At 4:30 p.m. on July 19th, Citi National Time, the flight of Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan landed at Fort Worth International Airport on time.
Before boarding the plane, Beiquan contacted Chen Dafa's lawyer. The other party expressed that he was very happy that he was willing to return to the manor to see Mr. Chen for the last time, and said that a special person would be arranged to pick him up.
The person in charge of picking up the plane and driving the car was a tall and slightly fat middle-aged African-American man. He was full of energy, had a cheerful personality and was very talkative.
He asked Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan to call him Will.
During the conversation, the two learned that Will was not a servant in the manor, but a driver temporarily hired by the lawyer from the town, who was only responsible for delivering them to the place.
Will obviously didn't know anything about the inheritance and heirs. He didn't even know about the news that Chen Da was seriously ill, and he was afraid that he would be dead soon. He only regarded them as guests invited by the manor, and chatted casually. .
He told Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan that Mr. Chen's manor and mansion were very large, but in fact the people who lived there could be described as "poorly few".
"When Mr. Chen was young, his family adopted a lot of children. There were not enough rooms to live in, and they had to be renovated every year. Because of the need to take care of the children, the family hired several nannies and maids. It was very lively."
Will drove up the interstate and said to the two as he drove:
"But after the children grew up, they didn't stay in his house anymore, and the nanny also reached the age of retirement. There were fewer and fewer people, and the manor gradually became deserted."
He sighed:
"Don't be surprised when you see it later! For such a big manor, the shrubs are now taller than people. From the outside, it looks like a forest!"
After that, Will added with a smile:
"Hahaha, a crew came to town not long ago. They fell in love with Mr. Chen's mansion and asked if they could make a horror movie!"
Will's joke wasn't funny at all, but Beiquan still laughed out loud.
Wei Fuyuan noticed that Beiquan's English is very smooth, and it is still a typical Citizen accent, and there is no flaw in interpreting a native Chinese.
"How well do you speak English?"
Wei Fuyuan leaned into Beiquan's ear, lowered his voice, and asked in Chinese.
Beiquan rolled his eyes, smiled slightly, and replied softly, "Because I have enough time."
Wei Fuyuan: "??"
He couldn't understand Beiquan's meaning for a while.
But there are outsiders in the car, so it's not appropriate to ask questions.
Wei Fuyuan had to silently write down the question, thinking of bringing it up another day.
Chen Dafa's manor is nearly 200 kilometers away from Fort Worth International Airport, and it takes a full three hours to drive.
Before leaving China, Zhu Ling helped Beiquan collect information in advance.
According to intelligence, Chen Dafa is 74 years old this year.
His ancestral home is in a small town on the southeastern coast of China. When he was twenty-four years old, fifty years ago, he smuggled his wife and son to Citiland, went to his uncle's family who was working in the west, and rented a house in the suburbs. A small building and opened a Chinese restaurant in town.
In the beginning, his restaurant had only a small storefront.
I don’t know if it’s because of Chen Dafa’s excellent craftsmanship or because of the excellent feng shui of the store, this humble Chinese restaurant has a lot of customers, and business is not good every day.
Two years later, the small restaurant was expanded into a two-story Chinese restaurant, which became the most popular dining place for the townspeople.
After saving the first pot of gold, Chen Dafa began to set foot in other industries.
He invested in farms, orchards, non-staple food processing plants, beverage factories and wool spinning factories, and the plate gradually became larger and larger. In addition to Citi, the industry also extended to the Middle East and South America, and soon became a well-known local industrialist.
It's just that unlike most big bosses who start enjoying life after making money, Chen Dafa didn't move into the city with his wife and children, but bought the small apartment where their family lived, and the large wasteland around them. It was converted into a manor and lived there for fifty years.
In the past 50 years, none of Chen Dafa's documented investments have failed, and the industry under his name has also prospered.
But compared with his enviable wealth luck, Chen Dafa's kinship is so miserable that it can only be described as "Shenzhen Lone Star".
When his small restaurant was booming and he decided to expand it into a restaurant, his uncle, who had been taking care of him a lot and helping him gain a firm foothold in Citiland, was diagnosed with colon cancer at a young age and could not see it with his own eyes. When my nephew's new restaurant opened, he passed away.
After his uncle's death, Chen Dafa not only brought his aunt to live with him, but also paid full tuition to his cousin who was going to college. In the eyes of outsiders, it was really very affectionate and righteous.
