Read Chapter 17: — THE FATHER WHO CHOSE HIM

The call came during a shareholder meeting.

Linda stepped into the room despite Mufeng's rule against interruptions.

"Your father has been hit by a car."

Everything else disappeared.

Li Mingtao had crossed a road to buy cigarettes when a vehicle struck him. His spleen ruptured. There was bleeding in his brain. Doctors warned Mufeng to prepare for the worst.

Mufeng sat outside the operating theatre with Wang Jianglan and remembered every time he had been too busy to answer his father's calls.

Mingtao survived the surgery and woke the next morning.

"See?" he whispered. "Your old man is hard to kill."

Mufeng laughed and cried at the same time.

Then Mingtao became serious.

"There's something I should tell you."

"Later."

"No. I waited too long already."

Mufeng tried to stop him.

Mingtao told the story anyway.

He and his wife had once had a baby boy who died after only a month. Three days later, they found another infant wrapped outside their home. Grieving, shocked and superstitious enough to call it fate, they took the child in.

That child was Mufeng.

"Your mother fed you," Mingtao said. "She loved you. After she died, I moved us to Suzhou. I thought if nobody knew, nobody could take you away."

Mufeng gripped his hand.

"Then nobody will."

"Your real parents may be rich."

"I already have a father."

Mingtao tried to laugh. "More rich fathers is generally considered good financial planning."

"No."

For once Mufeng's answer contained no charm, no performance, no ambiguity.

"You are my father."

Mingtao told him about an old metal box in the bedside cabinet.

Mufeng later took the box home and, without opening it, threw it away.

Wang Jianglan rescued it from the rubbish.

Inside were two objects: a small gold lock engraved with a wish for long life, and a hand-carved boxwood comb decorated with paired mandarin ducks.

Mufeng touched the comb and knew immediately that it had not been bought in an ordinary shop.

Somebody had made it for somebody.

The past had left him a signature.