CH 46

Ch 46: The Art Studio and the Piano

After making the decision, the two of them acted according to their plan.

Not long after the first car left the hotel, as expected, Lu Lingjuan heard from the bodyguard that an unknown vehicle was following them. About half an hour after they left, Yin Chang and Lu Lingjuan, who had changed their clothes, got into the newly arranged car.

"Phew...it's like a spy movie!" Lu Lingjuan exclaimed nervously.

They didn't rush to go to the house, but instead had the driver drive around the city.

Yin Chang remembered the place he had lived when he was a child and had the driver first take them to the area near the Lianhua Apartment in the Qingcheng Bend.

"I lived here before I moved to Los Angeles," Yin Chang said to Lu Lingjuan.

Over the past ten years, the place had changed a lot. Although the name was the same, both the green landscape and the streetlights and fountains were no longer what he remembered.

"How old were you when you moved abroad?" Lu Lingjuan asked.

"I was four or five years old, I can't remember exactly," Yin Chang replied.

He didn't know why Yin Dong had sent him abroad at that time. It was only after he learned to surf the internet and searched for Yin Dong's resume that he found out that in that year, Yin Dong won the Best Newcomer award at the Hongcheng Film Awards for his artistic film "Time".

At the age of 27, it was considered late to become famous. Nevertheless this title pulled Yin Dong in the public eye and he lost his peaceful life.

Yin Dong sent him abroad to protect him.

"Did you speak Chinese before you left?" Lu Lingjuan asked curiously. "Your Chinese is very good."

"Yes, Fiona can speak three languages: Chinese, English, and Cantonese. When I was with her, we usually spoke Chinese. And when I got there, my dad also hired a Chinese teacher for me," Yin Chang replied.

"No wonder," murmured Lu Lingjuan thoughtfully. "This nanny has been with you since you were a child."

"Mhm." Fiona had been there from Yin Chang’s earliest memories. When Yin Dong clarified his confusion about "Moms" when they were young, he believed him because Fiona was there to support him.

Once they confirmed no one was following, they had the driver take them to the quiet streets of the Circular Island area.

It was an old villa area, remote and sparsely populated with few security guards nearby.

By the time they found the house, it was almost dark.

Yin Chang hadn't found the key to this house while cleaning up Yin Dong's study. Now that they were here, they had to let Lu Lingjuan call the police and have them verify the owner's identity to open the lock and change the cylinder.

Fortunately, the police officer who came was an elderly man who didn't know Yin Chang. He opened the door for them and left, doing his job.

The two of them entered the house, and they saw that all the furniture was covered. The old carpet was covered in dust, and stepping on it brought up clouds of dust.

Lu Lingjuan wrinkled her nose and waved her hand, while Yin Chang walked in front of her and lifted a few pieces of cloth, seeing that some old-fashioned furniture was indeed placed underneath. But he couldn't recall if they’d used this furniture back at Lotus Apartment.

There was nothing to dig up in the living room. Yin Chang pushed open the door to one of the rooms and saw a baby crib, a sofa bed, and baby items like a baby walker and a baby seat - this was a baby room.

His heart skipped a beat... had he lived here before?

Next to the baby room was another room. Yin Chang walked in and was stunned.

Before his eyes was an art studio.

There were several easels, canvases, plaster statues in the corner, and a row of shelves along the wall with plenty of painting tools such as brushes and paints, but they were all covered in thick dust.

Oddly enough, there was not a single completed serious work of art in this studio. There were stacks of yellowed, curled paper on the floor, but they were all abstract sketches made by an artist with random strokes of paint.

Yin Chang flipped through a few of them and didn't see a signature, so he took a few pictures with his phone.

The studio's window faced the small garden attached to the villa, but it was overgrown with weeds because it had not been maintained.

Yin Chang saw a stone sculpture in the corner of the garden, which looked somewhat like a traditional stone lion, but not entirely, and it was almost covered by grass.