It's a pity that just one year later, his cousin who was in college unfortunately drowned when he was out camping with his classmates, and his aunt also suffered from severe depression because of the death of her husband and son, and was sent to a mental illness. After recuperating in the hospital, he committed suicide by jumping off the building while the nurse was not paying attention.
It took a while.
When Chen Dafa was 30 years old, his nine-year-old only son died of pneumonia.
Two years later, Chen Dafa and his wife had another child, still a boy.
But when the second son was four years old, once his wife drove the child to go shopping in the city, but was involved in a car accident on the road. The car was crushed into pieces of paper by the big truck transporting wood.
From then on, Chen Dafa became a real loner, when he was only thirty-six years old.
This age is the most attractive time for men, and it is also the beginning of life to the peak.
And Chen Dafa was already quite rich at that time, and he was also a celebrity in the whole town.
Everyone who knew him felt that he would soon recover from the blow, find a beautiful wife again, and have three or five healthy and lively children.
But they were all wrong.
Chen Dafa claimed that he had a deep-rooted love for his deceased wife, and he was deeply saddened by the unfortunate early death of his two sons, and he did not plan to continue in a short time.
But at the same time, he also declared that because he likes children and needs company, he is willing to adopt orphans and let those homeless children live with him.
So Chen Dafa started his own road of adoption.
As far as Zhu Ling can find records, in the past 30 years, a total of 21 orphans have lived in Chen Dafa's manor.
They were all boys, either adopted or fostered.
No matter what kind of relationship it is, Chen Dafa treats them equally and calls them "my children" to the outside world.
Beiquan's trip was in a hurry, and the time span was too large, and it was separated by half the world, so until they set off, Zhu Ling had not been able to find out all the identities and whereabouts of the twenty-one children.
However, if Chen Dafa's legal team is reliable, judging from the number of heirs, there are only four of the twenty-one children alive till now.
&&& &&& &&&
At 8:05 in the evening, the driver Will parked his car in front of a manor.
Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan got out of the car.
Chen Dafa's manor is indeed quite large. The two of them stood at the gate and looked left and right. The railings were so long that they could not see the end.
But compared to "big", Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan's first impression of this manor was actually "very broken".
The carved railings were covered with dense climbing plants, and apparently they had not been pruned for a long time.
"Well, it's really suitable for a ghost movie."
Beiquan touched his chin and commented.
Someone was waiting at the gate of the manor.
It was a white young man in a suit, claiming to be an intern at a law firm, responsible for bringing them in.
Just as the three were talking, another car also stopped in front of the manor.
A young man jumped out of the driver's seat.
The child was about twenty years old. He was very beautiful, with dark brown curly hair, brown eyes, a high nose bridge, plump lips, and a few freckles scattered on his cheeks. He was about the same height as Beiquan, but taller than Beiquan. Beiquan is even thinner.
The T-shirt he was wearing was a tailored fit, and the pants were tight, making him look as thin as a hemp, as if he would fall over when the wind blew.
"Hello."
The tall and thin boy with brown hair and brown eyes showed a bright smile and came straight to the three of them, reaching out to them.
"My name is Juan, and Mr. Chen invited me here."
"Ah, what a coincidence, Mr. Juan."
Hearing this person's name, the intern knew that he didn't need to make another trip.
So he laughed too:
"Three, please come with me."
The distance from the gate of the manor to the mansion is not too close. Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan asked about Hu An's identity while walking.
This young man named Hu An is twenty-three years old this year, but Beiquan feels that he looks younger than his reported age.
He is Hispanic, adopted at the age of twelve, and lived in Chen Dafa's manor until he was eighteen. Then he decided to become a model because of his good looks, so he left home and went to Los Angeles.
Juan seems to be unsuspecting of people, and he casually shakes his experience over the years, and sighs when he is finished:
"You didn't live here, Jason, when I came to this house, so this is the first time we've met."
Beiquan now uses the identity of Dai Boqian, but the pronunciation of the word "Boqian" is too difficult for Westerners, so when he introduced himself, he used Dai Boqian's childhood name, "Jason".
Beiquan nodded with a smile, his eyes moved down inadvertently, landed on Juan's elbow, and moved away naturally.
"Is your modeling career going well?"
he asked with a smile.
"Okay."
Juan scratched his hair and seemed a little embarrassed:
"I signed a brokerage firm two years ago, and I usually shoot catalogs and print ads... but I'm not very famous yet."