Chapter 305 - El Dorado

Their attention was taken when Qing Lok suddenly zoomed on the screen. "What's that?" Wuming asked.

"That's the background," Qing Lok answered. There were two pyramids—like the ones in the ancient times. All man-made. There was a small patch on the lower part which they took as a small body of water. "I think I've seen this before."

"I don't know," Qing Chen said. "You," he pointed to a random person. "Look this up on the net. Find which country it belongs."

Qing Lok also made his hands busy. Feng Xuan wrung out hers. Qing Chen turned to her. "I feel so useless," she told him.

"Believe me, we'll only get in their way. We should leave the technicalities to them."

Feng Xuan was also starting to get nervous. They were nowhere near an answer but this was something. They had leads. What if when they search for her mother they would also find something and she would have to deal with it? How would she react? Did she really want to find her mother?

No, she scolded herself. This was not about her. She needed to be there as support to her husband. If she was feeling this way, she could not even begin to imagine the turmoil he was feeling.

"What if she's alive, Chen?" she asked, licking her lips nervously. "Are you going to see her? Are you going to introduce yourself?"

Qing Chen downed his drink, not wanting to answer the question he himself did not know the answer to. Thankfully, he was cut off by Qing Lok.

"I don't think this is from anywhere in this world."

There were now a bunch of pyramid pictures on the screen and none matched the ones from Qing Chen's back.

"I thought you've seen it?" Wuming raised an eyebrow.

"I know but… I don't think it was a picture… I think it was a movie." He put his fingers back on his keyboard, not knowing what to search for. "It was a children's movie. A cartoon. Foreign."

He tried to make his words something that the search engine would understand. "I think it was a musical?" he frowned. "Or not," he said as he scrolled through movie posters.

"I really haven't seen this before," Qing Chen said. Not even with Qing Lok's clues, he could not remember anything.

"Me neither," said Wuming.

"That's what happens when all you wanted to know about was how to kill a person with a laundry basket," Qing Lok said.

His fingers continued to scroll and more information came to his mind. "It was about two friends who were mistaken as the lost kings of a city… of a lost city."

Then the idea struck him and the next second, there was a picture on the screen. Two men were riding a horse and on their background was the same pyramid on Qing Chen's back.

"Mom painted something from a children's movie?!" Wuming laughed. "Can you believe that, Chen? You have something from a kid's movie on your back!"

"El Dorado," Qing Chen said the title. "Should that mean something?"

Qing Lok felt it like a punch to his chest. It was a forgotten movie. But seeing this picture brought back memories of it. His fingers froze on his mouse. "It was something that mom made me watch before. I was… six or seven I think? We've watched it together a few times. She said she wanted to live in that city."

"What's in that city?"

"Gold. It's the Lost City of Gold."

Qing Chen dropped his glass on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Sir, I have something," said a thin and small voice.

"Send it," Qing Lok said and there was another page of a poem on the screen.

"It's another poem by Edgar Allan Poe. It's called El Dorado."

Qing Chen felt like he was going to faint. He felt like the ground that he was standing upon was shifting and that the walls of their house was going to fall and the ceiling would crumble any second now.

Wuming cursed silently under his breath and Qing Lok felt like he was going to throw up.

Was it possible that their mother left them a puzzle to solve? Of all the people that she could base it off, it had to be Edgar Allan Poe. None of her children had been in favor of literature. 

Wuming tried suggesting something. "Or maybe this is just a tribute for the poet?"

"Then why would she want to burn it?" Feng Xuan asked.

The three paced the room in small equal steps. That was the question that would not let them fall asleep any time soon.

"I didn't even know that she was a fan of the dead man," added Wuming.

"Well," Qing Lok said, "if you weren't so busy being our father's son then maybe you could've learned a thing or two about our mom."

Wuming's jaw tightened. He wanted to counter what his brother said. But counter it with what? He was stating the truth. Ever since his father started taking him to the things about the mafia, he grew farther and farther away from his mother. It did not meant that he didn't love her. It was just that, they grew apart.

"WE could've learned more about our mother," Qing Lok followed. True, they were all guilty of it. They all wanted to be their FATHER'S SON. They all wanted to be the crowning glory of The Mr. Qing.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" Qing Chen asked. "That place do not exist."

They all turned to the screen and read the poem. The first few stanzas were about a certain knight on a long journey.

"Now, these look like directions," said Qing Lok.

He met a pilgrim shadow— 

'Shadow,' said he, 

'Where can it be— 

This land of Eldorado?' 

'Over the Mountains 

Of the Moon, 

Down the Valley of the Shadow, 

Ride, boldly ride,' 

The shade replied,— 

'If you seek for Eldorado!"

Feng Xuan shivered again. This was not happening. This was not real. They were not receiving instructions from a painting that was meant to have been burnt to ashes. She shook her head. She refused to believe it.

"Do you think," began Qing Lok, "Do you think she wants us to look for this city? Do you think she's there?"

He asked this with his head bowed, like he was embarrassed to be even asking about it. It was Wuming who walked to him and squeezed on his shoulder. But in truth, Wuming did not know what he was going to say to him. He had been so against on looking for their mother and he couldn't believe what was happening either but apparently, it WAS happening.

Qing Lok tried again. "Can we at least say that we're in the right path?"

Qing Chen nodded and breathed out. His heart was drumming against his ear. "Yeah, I can say we're going in the right path."