“What do you mean when you say that one day he will return?”

Rong Qian stared straight into Shen Shuhuai’s eyes. She couldn’t be blamed for looking at him with such a suspicious, scrutinizing gaze — the further she dug into her investigation, the more she felt that everyone around her might be hiding secrets from her.

Shen Shuhuai let out a sigh, his voice heavy with complex emotions. “But I suppose even he never imagined that the words he spoke would never come true.”

What Shen Shuhuai meant was that those words had been said to him by Shen Yi at the time of his departure. After that, the next news he heard about Shen Yi was that Shen Yi had disappeared.

“So that’s what you meant. I thought —” Rong Qian caught on, and after thinking it through carefully, she realized she had indeed been overthinking things.

She had assumed Shen Yi’s words about returning meant that someday, after his disappearance, he would come back.

But when she thought about it more carefully — how could that possibly be the case…

Shen Shuhuai didn’t know what she was thinking. Seeing her trail off mid-sentence, he asked, “Miss Rong, what did you think?”

“Nothing, nothing — it’s not important.” Rong Qian waved her hand dismissively and steered the conversation back on track. She still wanted to try prying open Shen Yi’s door lock.

But before she could bring it up again, her phone buzzed with a message. Rong Qian opened it — it was from Chen Jia, and it contained the address of a nursing home.

Rong Qian frowned, muttering under her breath, “Songhe Residence Nursing Home? Don’t tell me Shen Fenran is living in a nursing home.”

“Shen Fenran is in a nursing home?” Shen Shuhuai overheard and looked equally astonished.

As Rong Qian dialed Chen Jia’s number, she told him, “We can’t confirm it yet. Let me call her to find out.”

The call connected quickly. Rong Qian asked, “Jiajia, what’s the address you sent me?”

“The Shen Fenran you asked me to find — he lives in that nursing home.” On the other end of the line, Chen Jia sounded frantic with busyness.

Rong Qian could tell she was swamped. She had originally wanted to confirm with her whether this was the Shen Fenran she was looking for, but then she realized — she didn’t even know what Shen Fenran looked like now. How could she expect Chen Jia to answer that?

So Rong Qian simply thanked her and hung up without troubling her further.

“How did it go?” Shen Shuhuai asked eagerly the moment she hung up.

Rong Qian shook her head. “Can’t confirm yet. The information I provided was very limited. But if she managed to trace it to a nursing home, the age at least checks out. What I don’t know is whether the person there is the Shen Fenran we’re looking for.”

Just as those words left her mouth, another message from Chen Jia came through — a photo of an elderly man.

“Yes! That’s him — Shen Fenran!”

Before Rong Qian could say anything, Shen Shuhuai was already bursting with excitement. Rong Qian was startled — she nearly dropped her phone. Unlike Shen Shuhuai’s agitation, Rong Qian remained calm.

She enlarged the photo and studied it carefully. The elderly man’s appearance did bear some resemblance to the younger Shen Fenran — in his eyes, and in the overall impression he gave. There was nothing kind or gentle about him; instead, he gave off the unmistakable air of a sour, sharp-tongued, ill-tempered old curmudgeon.

The primary reason for this impression was the scar on his left eye.

The elderly man in the photo had apparently suffered a blade wound to his left eye in his youth. That eye was now blind, clouded over with white, and looked rather unsettling.

Rong Qian estimated that Shen Fenran should be around sixty years old by now. Yet the man in the photo looked far older than that — what on earth had he gone through all these years?

“Miss Rong, what are you thinking about?” Shen Shuhuai asked, seeing her silent.

Rong Qian pocketed her phone and said to him, “I’m going to the nursing home to confirm in person.”

She wasted no time — she left the moment she said it.

Songhe Residence Nursing Home had a lofty-sounding name, but its location and surroundings were anything but upscale. On the contrary, it was rather tucked away in a modest area, catering mostly to families from the middle class and below.

When Rong Qian arrived, she went straight to the director’s office and asked whether a resident by the name of Shen Fenran lived there.

The director was a slightly chubby, middle-aged man in glasses. The moment he heard the name Shen Fenran, he didn’t even need to look at a photo — he pointed her in the right direction immediately. “Right over there — the private room at the far end of the second floor. That’s where he lives.”

“Thank you.” Rong Qian expressed her gratitude first, then didn’t rush off immediately. Instead, she asked him a few questions. “Director, may I ask — when did he come to stay at the nursing home?”

The director told her, “About a year ago, give or take. His family didn’t treat him well — they considered him a burden at home and sent him here.”

Rong Qian took that in thoughtfully and was about to leave when the director added a word of caution, “Oh, by the way — he has a terrible temper. Don’t let him frighten you. People with disabilities tend to have stronger pride than most.”

“Wait — Director, did you just say he’s disabled?” Rong Qian was taken aback.

The director nodded. “That’s right. He lost a leg when he was young, and he’s been in a wheelchair for decades.”

Rong Qian’s expression turned peculiar. What exactly had this Shen Fenran gone through in his younger days? Had he been hunted down by gangsters — first getting his eye slashed, then his leg broken?

Of course, there was no use speculating here. Find the man himself, and one question would answer everything.

Rong Qian went up to the second floor, found the small room at the far end of the hall, and saw that the windows were tightly shut, covered with green plaid curtains that blocked everything completely — not even a glance inside was possible.

She knocked on the door. After waiting a good while, she finally heard an elderly man’s voice — feeble and hoarse, dull and muffled. “Who is it?”

“Hello, sir. I’m a new caregiver.” Rong Qian did not reveal her true identity.

She waited again. Then the elderly man said, “Door’s unlocked. Come in.”

Rong Qian turned the handle — it was indeed unlocked — and she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was even smaller than she’d expected. There was a single bed, a small table, and an old television set playing a traditional opera. A performer playing the role of Mu Guiying was trilling away in Peking opera style.

Shen Fenran sat in his wheelchair, watching the television in that dim, cramped little room — a solitary old man, the scene tinged with a kind of desolate sadness.

Shen Fenran gave her a distracted glance, then looked away, treating her as though she didn’t exist. His temper really was awful.

Rong Qian walked over, pulled up a small stool, sat down, and asked him directly, “Shen Fenran, do you recognize me?”

Shen Fenran turned to look at her properly. The moment he did, his pupils contracted sharply. His body trembled with the force of his emotions — clearly something had come back to him.

“You’ve seen me before, haven’t you?” Rong Qian was direct, without a single unnecessary word.

“You — you —” Shen Fenran stared at her in shock, mouthing her name over and over yet unable to get a single sentence out.

Rong Qian asked him, “You still remember Shen Yi, don’t you?”

“Shen Yi? Hah — even if I died, I could never forget him.” Shen Fenran’s face twisted with venom. “The reason I’ve ended up looking like this today — that’s entirely his doing! Do you know how this eye of mine went blind?”

His trembling finger pointed to his already-blinded left eye, and he spat out the words with burning resentment: “It was him — he took a blade and gouged my eye out with his own hands!”