CHAPTER 131: CHAPTER 28: THE WHITE-EYED TIGER

Su Ziceng did not have the habit of rifling through others’ belongings at will, but the drunken man’s words made it impossible for her not to make an exception just this once.

Logically speaking, Chang Mei’s biological father was a drunkard, and out of the 365 days of the year, there were few when he was sober. His words couldn’t be entirely trusted. Su Ziceng didn’t want to wrong anyone unjustly. If she remembered correctly, when she was a child, some old servants in the house had mentioned that Chang Mei had been very attentive in caring for the late Qiao Chu.

Moreover, even Su Qingzhang had said that Qiao Chu had been "hexed to death" by her. Even if the previous Su Ziceng would never have believed such a thing, after the incident of rebirth, she had begun to believe somewhat in the concept of fate.

"The madam passed away from frailty and hemorrhage due to exhaustion after giving birth to the young miss," even the old doctor who had been with the Su Family for twenty years said so.

"In vino veritas," Su Ziceng stubbornly believed that Chang Chi’s father would not have made such remarks without reason, which was why she decided to find an opportunity to search through Chang Mei’s room.

From the desk to the drawers, she searched every place visible to the naked eye. To Su Ziceng’s disappointment, she didn’t find any useful information. It was only when she was finally searching under the bed that she discovered this photograph.

The photo she found beneath the pillow was tattered, and the young girl in it looked very similar to Su Ziceng. "Mother," in the large Su Family mansion, there were no photographs of Qiao Chu, supposedly for fear that Su Qingzhang would lapse into melancholy upon seeing them, so all had been put away. Therefore, apart from the photo on Qiao Chu’s tombstone, which had been eroded by wind and sun and was hard to make out, Su Ziceng’s impression of Qiao Chu had always stayed with the thin silhouette in her dreams.

Unexpectedly, the only photo of Qiao Chu was found under Chang Mei’s pillow. After several decades, the photograph had no creases, showing that the person who kept it had taken great care.

At that time, Qiao Chu’s cheeks still had the baby fat characteristic of a young girl, with bright eyes, and when she smiled, there were two dimples near her mouth, one deeper than the other. Standing on the left side was the young Chang Mei, her face also beaming with a radiant smile that Su Ziceng had never seen before; the usual look of feigned affection was nowhere to be found in the photo.

And on the right... The girl standing to the right of Qiao Chu had her face cut out, her arm affectionately linked with Qiao Chu’s. Her body also pressed closely to Qiao Chu, and even without a face, the remaining figure in the photo showed her to be a beautiful and vivacious young girl.

What surprised Su Ziceng the most in the entire photo wasn’t the joint portrait of Qiao Chu and Chang Mei, nor the face that had been cut out, but the school uniforms the three people were wearing.

The Kelly Women’s School uniforms, the identical rose badges, with the rose bushes that have not changed for a hundred years behind the three of them, in the spring’s Sunshine, imbuing the three young girls with endless warmth.

Mother was also a student of Kelly Women’s School, and so was Chang Mei... Su Ziceng recalled Chang Mei’s peculiarity when she learned that Su Ziceng would go to Kelly for her studies, as well as Chang Chi’s sneering and ridicule. Nobody had ever told her that Qiao Chu was a graduate of Kelly Women’s School. Who was the other person in the photo? And why had Su Qingzhang never told her these things.

From Chang Chi’s room, there came the sound of porcelain hitting the floor. Su Ziceng quickly stuffed the photo back under the pillow, covered up Chang Mei’s room door well, feeling both the thrill of having committed a theft and the agitation brought on by even more questions as she returned to the living room once more.

Su Qingzhang was still sitting in his usual spot, with several fruit pits piled up in front of Yan Wuxu; the cherries that had been bitten into oozed juice, which still lingered on her lips, creating a peculiar sense of beauty.

"Father," Su Ziceng rarely had the chance to sit down face-to-face with Su Qingzhang for a chat. Father and daughter would often end up in an argument and go their separate ways, neither willing to pay attention to the other. It was a relationship inherently fraught with conflict, "I’m thinking of taking advantage of the time before the New Year to visit my maternal grandparents’ graves, it’s been many years since I’ve gone to pay respects."

During the time Qiao Chu was with Su Qingzhang, her parents, who were Su Ziceng’s maternal grandparents, had been strongly opposed. The young Su Qingzhang had no special skills and could be said to have been a street thug. By a chance encounter, he saved Qiao Chu from the harassment of hooligans.

It was not the sweet union of a Prince and Princess that one might expect. During the time Su Qingzhang pursued Qiao Chu, he endured plenty of disdain from the Qiao Family. After Qiao Chu’s death, the Qiao Family fell into decline, while Su Qingzhang rose to success and subsequently cut ties with the Qiao Family.