"Hasn't anyone been here for a long time?" Lu Lingjuan, being a girl, was a little scared now that it was getting dark outside and Yin Chang was searching this uninhabited house with a serious look on his face.

"There are only two rooms downstairs, do you have any impression of these things?" She couldn't help but try to strike up a conversation with Yin Chang.

"No..." Yin Chang said, and then went upstairs.

Lu Lingjuan quickly followed: "We need to hurry up. It gets dark early in winter, and the electricity in this house is probably cut off, so even if we turn on the lights, they won't work."

Yin Chang murmured "Hmm" and pushed open the door of the master bedroom upstairs.

The room had a large double bed in the center, with two pillows and a double quilt neatly placed on it. Perhaps because the windows and doors were tightly closed, there wasn't as much dust in this room. But because it hadn't been ventilated for a long time, there was a musty smell inside.

Yin Chang opened the closet and saw several men's clothes hanging inside, as well as several scarves and a pair of leather boots, which hadn't been damaged after all these years. It seemed that the clothes were of good quality and they probably belonged to Yin Dong.

However, the bedside table and writing desk were cleaned up very neatly. Yin Chang pulled open the drawer and only saw a few pens, a few old coins, and a small medicine bottle.

He glanced at the label on top. Unfamiliar English jargon. He couldn't understand it, so he casually put the medicine in his pocket.

Other than these, there was nothing else, such as photos or notes – clues that might appear in movies.

Yin Chang left the bedroom and opened the door to the last room. This room was even emptier, with an old piano and a small round table next to it, both covered in dust.

Yin Chang walked over and lifted the piano lid, feeling puzzled. As far as he knew, Yin Dong didn't play the piano...

He pressed a key with his finger, and a "thud" sound echoed out, bringing back a memory fragment in his mind.

When he was eight years old, he went on a trip to Vienna with Yin Dong. They passed by a musical instrument store and he became interested in the instruments inside. Yin Dong took him in to have a look.

"Dad, the sound of the piano is so beautiful. I want to learn piano!" he said.

"Xiaochang, playing the piano is difficult and your fingers will hurt if you play for too long. Boys shouldn't learn instruments... How about I take you to learn horseback riding?" Yin Dong replied.

Yin Chang immediately withdrew his hand, as if he had been burned, and his thoughts also retreated.

Yin Dong's words completely extinguished his desire to learn the piano.

But there was a piano in this place.

Whose piano was it?

Only after the room became so dark he couldn't see anything did Yin Chang stumble back downstairs.

Lu Lingjuan followed him. "That painting studio and the piano, could it be your mother's?"

Yin Chang shook his head and said, "My mother... didn't live here."

"Why?" Lu Lingjuan didn't understand why Yin Chang was so certain.

"Don't you see," Yin Chang forced a bitter smile, "there isn't a single thing here that belongs to a woman."

"No dressing table, no women's clothes, and no traces of a woman's life..."

"Let's go back." Yin Chang looked around and began to doubt if he had mistakenly entered someone else's house. This house had nothing to do with him.

"Okay..." The car was still waiting outside, so Lu Lingjuan closed the windows and followed Yin Chang out.

Upon seeing Yin Chang's disappointed expression, Lu Lingjuan couldn't help but comfort him: "Although we didn't find anything related to your mother, we also didn't find any evidence that your father lied to you, did we? Maybe it really is as your father said, that your mother passed away. Perhaps this house was once lent to a friend of Yin Dong's, and the things inside belong to his friend."

"Maybe," Yin Chang said as he sat in the car. He thought of Fiona's reaction that day and felt like he was being overly sensitive.

Fiona had been with him for so many years. With Yin Dong gone, what reason would she have to hide anything from him?

Maybe this place was just a storage area, and Fiona said she wanted to return to Hongcheng because of a coincidence...

Yin Chang wearily held his face in his hands. Then remembered the small medicine bottle he had found in the house. He took it out of his pocket and used his phone to search the label.

