Chapter 750
The phrase was familiar to Ning Ran as it was part of a famous poem.
Moments of tender love and dream, so sad to leave the magpie bridge. Eternal love between us two shall withstand
the time apart.
Looking at the calligraphy painting, Ning Ran felt that something was wrong.
It was already strange to hang a calligraphy painting in the bedroom. However, what made it even stranger was
that there was no signature on the painting.
If it was written by her mother, it would have been natural for her to hang up her own work.
However, it was not written by her mother. Judging from the handwriting, it was most likely written by a man.
of course, Ning Ran was certain that it was not written by Ning Ziqiang either as the latter did not know calligraphy
at all.
So that must mean it's written by someone else. Since it was by someone else, there should be a signature, stamp,
or date written on it. If it was written by a famous calligraphist, there would even be an exclusive seal on it.
However, there was nothing on the calligraphy painting other than those few words.
Furthermore, its content was incomplete.
The first few sentences could be omitted, but the sentence “Eternal love between us two shall withstand the time
apart” should be written in full.
If the first half of the sentence was written alone, the expression of the meaning would be incomplete as the latter
part of the sentence was the core.
It was obviously meaningless, monotonous, and incongruous to write only “Eternal love between us two.”
Therefore, something was wrong about the painting.
Ning Ran walked to the living room, where Nan Chen was checking his emails.
Upon seeing her come out, he motioned for her to refill the tea.
“Come here. I have something to show you,” Ning Ran said to him.
“I've been here a few times, and I've seen most of the things here. Of course, I have no intention of prying into any
privacy, I was just here to supervise their repair work,” replied Nan Chen.
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“Have you ever gone into my mom's bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen that calligraphy painting?”
“Eternal love between us two,” Nan Chen recited.
“Yes, that's right. Don't you think something is wrong with it?” asked Ning Ran.
“That's not a complete sentence. Half of it has been cut off.” Nan Chen lowered his head to continue looking at his
phone.
“Is that so?”
“Eternal love between us two shall withstand the time apart. This is the full sentence. Hence, the second part was
cut out. I think the signature and date were cut out together,” explained Nan Chen.
Ning Ran thought that what he said made sense.
Running back to the bedroom, she moved a chair over, stepped on it, and carefully observed the painting.
What Nan Chen said was right. There were obvious trimming marks on the edge of the paper, which was
completely different from the other end. Half of it had really been cut off.
She then ran back to the living room. “ I took a close look at it and realize that half of the painting has really been
cut off.”
“Is there a need to take a closer look at it? Will you write an incomplete sentence and hang it up?” Nan Chen
thought that it was a foolish question that was not worth discussing.
“Why cut it off then? Why not write it in full?”
Nan Chen corrected her, “It was written in full. It's just that it has been cut off.”
“Yes, you're right. I mean, why did my mom cut that other half off?”
Nan Chen put down his phone and took a sip from his teacup.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
“Well, I don't know either.”
Ning Ran started to panic. “Aren't you extremely smart? So how could you not know? You can at least give a guess,
can't you?”
“Well, I can say the same for you. But guesswork is not the truth. The truth needs evidence. I don't have any, and
neither do you, so we can only pretend we don't know about it,” said Nan Chen.
“It seems like you're implying something. Tell me what your thoughts are.” Sitting across from Nan Chen, Ning Ran
fixed her gaze on him.
“Go and take a photo of that painting,” said Nan Chen.
“Okay.” Ning Ran ran to the bedroom obediently and took a photo of the painting.
“Save it to your cloud storage, so that you'll still have the photo even if your phone is lost. Save it like how you
saved the photos you took before.”
“Okay.” Ning Ran did as told. “Now what?”
“That's it.”
Ning Ran jumped up in shock. “That's it?”
“That's it. Now that you've saved the photo of this calligraphy painting, you should look at it whenever you're free
and memorize the handwriting. Everyone's handwriting is different. So, when you see someone with the same
handwriting as this calligraphy someday, you can ask that person why half of the calligraphy he gave to your mom
was cut off. He'll probably tell you the reason. But of course, the probability of this happening is a bit low. After all,
there are so many people in the world, and it's rather difficult to meet a specific person. That being said, dreams
are still necessary, for there's a chance they might come true,” Nan Chen said slowly.
The more Ning Ran listened to him, the more she felt that something was off. Why do I feel like Poker Face is
playing tricks on me?
“Are you kidding me? Where can I find the person who wrote this?” Ning Ran exclaimed.
“As I said, the probability of encountering him is low, but it's not absolutely impossible. This kind of thing has to do
with fate,” Nan Chen explained languidly.
“I don't want to talk about fate. I want you to help me find this person. I want to ask him why,” Ning Ran urged
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“Go find him yourself then.”
“I can't!”
“How can I find him when you can't? If that person is a famous calligraphist, it'll be easy to find him, but this
calligraphy isn't famous. There are so many people who know calligraphy in this world. So where do you suggest I
go find him? We can only rely on fate!” Nan Chen replied seriously.
“I don't care. You have to help me find him!”
Nan Chen sighed. “You're being unreasonable. If you can't find him, why do you think I can? Besides, why are you
insisting on finding the person who wrote this?”
Ning Ran lowered her head. “Why do you need to ask me when you already knew? The fact that my mom hung this
calligraphy painting in the bedroom shows that it's very important to her. Generally speaking, calligraphy is
important, not because of the calligraphy itself, but because of the person who wrote it. Eternal love between us
two shall withstand the time apart. Such a sentence is not written for a friend as it is ambiguous in itself. So I think
that the man who wrote this must have some kind of relationship with my mom.”
Initially, Ning Ran did not want to say these things because she knew that Nan Chen would understand.
Previously, she and Ning Ziqiang had done a DNA test, which proved that she was not his biological daughter. Her
biological father was someone else.
Coupled with the fact that the calligraphy painting had been cut in half, it was hard for her not to suspect that the
person who wrote it had something to do with her birth.
It's highly possible that the person who wrote the calligraphy is my biological father. Perhaps he and my mother
were originally in love, but for some reason, they could not be together, so all they could leave behind was a
calligraphy painting. However, they had to cut off the signature for fear that it would be seen by others and in turn,
cause trouble for them. Regardless, my mom must have missed the man so much that she could not forget him, so
she hung the broken piece of painting in her bedroom and gazed at it every night before going to bed, showing her
deep love for him.
“Okay, I'll try,” Nan Chen finally agreed.
After a pause, he added, “But don't get your hopes up. It's going to be really hard to find this person without any
other clues.”