By the time Qiu Hualan received the letter, half a month had already passed. By then, Ye Qing had already arrived at her destination and settled down. The hospital had been searching in S City for half a month as well, but still hadn’t found any trace of her. They didn’t want to waste any more manpower on a mental patient and directly filed it as a missing person case and closed it.

Since the patient went missing from the hospital, the hospital would definitely have to bear full responsibility. They couldn’t find the person, so after deducting what was left of their payment, the hospital refunded all of it to Qiu Hualan and additionally gave them twenty thousand yuan in compensation.

Qiu Hualan wasn’t hurting for that bit of money at all and flat-out refused it, making a huge scene in the hospital, saying she’d rather die than accept it. She had already been causing trouble there for two weeks now. Du Guangjun had even asked a friend to invite a newspaper reporter, planning to expose them.

They lost a person and only offered twenty thousand in compensation; no one would agree to that. Once this matter was exposed, the hospital leadership got anxious. They had no choice but to raise the stakes, hoping to settle it quietly. So they named a flat price of fifty thousand yuan.

Qiu Hualan didn’t state her position right away but went home to discuss it with her family.

And she had just gotten back when she received this letter, which took her by surprise.

The cash in the letter, along with an address at a port, property documents, and a key, left her completely puzzled. She thought someone must have gotten the recipient wrong. But when she looked more closely, she saw that the signatures on those documents were in her daughter’s handwriting.

Then she looked at the handwriting on the envelope. If it wasn’t her daughter’s, whose could it be? Du Guangjun felt that Ye Qing very likely had already recovered and, for some reason, didn’t want to see them, or else...?

Whatever the reason, they absolutely couldn’t let this get out now. The proper thing to do was to quickly accept the hospital’s compensation and pocket that fifty thousand. Qiu Hualan felt the same. So the two of them went straight to the hospital the next day and agreed to the compensation.

Another half a month passed after that, and Hua Hua’s tutoring classes had finished as well. Qiu Hualan had been thinking about what was in that letter all this time, so she wanted to go to the port and have a look.

She had to find out what was going on.

So Du Guangjun took her and Hua Hua on the train to the port city, and after some effort they found the address of this house.

When Qiu Hualan opened the door with the key, tears of excitement kept streaming from her eyes. She felt certain her daughter was still here. She rushed inside anxiously, only to find the place desolate, obviously uninhabited for a long time.

"Ah Qing? Where’s Ah Qing? She must be cured, she didn’t want to stay in S City, but she’s not here at the port either, then where would she go?" Qiu Hualan sobbed, clutching Du Guangjun’s arm. Suddenly she jolted, "Guangjun, could Ah Qing have gone to take revenge? If that’s really it, what are we going to do? Ah Qing is no match for them at all."

"Calm down, just calm down. This might not be the case. If she really went for revenge, there should’ve been some stir by now with all this time gone by. Let’s not lose our heads yet."

Du Guangjun was just as worried on his side. He had no idea what was going on with Ah Qing—whether she had really recovered or not.

Hua Hua looked around the courtyard, taking in every detail in the house. He did have some memories of this place. This was where he had lived the longest when he was little, and also where he had been the happiest. It was just that he had been too young back then; he only remembered a few fragments. Still, there were faint traces in his mind.

Then he looked at the various children’s toys in the house, the books for kindergarten—those had all been his.

Back then, even though Mom didn’t spend much time with him, she treated him very well. Whatever he wanted, she would buy it for him. It was just that those days would never come back again.

"Mom, where are you?" Hua Hua murmured, running his hand over his things.

Looking at all the traces of her daughter filling the house, Qiu Hualan was overwhelmed with grief for a long time.

In the end, after being coaxed by Du Guangjun, the three of them tidied the place up. No one had lived here for a long time, and some parts of the interior had gone moldy—especially the quilts and clothes. They all had to be thrown away.

Du Guangjun took Hua Hua to clean up the yard, while Qiu Hualan threw out all the moldy and rotten things inside the house.

Once they got busy working, they forgot their sadness for a while. This villa was pretty nice: a big yard, even a swimming pool. A three-story house with lots of rooms, most of them still empty.

Qiu Hualan knew her daughter’s temperament well. Once she had money, she would always choose the most comfortable life, and everything had to be good. Look at the television, washing machine, refrigerator, sewing machine here—everything was fully equipped.

Qiu Hualan even sighed that this place was really nice. If they weren’t already used to living in S City, it wouldn’t be bad to move here.