Thriller Night Talk

Chapter 65: Chen Dafa and his menage.

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor-simpforlife, Proofreader-Ghostie

At 4:30 p.m. Western time, July 19th, Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan’s flight landed at Fort Worth International Airport in a timely manner.

Bei Quan had contacted Chen Dafa’s lawyer before boarding the plane. The other party said he was glad that he was willing to return to the manor to meet Mr.Chen for the last time and said he would arrange someone to pick them from the airport.

The person in charge of picking them up from the airport was a tall and slightly plump middle-aged African man. He had a bright personality and was very talkative.

He asked Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan to call him Will.

During the conversation, they learned that Will was not a servant at the manor, but a driver temporarily hired by a lawyer from the town, who was only responsible for sending them to the manor.

Will didn’t know anything about the matter of inheritance and heirs. He wasn’t even aware that Chen Dafa was seriously ill and was bedridden. He only regarded them as guests invited by the manor. He had a rather casual attitude while chatting.

He told Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan that Mr.Chen’s manor and surrounding property were very vast, but the people living there could be described as ‘pitifully few’.

“When Mr.Chen was young, his family adopted many children. The rooms were not enough and had to be renovated every year. Because he had to take care of the children, the family hired several nannies and maids. It was very lively.”

Will drove up the interstate highway as he chatted with the two,

“But then the children grew up and didn’t stay at his house any longer. The nannies were also old enough to retire. There were fewer and fewer people, and the manor gradually became desolate.”

He sighed, “Don’t be surprised when you see it later! The shrubs of such a large manor are taller than people now. From the outside, it almost looks like a forest!”

With that, Will added with a smile.

“Hahaha, not long ago, a crew came to the town, took a fancy to Mr.Chen’s mansion, and asked if they could make a horror film there!”

Will’s joke was not funny at all, but Bei Quan still laughed.

Wei Fuyuan noticed that Bei Quan’s English was very smooth, with a natural American accent. There was no sign of interpretation of a Chinese native.

“How can you speak English so well?”

Wei Fuyuan dropped down to Bei Quan’s ear, hushed his voice, switched to Chinese, and asked.

Bei Quan lowered his eyes, smiled, and answered softly, “Because I have enough time.”

Wei Fuyuan: “?”

He couldn’t understand Bei Quan for a moment.

But there was an outsider in the car, which was not a suitable place for questioning.

Wei Fuyuan had to write down his questions silently and thought of mentioning them another day.

Chen Dafa’s estate was nearly 200 kilometres away from Fort Worth International Airport. It took a long three hours to drive there.

Before leaving China, Zhu Ling helped Bei Quan collect some information in advance.

According to the intel, Chen Dafa was 74 years old this year.

His ancestral home was in a small town on the southeastern coast of China. At the age of 24, that was 50 years ago, he illegally brought his wife and son to America, went to his uncle’s family who worked in the west, rented a small house in the suburbs, and opened a Chinese restaurant in the town.

At first, his restaurant only consisted of a small shop.

He didn’t know whether Chen Dafa’s craftsmanship was beyond praise or whether the store’s Feng Shui was particularly excellent. This unremarkable Chinese restaurant was very customer-friendly and had good business every day.

Two years later, the small restaurant had expanded into a Chinese restaurant on the upper and lower floors, becoming the most popular dining place in the town.

After saving the first pot of gold, Chen Dafa began to set foot in other business industries.

He invested in agriculture, orchards, non-staple food processing plants, beverage factories, wool textile factories, and the profits gradually became larger and larger. In addition to America, his industry also extended to the Middle East and South America and he soon became a well-known local industrialist.

However, unlike most big bosses who comfortably enjoyed life after making enough money, Chen Dafa did not move into the city with his wife and children. Instead, he bought the small apartment where their family was residing in and the huge area of wasteland around it, transforming it into a gigantic manor, and lived there for the next 50 years.

Throughout the past half-century, none of Chen Dafa’s documented investments failed, and his industries were booming. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he made buckets of money every day.

But compared with his enviable wealth, Chen Dafa’s kinship was so miserable that he could only be described as a gTiān shà gū xīn.

When his small eatery business was booming, he decided to expand it into a fancy restaurant. His uncle, who had looked after him and helped him gain a firm foothold in America was diagnosed with colon cancer at a young age and died without seeing his nephew’s road to success.

After his uncle died, Chen Dafa not only took his aunt to live in his own house but also paid the full tuition amount for his cousin who was attending college. In the eyes of outsiders, it was really very affectionate and righteous gesture.

