Chapter 127

Chapter 127: A Half-Century of Love

The story started with an old, delicate wooden hairpin, which pulled out old events related to Ninth Master Du.

So the book was called “Courtyard Tales of the Past”, also known as “Blood Hairpin”.

Just from these two titles, you could tell it was a heavy and dark story.

The wooden hairpin, the key item at the root of all the chaos, was the token of love between Ninth Master Du and his first love, Miss Qin.

The two had met in Bianjing City fifty or sixty years ago. At that time, Ninth Master Du was just in his early twenties, a carpenter apprentice who had left his hometown to learn a trade and make a living.

A heavy rain stopped Miss Qin from going out and also made Ninth Master Du fall in love with her at first sight, as he watched her hurrying to take shelter in the rain. Ignoring the guest who was still waiting, he gave Miss Qin the wooden umbrella that had already been reserved.

The result was easy to imagine. Because he failed to deliver the product on time, Ninth Master Du was complained about by the guest. For losing the goods, he was severely beaten by his master and left hungry for two days, but he did not regret it.

He had thought that the chance meeting that day was just a luxurious dream given to him out of pity by Heaven Above. Once he woke up, everything would return to reality.

But to his surprise, on the third day after that, Miss Qin appeared in the carpenter’s shop and continued the dream.

It turned out that the umbrella that day had the shop’s name carved on it. Feeling grateful for his help that day, Miss Qin came in person to thank Ninth Master Du.

In this way, the pampered rich girl and the poor apprentice who owned nothing crossed paths by accident and, after many later meetings, started to like each other.

Ninth Master Du worked hard at his craft and spent countless effort and time to make his first finished piece, a sandalwood hairpin carved with twin lotus flowers. With a nervous heart, he gave the hairpin to the girl he loved to show his feelings.

Miss Qin had already fallen for this handsome and hardworking young apprentice. After accepting the hairpin, she gave him a fine-tooth comb carved with a pair of mandarin ducks playing in the water. The young man was so excited he jumped around all night.

The next day, he promised Miss Qin that he would work hard at his craft and save money to win her parents’ approval, and that one day he would marry her in a grand way. He asked her to wait for him a little longer.

In this way, the two dated in secret behind her family’s back for a while, but in the end, they were still found out.

Miss Qin’s parents could not accept their daughter dating a carpenter apprentice at all. They immediately broke up the pair and quickly arranged a marriage for their daughter, planning for her to be wed after the New Year.

After being separated from his beloved, Ninth Master Du was in such pain that he did not want to live. When he suddenly learned that she was engaged, he was even more anxious, but there was nothing he could do.

However, this marriage was doomed never to happen.

Before the New Year came, the world changed completely. Bianjing fell, and everyone fled in all directions to save their lives. This pair of doomed lovers was the same.

The two of them lost each other completely in the chaos. After that, Ninth Master Du went north. He begged for food, fought people, did small business, rode horses, repaired cars, and finally entered the Special Department. From there he kept being promoted and began his legendary life.

But in fact, in these forty or fifty years, he had never forgotten Miss Qin and had never given up searching for her.

[All you can say is that Granduncle is truly a fool for love. Once he chooses a person, it’s for life. For so many years, without even knowing if Miss Qin was alive or dead, whether she had married or had children, he just kept waiting until the moment he finally closed his eyes for good.]

The Du family could not help feeling respect when they heard this. The way they looked at Du De Sheng now held more admiration and guilt.

He had worked hard and run around for half a century. He had seen all kinds of bright flowers and all kinds of dazzling wealth, yet his original heart had never changed.

Putting themselves in his place, they knew they did not have Du De Sheng’s persistence and courage. Yet just now they had even doubted that he had some messy feelings with his care attendant. That really wasn’t fair.

But wasn’t the old man deeply in love with Miss Qin? How could he still “love me, love my house” with a young care attendant and place his feelings on her instead? This description was also very thought-provoking.

Luckily, Du An Rao quickly gave the answer to this question.

[When Miss Qiao first appeared, she immediately caught Ninth Master Du’s eye only because her eyes looked a bit like Miss Qin’s. Relying on that feature that was so similar to his old love, Qiao Yi Ting smoothly became Ninth Master’s care attendant. But the real chance for Qiao Yi Ting to gain Ninth Master’s trust was one very unexpected moment, when Ninth Master walked into her room and happened to see, carefully kept there, the twin lotus wooden hairpin he had given Miss Qin back then.]

When the Du family heard this, their hearts couldn’t help skipping a beat. Could this Miss Qiao have some connection to Miss Qin?

Thinking about how Du An Rao had just said that her eyes and brows were very similar to Miss Qin’s, could this Miss Qiao be… her descendant?

Du De Sheng’s eyes turned cold. A week ago, he really had seen that familiar wooden hairpin in Qiao Yi Ting’s room.

But he had not, as in the so-called plot that Du An Rao described, handed over his trust because of a hairpin. On the contrary, he had started to suspect and guard against Qiao Yi Ting.

For he saw at a glance that the hairpin had been deliberately copied and aged. It was not the one he had given his beloved back then at all.

Bringing her along to City S this time was also going with the flow. He planned to use her to fish out those hidden hands in the dark.

Before Du De Sheng could think further, Du An Rao had already given the answer first.

[But in truth, someone had stolen the drawings of the hairpin he had designed back then and had it copied on purpose. That person was the Du family’s chief steward, Du Gui.]

The Du family: “?!!”

When Du De Sheng heard this, his face finally changed. No matter what, he did not want to believe that the good brother who had lived with him day and night for over thirty years, who had suffered and been injured with him and faced life and death together, would one day betray him.

[Qiao Yi Ting’s current scumbag boyfriend is the illegitimate son that Butler Du had outside. You could say Butler Du is hateful but also a bit pitiful. Back then he had a wife and child, but someone set him up so he ended up with this bastard son. In order to protect his wife and child, he ruthlessly drove away the woman who wanted to use the child to marry up.]

[But because of the war, his wife and child died one after another, and because of an accident, he lost the ability to have children. In the end, he was the only one left of what had once been a happy family. All these years he had seemed normal on the outside, but inside, his mind had long since twisted.]

Du De Sheng’s eyelids twitched when he heard this. Thinking of the tragic experiences of the man by his side, he suddenly did not know how to feel about this.

[When he accidentally found out that he still had a living illegitimate son, even though he knew the boy’s character was bad, unteachable and a true troublemaker, Butler Du still could not resist the temptation of continuing the family line and having a blood relative again. For this son, he stepped onto a path of no return and teamed up with a certain big shot, setting his eyes on Granduncle’s family property.]