(For Chapter 1-163, go to (https://chrysanthemumgarden.com/novel-tl/awbtv/))
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Meng Wangda had not come to this street for some time. Ever since he handed this watch shop over to his younger son, Meng Yun, he had only visited three or four times before stopping altogether. In his mind, a man had to stand on his own early to truly count as one.
Today, under the scorching sun, he came again to the door of the watch shop. Looking at the freshly painted, snow-white storefront, he suddenly felt he no longer recognized it.
The White Dove signboard—once written by an elderly master renowned for his calligraphy—had long been taken down. In its place hung a row of vertical foreign characters, surrounded by elaborate, classical Ouhua patterns, topped with a brass dove.
It looked stylish and foreign, blending flawlessly with the cosmopolitan flair of the Shanghai concession districts.
But Meng Wangda did not quite like it.
He was born in the fifth year of Guangxu. His clan was distantly related to a governor of Liangguang back then, and the family handled large-scale business, with many prosperous branches.
Later, when the naval war broke out and chaos swept through Liangguang, that governor mysteriously had his head cut off. Meng Wangda's grandfather, afraid of being dragged into the turmoil, gritted his teeth and took the whole family north to Jiang-Zhe.
However, neither his grandfather nor his father's generation amounted to much.
The family wealth they had carried across a thousand miles was nearly squandered within a few years. Before the clan completely collapsed, Meng Wangda received two shopfronts in the division.
It was around the second or third year of Xuantong, when new currents were rising and "industry to save the nation" was praised everywhere. Meng Wangda, with hot blood in his chest and unwilling to let his talents be buried, sold some property and came to Haicheng to break into industry.
But in a place like Haicheng, forces intertwined everywhere—there was no easy way to squeeze in another player.
Meng Wangda was a smooth-handed, keen-eyed man. Though he had suffered losses and learned hard lessons, he eventually carved out a reputation for himself.
After that, everything was history. His luck arrived—he recognized talent early and, when Yu Jingzhi had barely gained a foothold, he wagered his entire fortune and threw his support behind him. From then on, he rose with the tide, his net worth multiplying. In shipbuilding and alkali production he nearly split the market with the government, becoming a renowned commercial magnate of Haicheng.
It was during that period that he gave this watch shop to Meng Yun.
"Master?"
Perhaps because Meng Wangda had been standing too long under the blazing sun outside the shop, one of the clerks inside finally noticed him.
The clerk looked out in puzzlement, then immediately recognized him and hurried out to greet him. "Master, how come you have time to visit today?"
Meng Wangda withdrew his gaze from the signboard and swept a glance at the clerk approaching with a fawning smile. This clerk was an old hand he himself had assigned to the watch shop back then, yet now he no longer wore the traditional long gown; instead, he had switched to a cheap Western-style suit.
"Had nothing to do, so I came to take a look."
The copper door chime rang as the clerk eagerly led him inside.
"Where's your Third Young Master?" Meng Wangda looked around. Aside from this one clerk, there were no familiar faces—not even the master craftsman who had been repairing watches for decades was present.
"You know how it is, sir—it's almost the end of the month. There are ledgers to settle. Third Young Master is upstairs doing accounts," the clerk replied. "Master, why don't you take a seat first? I'll go invite the young master down."
Meng Wangda waved his hand. "No need. Go on with your work. I'll go upstairs and find the boy myself. It's my own place—no need for all that formality."
Without waiting for the clerk to respond, he lifted his robe and headed up the stairs.
The clerk made a half-hearted move to stop him, but in the end did not. After all, Third Young Master had instructed at noon that no one was to be admitted and no one was to disturb him without reason. But the person who came was Meng Wangda—this was his own shop, and he was the boy's father. Who could really stop him?
Meng Wangda noticed the brief flicker of discomfort on the clerk's face, but pretended not to, and went straight up to the second floor.
He never doubted the honest and dependable Meng Yun—but at this moment, he could not help overthinking.
The first floor of the shop was all display counters; the second floor held several rooms used for repairing watches, equipped with imported instruments, with craftsmen busy inside.
At the end of these workrooms stood an office. The door was closed, quiet and still.
Meng Wangda clenched his fingers lightly, then raised his hand to knock on the door.
"Who is it?"
The response came swiftly from inside—a man's voice, tinged with wariness.
"It's me," Meng Wangda said.
There was a muffled sound, followed by approaching footsteps. The office door opened, revealing a tall, slender young man of about twenty. Surprise and delight flickered across his face.
"Father? What brings you here?"
"Had some business in the area. Passed by and thought I'd check on you. You haven't even gone back to the old residence these days. Your mother's starting to complain that I let you move out too soon."
Meng Wangda spoke casually as he brushed aside Meng Yun's arm blocking the doorway and stepped into the office. He looked around, then walked to the desk and flipped through the piles of account books.
"You slack off for days, and only when the deadline approaches do you start scrambling. You really…"
Meng Yun gave an embarrassed, bitter smile. "It's not that I want to, Father. I just had a lot of things to handle before this."
Meng Wangda lifted his gaze to study his son—whom he hadn't seen for some time—then suddenly said, "You say you're doing accounts, but why lock the door?"
Caught off guard by the question, Meng Yun froze for a moment. After a few seconds he replied, "You know this about me—I get distracted easily. It's the same with bookkeeping. Once the door is shut and no one comes to bother me, my mind runs a bit faster."
After giving this simple explanation, Meng Yun immediately shifted the subject. "Father, you must be overheated after walking in the sun. Please sit—I'll pour you some cold tea to help with the heat."
