Chapter 1: The Mysterious Affairs of the Tang Family's Old Residence

  Tang Mo Wen struggled out of the nightmare once again, sat up on the bed. In the darkness, his naturally sharp eyes shone exceptionally bright. After taking a few deep breaths, he looked at the familiar bedroom, and the heart that had been lifted was quietly put down.

  The old servant in the house held a candle and knocked on the door: "Master, are you all right?"

  "It doesn't matter, I've been haunted by nightmares." Tang Mo said in a low voice.

  The old servant withdrew, and after a faint creaking of the wooden stairs, the surroundings fell silent again. He let out a sigh, but felt no sleepiness, so he got dressed and went to his study.

  The other day his son who was studying abroad sent a message back, saying that he would be back in two months. He thought he should still write a letter to remind his son to be careful on the way.

  He dipped a foreign pen in ink and Tang Mo thought for a moment before writing the first line of characters:

  My son knows everything.

  Just as he was about to continue writing, he suddenly heard a faint rustling sound coming from downstairs. Tang Mo Wen slightly furrowed his brow. The room downstairs was a storage room that no one usually entered. It was so late at night, could it be that some careless servant had sneaked in?

  Tang Mo Wen blinked, suddenly remembering something from last month. His face turned pale for a moment before he regained his composure and walked to the bookroom wall, crouching down beside it. There was a gap here that allowed him to easily peek at the scene downstairs.

  He'd like to see which family member is the thief.

  Kneeling on both knees, the master of the Tang family's old mansion was like a rascal, secretly sticking his face to the floor of the third floor, closing one eye and peering through the gap.

  Suddenly, in the gap between the miscellaneous objects, there was a disheveled woman with a dirty face, who was also looking up at the crack. In that instant when he looked over, she let out a sharp cry and thrust out her ten long fingernails towards him!

  ……

  ……

  "Extra! Extra! Mr. Tang has fallen ill with a strange disease, and no medicine can cure him. Young Master Tang is offering a reward of 1,000 taels to anyone who can find a famous doctor to save his father!"

  "Extra! Extra! Tang Mo Wen has been in a coma for a month and is critically ill!"

  Newsboys shouting out the headlines as they walked down the street, people stopping to buy a paper from them for a few cents, and after reading it, all of them looked surprised.

  No wonder I haven't seen Mr. Tang in the ballroom recently.

  No wonder the casino lost such a big player.

  No wonder business has been going smoothly lately.

  People who learned the news had different thoughts and went home to prepare for things. As soon as Tang Mo's incident occurred, the entire Tang family was like suffering a major blow. The only son of the Tang family returned from studying abroad and was not familiar with family affairs, but now he was busy and worried.

  The young master of the Tang family finally finished dealing with the affairs and put down his pen, sighing as he was at a loss for what to do about his father's situation.

  "It was fine just now, how did it end up like this..."

  The young master of the Tang family was worried and anxious, but he didn't notice the maid coming in with tea and going out again. He turned his head to glance at the bedroom on the second floor, a complex expression in his eyes.

  ……

  ……

  Suburbs, solitary tomb.

  A woman in a coarse linen dress, carrying a basket of incense worth money, squatted down in front of the tomb. She skillfully took out the incense and lit it, placing it in front of the stone tablet. The paper money was slowly consumed by the flames, turning into endless ash, scattering away.

  She silently kowtowed three times, muttering to herself: "Big sister, when a person is dead, it's all over. It's not that I don't want to help you, but this world is forcing me. Take this incense and paper money, use them to tidy yourself up down there, don't leave in such a sorry state."

  She paused again and then said: "Tang Mo Wen is not a good thing, if this matter was really done by you with the help of heaven, sister still wants to thank you."

  The woman finished speaking, stood up, and turned out to be the female servant of the Tang family. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew up from nowhere, blowing the remaining incense ash to her feet. Her footsteps paused for a moment as she skirted around the ash.

  She gazed at the pile of ashes, sighed, and then stepped forward again, leaving this desolate wilderness step by step.