Disaster struck just a year later, his cousin in college drowned while camping with his classmates, and his aunt also suffered from severe depression due to the death of her husband and son. After being sent to a mental hospital for recuperation, she jumped out of the building and committed suicide when the nurse wasn’t paying attention.

At the age of 30, Chen Dafa’s nine years old only son died of pneumonia.

Two years later, Chen Dafa and his wife had another child, once again a boy.

However, when the second son was only four years old, his wife drove with her child over to the city for shopping, and encountered a car accident on the road. The car was crushed to bits of metal pieces by a large truck transporting wood, and neither the mother nor son survived.

Since then, Chen Dafa had become a real loner. At that time, he was only 36 years old.

This age was the most attractive time for men, and it was also the beginning of the peak of life.

Chen Dafa was already quite rich and a celebrity in the whole town.

Everyone who knew him felt that he would soon cheer up from the blow, find a beautiful wife again, and have three or five healthy and lively children.

But they were all proven wrong.

Chen Dafa appeared to have a deep-rooted and unforgettable love for his deceased wife, and was deeply saddened by the tragic fate of his two sons. He had no plans to get married ever again.

But at the same time, he claimed that because he adored children and needed some company, he was willing to adopt orphans and let homeless children live with him.

So Chen Dafa began adoption procedures.

According to the records available to Zhu Ling, a total of 21 orphans had lived in Chen Dafa’s manor in the past 30 years.

They were all boys, either adopted or foster family.

No matter what kind of relationship, Chen Dafa treated them all equally and called them ‘my children’.

Bei Quan had left in a hurry, and the time interval between the two places was too wide. Texas was nearly half the world away and thus, Zhu Ling had not been able to ascertain the identities and whereabouts of all the 21 children.

However, if Chen Dafa’s lawyer team was reliable, judging from the number of heirs, there were only four of the 21 children who had survived.

———————-

8:05 p.m. Will, the driver, stopped in front of an enormous manor.

Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan got out of the car.

Chen Dafa’s manor was indeed quite large. They stood at the gate and looked left and right. The railings were so long that they could not see where they ended at a glance.

But compared with ‘very big’, Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan’s first impression of the manor was actually ‘very broken’.

The intricately carved railings were covered with thick hunks of climbing plants, and it was obvious that they had not been trimmed for a long time. The new branches, dead branches and fallen leaves were entangled with each other, making it so dense that it was nearly impossible to see the wall.

“Hm, it truly is suitable for ghost films.”

Bei Quan touched his chin and stated.

There were already people waiting at the gate of the manor.

It was a white young man in a suit who claimed to be an intern at a law firm and claimed to be responsible for taking them in.

While the three were talking, another car stopped in front of the manor.

A young man jumped out from the driver’s seat.

The child seemed to be about twenty years old. He was very gorgeous with dark brown curly hair, brown eyes, a high nose, plump lips and a few freckles scattered around his cheeks. He was about the same height as Bei Quan, but was even thinner than him.

The T-shirt he was wearing was tailored to snugly hug his body, and his trousers were also stretched tight. He looked like a hemp pole, as if he would fall at the slightest breeze of wind.

“Hello.”

The tall, thin boy with dark brown hair and brown eyes showed a brilliant smile and went straight towards the trio and held out his hand to them.

“My name is Huan. Mr. Chen invited me.”

“Ah, what a coincidence, Mr. Huan.”

Hearing this person’s name, the intern knew that he didn’t need to make another trip. So he laughed and said, “You three, please follow me.”

The distance between the gate of the manor to the mansion was not small at all. Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan enquired about Huan’s identity as they walked.

The young man named Huan was 23 years old, but Bei Quan felt that he looked younger than he stated.

He was Hispanic. He was adopted at the age of 12 and? lived in Chen Dafa’s manor until he was 18. Then he decided to be a model because of his attractive appearance, so he left home and wandered to Los Angeles.

Huan seemed to hold no wariness against people. He casually shrugged at his experience over the years and sighed, “When I came to this house, Jason, you didn’t live here anymore. So this is the first time we meet.”

Bei Quan was using Dai Bo Qian’s identity, but the pronunciation of the name ‘Bo Qian’ proved too difficult for westerners. Therefore, when he introduced himself, he used Dai Bo Qian’s childhood name, ‘Jason’.

Bei Quan smiled and nodded, his gaze moved inadvertently, fell on Huan’s elbow, and naturally moved away again.

“Is your modelling career faring well?”

He asked with a smile.

“It’s alright.”

Huan scratched his hair and looked embarrassed, “I signed with a brokerage company two years ago. I usually shoot a few catalogues and print advertisements… But I’m not that famous yet.”