As he spoke, Meng Yun reached out to support Meng Wangda and guided him toward the long bench reserved for guests. Meng Wangda didn't refuse and sat according to his son's suggestion. While Meng Yun moved back and forth pouring tea, he carefully observed the spacious office in detail.
He had come with complicated thoughts, intending to test Meng Yun. And now, the moment he saw him, he sensed something strange—he couldn't help but suspect something. There was something off about this office, though he couldn't yet put a finger on what.
But before he could think it through, Meng Yun handed him the herbal tea.
Tapping the lid of the teacup, Meng Wangda asked, "These past two months—you don't come home at all. Besides your studies and the watch shop, what else have you been busy with?"
Meng Yun smiled, a touch of embarrassment on his face. "Didn't you say last time that at my age, I should bring home a daughter-in-law for you already? For the past two months, your son has been working hard on that."
Seeing no hint of deceit in Meng Yun's expression, Meng Wangda relaxed slightly. He sipped the cold tea and said with a laugh, "You rascal. You rejected all the girls your mother picked because you wanted 'free love.' So? Have you now started a romance?"
"How old is she? What family does she come from?"
Parents, once the topic turns to this, naturally can't resist asking questions.
Meng Yun replied, "She's a teacher at a girls' school, nineteen this year. Her family also does business, though not in Haicheng—back in Nanjing. I met her at a book club. I liked her at first sight. We met a few times afterward, and then began a relationship…"
Meng Wangda listened quietly, a faint, gratified smile appearing on his face. But as he smiled, he caught something in the corner of his eye—on the windowsill ahead, there seemed to be a faint grayish-black mark, like a shoeprint.
His smile froze for an instant. He quickly lowered his head, concealing the reaction without leaving a trace.
"Since you have someone you like, then treat her well. When you have some free time, bring her home for a meal," Meng Wangda said, taking another sip of tea—though his throat felt nothing but bitter. "You settle your accounts here. I have business to attend to, so I won't stay longer."
With that, he rose and made to leave.
Meng Yun hurried to his feet to see him out.
Just as they reached the office door, Meng Wangda suddenly stopped.
He turned back and gripped Meng Yun's shoulder, speaking in a voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz: "Son… is there anything you want to tell your father?"
Meng Yun froze for a moment under his father's deep, searching gaze. But then he saw Meng Wangda shift his eyes away, glancing toward the space behind the long bench where he had been sitting earlier. Behind it stood a set of rosewood furniture—a table, chairs, and cabinet—tall and sturdy.
Under his palm, Meng Wangda felt the muscles of his son's shoulder go taut and rigid in an instant.
Softly, Meng Yun asked, "Father… how much do you know?"
At the sight of Meng Yun's expression, Meng Wangda's heart sank completely.
He tightened his grip on Meng Yun's shoulder and opened his mouth to speak—but before he could utter a word, a strange voice suddenly rose inside the office: "Mr. Jiang Cheng, why don't you ask your father to stay for another cup of tea?"
Meng Wangda jerked his head around—and saw a man with an injured leg limping out from behind the cabinet, staring at him coldly, maliciously.
At this moment—
Near the White Dove Watch House.
Amid a jumble of hurried footsteps, Chu Yunsheng and Yu Jingzhi followed several subordinates—who had been tracking scattered drops of blood—to the base of a tall, ancient locust tree after weaving through a maze of winding alleyways.
"Sir, this is where the blood trail ends," Liu Er reported quietly as he returned from inspecting the surroundings.
Yu Jingzhi crouched down to study the blood drops that abruptly stopped in the middle of the alley, then lifted his head to scan the area. "What about the two households next door? What do they do?"
"They're just ordinary families," Liu Er replied. "The police have already gone in to search. Nothing unusual was found."
Chu Yunsheng was also inspecting the intermittent blood traces along the way.
Aside from the spot in the center of the alley, there were no more bloodstains—neither on the piled-up rubbish on both sides, nor on the soot-darkened walls, nor on the tree trunk.
That made no sense.
If the person had treated the wound here and temporarily stopped the bleeding, there should've been more blood at this spot—the time spent bandaging would naturally leave a larger stain. But if the wound hadn't been treated, then how had the blood trail simply vanished? The person couldn't have evaporated on the spot.
Unless… they had quickly grabbed something to press against the wound and then escaped into somewhere nearby.
But there was no trace of him in any of the homes inside the alley.
If he had pressed on the wound and run farther away to hide somewhere, that wasn't realistic either. He had been shot in the thigh and had already run this far—no matter how much stronger he was than the average person, he shouldn't have had any strength left. He couldn't possibly have gone much farther.
"Could it be that an accomplice was here to pick him up?"
After discovering two accomplices in Fan Chengmei's case, Yu Jingzhi's first instinct was to suspect a second person here as well.
And this explanation made perfect sense.
His accomplice could have come to meet him, pressed on the wound, carried him away quickly, and in doing so allowed him to escape quite a distance without leaving any more blood.
Hearing this, Chu Yunsheng walked a few steps toward the street outside the alley and asked Liu Er, "Within a hundred meters nearby, what residences or shops are there?"
Liu Er had already walked around the area earlier and made a rough survey. After thinking for a moment, he replied, "Besides the two households we already searched, there are two restaurants over there, a bank, another bank, and a watch shop…"
"A watch shop?" Yu Jingzhi turned his head. "Which watch shop?"
Liu Er blinked. "Old Master Meng's White Dove Watch House."