chapter 3
When the woman with the Buddhist pendant dragged the other three away, loudly warning them not to disturb the master at work, the butler approached.
Qin Xuan told him, “I won’t need you. I’ll personally take Boss Zhu upstairs.”
I tilted my head at him.
His gaze was candid, his expression solemn.
“Boss Zhu, I judged you by appearances and failed to recognize a true master. Please forgive any offense.”
I nodded. “Think nothing of it.”
Everyone made mistakes.
After all, I had suspected that he could not count.
The central staircase led to an elegantly decorated circular corridor on the second floor. Doors lined one side; framed paintings hung along the other.
Qin Xuan’s movements grew stiff, and tension tightened his voice.
“Boss Zhu, I’ll tell you who occupies each room. Please see whether anything seems wrong.”
We walked side by side around the ring as he began his measured explanation.
“The first four rooms to the left of the stairs belong to my wife Yiru’s adoptive father, adoptive mother, biological father, and biological mother. Her biological parents are surnamed Jiang, and her adoptive parents are surnamed Lan. You met them downstairs.
“The fifth belongs to Yiru’s adoptive sister, Lan Ling.
“The sixth belongs to Yiru’s apprentice, Ye Yiyu.
“The seventh is my master bedroom.
“The last room—the eighth—belongs to my younger sister, Zhizhi.
“Boss Zhu, those are the eight people who live in this mansion. Counted that way, there truly are eight rooms.”
His voice trembled faintly.
“But the house was built with only seven bedrooms, nearly identical in size and layout. Since noticing the discrepancy, I’ve counted them many times. Sometimes there are eight. Sometimes… only seven.”
“When are there seven?” I asked abruptly.
“There is no pattern. The first time I noticed the problem, I came upstairs and counted seven. Later, when I brought other masters here, we counted eight.”
I closed my eyes and let my consciousness expand without limit.
It grew broad enough to perceive the flowers swaying in the courtyard.
Broad enough to perceive the dark clouds bearing down from the horizon.
My eyes snapped open, and I cocked my head.
“A storm is coming.”
Qin Xuan had been watching me with pursed lips and anxious attention. He blinked. “What?”
I smiled at him.
“Let’s count again. This time, count only the rooms.”
When the mirage sense expands, it moves like silk and water, mist and lightning. For a brief time, it sweeps away every foreign thought, perception, intention, and even forces that cannot yet be understood.
Just as it did now.
Though he did not understand, Qin Xuan nodded. Together, we circled the corridor a second time.
“One, two, three…”
“Seven.”
Silence swallowed the corridor. Several seconds later, Qin Xuan’s trembling voice broke it.
“You see, Boss Zhu? I wasn’t lying. It has become seven again!”
“No. The house hasn’t changed. It always had seven.”
I looked at Qin Xuan and shrugged.
“Mr. Qin, you have an extra family member.”
His eyes instantly reddened.
“R-Really?”
His voice choked. Horror filled his expression, yet beneath it lay an inexplicable anticipation—even excitement.
I cut through his emotion.
“So our task is to identify which one of these eight people does not exist. That person is most likely the key to this strange affair.
“And now, Mr. Qin, you need to answer one question.”
He gradually composed himself.
“Ask anything, Boss Zhu. I swear on my character that I will tell you the truth and conceal nothing.”
I narrowed my eyes at the doors extending around the corridor, their repetition creating a pleasing geometric pattern.
“The people who live here are family in name, but their actual relationships are not close. The bond that gathered all of you under one roof is your wife, Jiang Yiru.
“So where is Jiang Yiru?”
The corridor fell silent again.
When Qin Xuan finally spoke, hesitation colored his voice.
“Boss Zhu… you don’t know?”
I stared at him. “How would I?”
He was quiet for a beat.
“I thought you would know whose home this was the moment you saw it.”
His words sparked a memory. I asked in shock, “Jiang Yiru—the wealthy novelist who earned several hundred million yuan in copyright fees by the age of twenty? Didn’t she already—”
I stopped myself. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I failed to explain.” Qin Xuan’s voice sank, and his face grew heavy with loneliness. “Yiru died three years ago.”
An hour later, I sat in the mansion’s first-floor study. Amid curling wisps of fragrant tea, I listened to Qin Xuan tell me about Jiang Yiru.
“Whenever the public discusses her, they call it a story of a true heiress and a false heiress. In fact, the opposite was true. Both her biological and adoptive parents came from very poor families.
“Yiru became famous for her writing at sixteen and achieved the financial freedom everyone envied at twenty. When she was twenty-one, the Jiang family found her and revealed that their daughter had been switched with another infant at the hospital. Yiru craved family affection, so she bought this mansion and invited both sets of parents, as well as Lan Ling—the sister who had been switched with her—to live here.
“Yiru and I met at a charity event. She deliberately concealed her background, and we met and fell in love like any ordinary couple.
“I’ve never known anyone so compassionate and kind. Her empathy was so intense that other people’s suffering often moved her to tears.
“My sister Zhizhi and I are orphans. To protect my pride, Yiru funded our education in someone else’s name.
“While doing charity work in the mountains, she met Ye Yiyu and recognized his gift for writing. She rescued him from an illegal coal workshop, brought him to the mansion, and took him as her apprentice.”
He stopped for a long time.
Sitting across from him, I sensed his grief, agony, and longing surging through the room like a physical tide.
Only when thunder sounded again beyond the window did he master himself and continue.
“Perhaps heaven could not bear to leave such a wonderful woman in this world. Three years ago, on the night of her twenty-ninth birthday, an old illness struck, and she died far too young.
“I miss her. I miss her so much… This impossible affair has even made me hope she has returned. A ghost, a soul—I don’t care. If I could see her once more, I would give anything.”
Another, louder bolt of thunder exploded outside.
I glanced at the sky. It was black as a cavern. Wind and thunder raged while rain battered the windows.
Then I looked back at the man clutching his head in anguish.
“Mr. Qin, have you considered what it would mean if Jiang Yiru truly returned in such a bizarre way?”
He raised his head, bewildered. “What would it mean?”
I answered slowly.
“It would mean she harbors resentment—resentment so deep that she would risk the destruction of her soul to return and collect a debt.
“And she is already here.
“She is one of you.”