After getting in touch with Meng Fushan, Ji Xun did not delay any further on the road. He drove non-stop, heading straight into Fujian Province to launch his investigation.
Investigation requires technique.
Ji Xun’s initial thought had been to investigate from the angle of Huo Ranyin’s grandfather, Huo Shanyuan. However, case files from that era were all recorded on paper; over so many years, they could easily have been lost. Even if they weren’t, digging them up would be a monumental, needle-in-a-haystack endeavor.
Approaching it from his own grandfather’s side wouldn’t work either.
As he drove into the borders of Fujian, Ji Xun received the results of the DNA comparison he had previously requested from the hospital. The report confirmed that his father was indeed not biologically related to his grandfather.
It was an expected outcome, but it likely wouldn’t be of much help in this matter.
Taking these DNA results to question his grandmother was equally pointless. If she didn’t know about his grandfather’s affairs, she wouldn’t be able to say anything. If she did know, she hadn’t been willing to speak three years ago, and she certainly wouldn’t speak now.
These two lines of thinking were clearly dead ends.
His best bet remained investigating the twenty-two individuals explicitly recorded in the sinking of the Dingbo.
Although the records of these twenty-two casualties’ families from forty years ago were also paper-based, these people had continued living through societal shifts. Their files had been updated several times and long since digitized, making them easy to locate and verify.
These twenty-two names did not just represent twenty-two lives and twenty-two shattered families; they represented twenty-two distinct investigative angles and potential sources of information.
_
Ji Xun first paid a visit to the local vital statistics archive. From the recorded list, he selected a few individuals with clear addresses, preparing to conduct door-to-door interviews. While at the local government offices, he also picked up some peripheral details about what the Huo family went through after the Dingbo vanished.
The first person he selected to visit was named Chen Cuijin, the wife of Zhao Zhiyong, who had been a steward on the ship back then.
When the Dingbo incident occurred, it caused a local sensation, prompting government intervention. Despite suffering massive losses, Huo Shanyuan did not abandon the families of the stricken employees under his command. He quickly paid out the compensation funds stipulated in their contracts.
But the matter did not end with the distribution of the funds.
The victims’ families still repeatedly gathered outside Huo Shanyuan’s door. They wept for their missing husbands and cursed Huo Shanyuan as a capitalist lapdog who had caused the deaths of their men. They made quite a few scenes.
The person leading the siege on Huo Shanyuan’s home was Chen Cuijin.
Perhaps out of genuine guilt, Huo Shanyuan subsequently handed over a significant amount of additional money.
Back then, aside from the official compensation, Chen Cuijin likely received the largest sum. She was a shrewd woman; not long after getting the money, she began buying properties on and off. She bought quite a few houses. Though she never remarried, she had now become a wealthy local landlord living a very comfortable life.
_
The residential compound where Chen Cuijin lived was neither too large nor too small, but it was very clean and free of clutter.
Ji Xun verified the location, walked up, and knocked on the door. The door opened.
An elderly, affluent-looking woman with a healthy head of black hair answered. Her complexion was somewhat dark, and she was dressed rather vibrantly, adorned with a gold necklace, gold bracelets, and gold earrings. The outfit and jewelry didn’t quite suit her skin tone, but she didn’t care at all, exuding total confidence.
She sized Ji Xun up from head to toe and smiled. “Young man, you certainly know how to find a place.”
Ji Xun froze. Had my arrival been leaked in advance?
Chen Cuijin continued, “A fresh face—I haven’t seen you around before. You’re here to rent a place, right? The apartments all belong to this old lady. Since you’ve come straight to my door, pay me a small viewing fee and I’ll find a nice unit for you.”
Ji Xun snapped out of it. “Ma’am, I’m not here to rent an apartment.”
The smile on Chen Cuijin’s face faded slightly.
“I’m here to ask you about something.”
“About what?” Chen Cuijin asked indifferently.
“It’s about the ship your husband Zhao Zhiyong worked on forty years ago, the Dingbo, and the ship’s owner behind it, Huo Shanyuan.”
The smile completely vanished from Chen Cuijin’s face. She grew impatient. “Why are you asking me about something from forty years ago! This old lady is busy. If you’re not renting, don’t talk to me. What kind of young person has no manners at all!”
Saying this, she applied force, intending to slam the door shut.