According to an online translation, it was amitriptyline, an antidepressant.

Yin Chang furrowed his brows slightly.

That night, they did not continue to stay in Hongcheng. They bought plane tickets and flew back to Haicheng overnight.

By the time Yin Chang arrived home, it was already midnight. Fiona was asleep, unaware that he had returned, and Yin Chang had no intention of disturbing her.

Entering the bedroom, Yin Chang glanced in the direction of the study, where Shao Junling was already asleep. He placed his luggage by the side and quietly went to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. After finishing his hygiene routine, he climbed into bed and was about to sleep when he heard Shao Junling's voice from the foot of his bed: "Brother..."

That guy had woken up at some point and was standing there silently, looking at him with sleepy eyes.

"Did I wake you?" Yin Chang looked at him speechlessly. His movements had been very light.

At this moment, he couldn't help but feel a little frustrated by the inconvenience from the lack of a partition.

Seeing that Shao Junling was dressed lightly, Yin Chang was about to tell him to go back to sleep, but then saw him crawl up from the foot of the bed into his sheets.

Yin Chang: "??? Did I tell you to come up?"

Shao Junling settled himself, sticking his head out from the other end of the blanket. He looked at Yin Chang up close, and murmured, "You're back."

Yin Chang: "............"

The little guy looked half asleep. He yawned and slept next to him.

Yin Chang weakly put down his stiff hand...oh well.

He had originally been thinking about the house in Hongcheng, but with Shao Junling’s interruption, he no longer felt sad.

Early the next day, Fiona saw that Shao Junling hadn't come out to eat breakfast yet, so she knocked on his door.

As a result, she found that the door was ajar - last night, when Yin Chang entered, he hadn’t closed the door all the way to avoid disturbing Shao Junling.

Fiona pushed the door open and saw the luggage on the floor...did Yin Chang come back?

Looking at the big bed, she saw two heads, one big and one small, sleeping soundly together.

Fiona smiled to herself and didn't disturb them, quietly retreating from the room.

When Yin Chang and Shao Junling got up, she urged them to eat breakfast. "It's almost ten o'clock, your stomachs will be ruined if you don't eat anything...Yin Chang, what time did you come back last night? I didn't hear anything."

Yin Chang took a sip of hot porridge., "Around midnight..."

Fiona didn't read entertainment news and rarely watched TV, so she didn't know anything about Yin Chang going to Hongcheng.

Yin Chang saw that Fiona was calm, and he also hadn’t found anything suspicious in that house. He felt embarrassed to ask further questions since he had deceived Fiona first. If he were to delve deeper, it would mean that he hadn't trusted Fiona, and it could make things awkward between them.

The matter of the house ended like this.

Yin Chang was scheduled to resume work in a few days. According to Lu Lingjuan, because the endorsement photos he took for BG had become so popular, Yao Manhuai had booked him for more jobs, all the way until the end of the year.

"There’s also an invitation for a parent-child variety show, the planning proposal has already been sent, and Yao Manager said to take a look in the next few days. The schedule is set for the summer." Lu Lingjuan reported Yin Chang's work arrangements over the phone.

"Parent-child variety show?" Yin Chang recalled the female producer he’d met two months ago at the TV station.

"Yeah, I took a look and it seems like you and Shao Junling are going to participate together," Lu Lingjuan said.

Yin Chang frowned. "She's already decided?"

"Um, I think so, but I'm not sure if this deal has been finalized. I'll ask her again later," Lu Lingjuan replied.

"Okay." Yin Chang resisted the urge to call Yao Manhuai himself and pushed his phone aside.

Poor big brother, everyone’s keeping him in the dark.

Dad kept secrets from him. Little brother kept secrets from him. Even the nanny kept secrets from him.

But it's okay...at least little brother was there to sleep with him.

Shao Junling: Once on big brother's bed, why would I ever get off? ( ̄︶ ̄)
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