Read Chapter 18: — THE BOXWOOD COMB

Professor Zhou Jinan came to Cimo Hall to document its architectural carvings.

He brought notebooks filled with decades of sketches: window patterns, brick reliefs, furniture details, household objects copied from old houses before they vanished.

Mufeng turned the pages one night and found a drawing of a crescent-shaped comb.

Mandarin ducks were carved across its back.

It was identical to the object from Mingtao's box.

Mufeng's hands began to shake.

Zhou's notebook was private. The design had never been published. The comb at Mufeng's home was handmade.

There were very few explanations.

He questioned Bu Suyu about the Hua family.

Bu resisted.

"I was adopted by Hua's father," he said. "Suxian and I were raised like brother and sister. That is all you need to know."

"No. I need to know why she looks at me as if she lost me."

Bu's face tightened.

"She has suffered enough."

That answer told Mufeng almost everything while confirming nothing.

Later, Yonghe casually told him a story about Professor Zhou's youth. He had once been in love with a woman from a wealthy family. Her relatives rejected him because he had no status. She married a man considered suitable. Zhou later had a brief marriage of his own, divorced, and never had children.

Mufeng listened without speaking.

"You're somewhere else," Yonghe said.

He held her.

"I think I know who my parents might be."

"Do you want to know?"

That was the question nobody else had asked.

Mufeng looked toward the old courtyard.

"I don't know."

The boxwood comb became a bridge he could cross or leave untouched.

For the moment, he left it where it was.

He began calling Hua Suxian "Aunt Hua" after leaving Huashi again to pursue painting and heritage work.

The first time he said it, she was silent on the phone long enough that he heard her crying.

Neither of them used the word mother.

Some truths, Mufeng realised, changed lives even when nobody signed them.