Ji Xun quickly took a step back to avoid getting hit in the face, but he didn’t give up. Instead, he swiftly wedged a box in front of the door to block it.
Failing to close it, Chen Cuijin flung the door open, ready to lose her temper, when she suddenly saw the box Ji Xun was holding.
It was a box of imported cherries.
The old woman’s grim expression began to soften.
“A small gift, ma’am,” Ji Xun said with a smile.
Chen Cuijin took it, hefted its weight, and gave the box a little shake to let the cherries inside roll past the airholes. She peeked inside, and upon seeing the size and quality of the fruit, she offered Ji Xun a smile once more.
“Young man, you do have manners after all. Alright, no one has come to rent from me this morning anyway. Come in, sit down, and have a cup of tea.”
_
Ji Xun followed Chen Cuijin inside.
To his surprise, there was another elderly woman in the room, wiping a table with a rag. This old woman wore plain blue clothes without a single piece of jewelry. Her gray hair was meticulously held back by a thin headband, giving her an air of neatness and efficiency.
At first glance, Ji Xun thought she was a housekeeper hired by Chen Cuijin.
But Chen Cuijin called out to her, “Bian Yan, this young man is here to ask about the Dingbo.”
This sentence made Ji Xun realize that this woman was also a family member of a Dingbo victim.
“Whose wife were you?”
“I am the wife of Qian Zhenyi.”
Qian Zhenyi was the helmsman’s assistant on the Dingbo.
Ji Xun quickly recalled the name. There were many positions on an ocean-going vessel; in the cockpit, there was the captain, the chief mate, the second mate, and below them, the helmsman’s assistant.
Though Chen Cuijin wouldn’t lift a finger without profit, since she had accepted the fruit, she was willing to offer some tea.
After Ji Xun had been seated for a moment, the tea was served. Chen Cuijin spoke up, “It’s been forty years. Why come ask about this now?”
“I am a specially appointed consultant for the Ning City Police Department.” Ji Xun showed his credentials to the two elderly women. He found that while this “special consultant” title carried very little weight normally, it could occasionally be quite useful—like now. After he produced the identification, the two women clearly showed a look of realization, as if thinking, Ah, so he’s not a fraud.
“We have some doubts regarding the Dingbo incident,” Ji Xun said subtly, keeping his composure. “So we hope to conduct some follow-up interviews and make a record.”
“What doubts could there be about a disappearance at sea?” Chen Cuijin curled her lip and said.
Ji Xun glanced at her without letting his emotions show. When you were chasing Huo Shanyuan down for compensation back then, I doubt that’s how you phrased it.
Still, the cherries did their work, and Chen Cuijin grudgingly asked, “What aspect do you want to know about?”
“I want to find someone first.” Ji Xun opened his phone and slid a photo into view. It was a photo of Hu Kun’s child, Lu Song. “Do you know him?”
“Isn’t that the kid from the Lu family? They moved away years ago, never heard of him amounting to much,” Chen Cuijin glanced at it. “Of course I recognize him.”
Bian Yan, sitting to the side, didn’t talk much but nodded her head in agreement.
“Then what about this person?” Ji Xun slid to another photo. This time, it was a photo of his grandfather as a young man, holding a child while standing at a harbor.
This photo made the old women study it for a while.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Chen Cuijin asked Bian Yan. “Do you know him?”
Bian Yan shook her head blankly. “No impression.”
“Are you sure?”
“…Looking at him again, he does seem a bit familiar,” Chen Cuijin hesitated. “Seeing how stout and stocky he looks…”
“Could it be Old Chu?” Bian Yan said softly.
“Right! It is Old Chu!” Chen Cuijin shouted in realization.
“Who is Old Chu?” Ji Xun realized with surprise that his mind remained entirely steady. He was terrifyingly calm.
“The head chef who did the cooking on the Dingbo back then,” Chen Cuijin said. “He handled the meals for the whole crew. When my man was still around, they had some contact. But that Old Chu, he looked down on my husband a bit. Usually, he liked to flatter the captain and the chief mate. The lady next to me here—don’t look at how she is now—she used to be on great terms with the chief mate’s wife back then. Their men were good friends, so they stayed close too.”
“But a single shipwreck ruined everything.”
Whether out of sighing regret or subtle schadenfreude, Chen Cuijin shook her head.
