Chapter 441 - Walking on Earth, Ashes in an Urn (Can Skip)

Feng Xuan tried talking to her father the following day but the only person who answered her calls were his secretary. "Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Qing?" the woman asked in the most non-friendly voice that Feng Xuan heard from an assistant.

She might still be harboring annoyed emotions at her from the last time that she had tried to stop her from entering her father's meeting brazenly.

"I need to speak with my father," she said, trying to calm herself.

"Mr. Feng is not around. Should I leave a message?"

"No, I'd really rather see him. When is he available?"

"I'm afraid that Mr. Feng is not going to be available for quite some time. He will be back in the country in three or four weeks."

Feng Xuan groaned silently. Her father could've mentioned about this when she visited him the last time. Now she had to wait to get to talk to him in person again. All her questions had to wait.

"Alright, will you please tell him to call me as soon as he lands back here in Chengshi?"

"Noted, Mrs. Qing." Feng Xuan was almost grateful when she heard that the secretary actually scribbled it down. "Is there anything else that I can do for you?"

"Nothing else. Thank you."

Feng Xuan hung up the phone, feeling as empty as when she had lifted it to dial. Qing Chen could already see the disappointed look on her face. "No luck?"

She shook her head. "Nope. None at all." She got up and pulled the rubber from her hair. "I think he's avoiding me. He just doesn't want to tell me the truth." Feng Xuan stripped off her clothes when she reached the door to the bathroom. She was so mad that she could hear the fabric tearing as she pulled them off her body. "Well, it's not like I'm not going to learn the truth and when I did, I am going to feed his lies to him."

Feng Xuan had never felt this kind of anger towards her father. He had always been her comfort person. He had been the person that she would come running to all the time. He was the person that would give her safety in times of uncertainty—or so she thought! She could not believe it, her father had lied to her! About her mother, of all the things!

She just couldn't believe it.

Maybe her father was no longer the teddy bear that she had always thought he was. He had been her cushion and lifesaver. But now, she could not help but think he was one of the reasons why her life was a mess right now.

"It was not like I can't handle the truth!" she ranted as she was in the shower and Qing Chen was busily brushing his teeth outside of the enclosure. "Should I follow him? I'm going to corner him and I'm going to make him tell me the truth."

Qing Chen spat toothpaste on the sink. "I'd really not advise you on that. Your father might be going through some things as well. Maybe he's not ready to tell you whatever it is."

"It's been years, Chen! What could be so bad that he could not tell me? That she's alive? I can take that! A lot of people had been telling me about that I am no longer believing that she really died that faithful night! It's a lot more easier to believe that she's actually still walking in this earth than her being ashes in an urn!"

She was scrubbing her skin so hard that she could feel the warm water as stings. Her fair skin turned an irritated red, but she did not stop. She just scrubbed and scrubbed like it would actually rid her of her problems.

Oh how she wished that it would work like that.

While she was rinsing herself, Qing Chen was patiently waiting for her outside of the enclosure, sitting on the top of the toilet lid. "If there's a reason on why you would kill your mother, what would it be?"

"That's it, Chen! I've thought about that. There is NOTHING! Nothing, that my mother could do that would make me want to kill her. Not unless she was going to kill me. But I don't see that happening."

Qing Chen leaned against the sink when she was brushing her teeth and washing her face. "There has to be something other than that, Xuan," he said, watching her face on the mirror. "What if… what if your mother is actually a horrible person, you know?"

Feng Xuan shrugged at that. "I only knew her to be horrible to me, with all the pressure of her wanting a lovely daughter who loved to cook and socialize. But to other people? I don't think so. She had always kept up a perfect image in society. She was the perfect wife."

Feng Xuan could tell that Qing Chen was also thinking. His face was expressionless and he was quiet for a while. They were back in the bedroom when he shared his new idea. "I don't think we're asking the right questions."

And there they were again, trying to psych each other out of their minds trying to look for answers that kept on burying itself as soon as people were looking for it. 

"Who are you willing to kill for?" Qing Chen asked.

"You, of course. My father, Wang Yimin, Liu Meilien, and your family. I'd also take a bullet for any of you."

"What if your mother did something bad? Like, try to steal your father's money?"

"My mother's a Yang. She's old money. She was richer than my father."

"What if we're looking at the situation wrong?" suggested Qing Chen. "Is there anything that your mother could've been doing wrong? Or could it have been your father?"

"I don't think my father could do wrong," she said. "Aside from lie to me of course."

Qing Chen sighed. There was no point trying to puzzle this out with Feng Xuan. She was too close. She was too biased about this. "So are you saying that your father couldn't have been the reason of this?"

She shook her head. "That's not possible. I know so. I know it's my mother's fault for some reason." She frowned. It was a gut feeling. And there was the thing about her killing her own mother… so what was it? Why would she kill her?

"Maybe we're not thinking enough," said Qing Chen. "Last question for the night before we sleep: what is that would make you want to kill me?"

Feng Xuan laughed at that. "I would never wish to kill you, Qing Chen."

"Well, under what circ.u.mstance are you going to kill me?"

"Only if you're asking for it," she chuckled. "Like if you're sick and suffering too much already. I'd be more than willing to pull the plug on you."

"Other than that?"

She thought of a joke, "Oh I don't know... as I said if you're asking for it... like... having a mistress perhaps?"

They both laughed at the idea.