

"Just hear me out first."

"La, la, la, la. I don't want to hear anything from you, Chen. Quit this madness and let me get back to sleep."

Qing Chen rubbed on his eyes, not wanting to give up too easily. "Don't you want to know her possible last words?"

Qing Chen saw Wuming's body tensed under his shirt. He knew that he already got his brother's attention.

"'Burn it'", Qing Chen said.

It was a few beats before Wuming pushed himself up and looked at him with eyes slitted with sleepiness. "That's it? Those were her last words?!"

"To me, at least," he said.

"Was she talking about the house? Since our life is full of surprises, tell me, were you the one who actually burned it?" the sarcasm was dripping from his tone.

"No," Qing Chen said with a roll of his eyes.

Qing Lok and Wuming looked confused as Qing Chen pulled his coat off and tie. Wuming started to be alarmed when his brother started on his buttons. "Wait, what the hell are you doing?"

"My tattoo," Qing Chen said like he was in a hurry. "It's mom last painting. She wanted me to burn it even though the house was already on fire."

Qing Lok's eyebrows were the first to grow deeper. "DO YOU THINK SHE WAS THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY STARTED THE FIRE?!"

All their heads whipped to the youngest Qing. Qing Chen's stomach plummeted. "I haven't thought about that."

But now that it was out in the open, they would not be able to clear it out of their minds.

"Come to think of it, if she was planning to create a fake death then she would need to die," Qing Lok face started to get red. "What if we killed that man for no reason?!"

Qing Lok was talking about the first person that the three of them killed. They did it all for the sake of their mother. It was their way of avenging and closure.

Qing Chen turned away from Qing Lok, "That should be the least of our worries." He pulled the shirt off and turned his back on his brothers. "What we need is to decode this."

Wuming only cursed under his breath.

**

They all went down and while they were having dinner, Qing Chen had his body on top of the table. Qing Lok was getting a picture of the tattoo in every angle.

"You meant to say, this was how it really looked like?" Qing Lok asked, the sound of the camera clicking following his voice.

"Yes," Qing Chen answered. "It was painted in black. It almost looked like a charcoal drawing. The only thing that had color was the petals of the rose in the middle."

Wuming was leaning against the counter, forking his food. "What if it's just a painting?"

"Stop being so negative," Qing Lok countered.

"What do you think about this?" Wuming asked Feng Xuan who was also still eating.

"A month," was her answer. "Let's just check. If what The Zookeeper said was not true then we wouldn't have to waste time looking for MY mom. We would just label him crazy and we're going to get on with our lives."

"And if we found our mother?"

Feng Xuan turned her eyes on the floor. "I don't have a plan if that were the case."

Wuming grinned. "I'm pretty confident she was dead. I was the last person in that house. I didn't even know mother got back inside. I pulled Qing Lok from his bed." He turned to his youngest brother. "I don't know if you remember but I pushed through a glass window from the second floor to save your ass."

"Hey," Qing Lok said, "I jumped on my own."

"But I got the most injuries. You were fourteen that time, right?"

"Fifteen," Qing Lok answered quietly. "I turned fifteen a week before that."

Wuming turned to Feng Xuan. "After jumping from that window, we rolled on the grass. There was smoke everywhere. We could hardly breathe. A fireman lead us to the front yard where we found Chen clutching that stupid canvas. I shook him so hard and I was asking him where was our mother. He couldn't say a word. Little did I know he had that blasted thing tattooed on his skin. Then a man was carrying our mom. So don't tell me that she's alive.

Because I saw her dead."