“The chief mate’s wife, who used to live such a good life back then… after the incident, she wasn’t willing to join us in demanding an explanation from Boss Huo. She didn’t get much money. Now her life isn’t even as good as Bian Yan’s. The roof of the house she lives in leaks every time it rains.”
Bian Yan offered a compliant, quiet smile from the side.
Forty years was simply too long. The fortunes of life had flipped and turned countless times.
“Is Old Chu’s family still here?” Ji Xun asked. Upon hearing the surname, he had already picked out the name matching “Chu” from the casualty list.
Chu Xingfa.
This was his grandfather’s real name.
“Oh, they’re not here. They left early, seemed to be the first family to move away. Within a couple of years, we heard they had relocated to another city,” Chen Cuijin said.
“After the incident, I heard the Huo family sent ships to salvage the wreck and the bodies,” Ji Xun noted.
“That’s what they said.”
“Did they ever recover anything?”
“Not a thing. They said they salvaged for several months, but they didn’t even see a scrap of iron plating. That ship vanished like a ghost.”
The ocean was too vast and mysterious. Men and ships sailing within it were mere drops in the bucket. For a missing ship to elude salvage and for corpses to sink to the deep seabed seemed like a perfectly normal occurrence.
…Except it wasn’t.
They had simply changed their appearances, discarded their pasts, and started life anew.
What on earth happened on that ship to make these men willing to alter their names, switch their identities, and abandon their wives and children?
_
“What about Boss Huo?” After a brief silence, Ji Xun spoke again. “Are you familiar with Boss Huo’s family? For instance, his relatives or children?”
“We were talking about the Dingbo, why have we suddenly moved on to Boss Huo’s family?” Chen Cuijin was somewhat displeased.
It wasn’t necessarily that she held a grudge against Huo Shanyuan; it was more her shrewd nature making her feel slighted that she had to answer two separate inquiries after receiving only one box of fruit. However, she possessed a modicum of integrity—she did the work since she took the gift.
She thought hard. “Young people always asking about these ancient matters…”
“Boss Huo had a daughter, right?” Chen Cuijin verified with Bian Yan.
No, more than one daughter, Ji Xun thought. Aside from Huo Ranyin’s mother, Huo Qiyu, there was another child named Huo Qiying.
But Huo Shanyuan didn’t just have two daughters; he also had a son. Usually, when outsiders spoke of a family, their first impression would be the male heir. Why did she mention a daughter first?
“Yes, it caused quite a stir back then,” Bian Yan said.
Quite a stir?
Ji Xun’s focus sharpened. He keenly sensed that critical information was about to surface.
“I knew it!” Chen Cuijin clapped her hands. “Boss Huo had a daughter who wasn’t very proper. She staged a massive elopement back then, causing a huge uproar. The rumors spread like wildfire; the whole city knew about it.”
“I heard she didn’t elope,” Bian Yan chimed in, contradicting her for once. “I heard she was human trafficked.”
“Was she trafficked?” Chen Cuijin countered. “Well, I also heard she was sleeping around with all sorts of people. She threw dance parties every single day, all through the night. Those lights never went out. People heading home from night shifts would see the girl’s shadow spinning continuously with the shadows of various men—tall, short, fat, and thin.”
“I’ve heard about that too…” Bian Yan admitted, though she felt it wasn’t quite that exaggerated. “Those were Boss Huo’s business gatherings. Boss Huo ran a massive business, so many people came to see him. His daughter was highly educated, knew how to play the piano, dance, and speak foreign languages, so the house was always lively.”
The two elderly women went back and forth, sharing a great deal of information. Ji Xun realized with absolute certainty that the girl they were talking about was definitely not Huo Ranyin’s mother, Huo Qiyu. Forty years ago, the child capable of dancing and stirring up such scandalous rumors could only be the other daughter… Huo Qiying.
Was Huo Qiying really that kind of girl?
Finally, the two old women fell silent. They couldn’t be entirely certain about gossip from forty years ago.
However, they agreed on one thing: “That girl was beautiful. Very, very beautiful. Everyone who saw her said she was gorgeous—as beautiful as an angel.”
“What was her name?” Though he already knew it, Ji Xun asked anyway.
Yet, both old women shook their heads. “Don’t know. Even if we did back then, we’ve long since forgotten it.”
In the Huo family cemetery, right next to Huo Shanyuan’s tombstone, the girl who once possessed a name and an identity ultimately lay nameless, lonely, unknown, and unmourned.
