Lu Mo curled his lip in disdain and whispered in Ye Qingqing's ear, "He's actually very scared, otherwise he wouldn't have adopted Xiao Jiu."
Xiao Jiu is pure black, without a single stray hair. Black dogs like this are said to possess righteous energy and be able to scare away ghosts. Ding Ba adopted Xiao Jiu to exorcise ghosts, and the effect was quite good. At least Ding Ba is still living peacefully.
However, it is also possible that the previous ghost stories were just legends, and there were actually no ghosts. It may have just been a coincidence, but after being spread by word of mouth, it evolved into a ghost story.
Ye Qingqing suppressed a laugh and silently watched Ding Ba show off, too lazy to expose him.
The third floor consists of bedrooms and a study, but there's not much to see. We then went to the top floor, where the terrace is large enough for dozens of people to have a barbecue. The attic was filled with a lot of things, probably a storage room.
The room was packed full of things and covered in dust. Ye Qingqing joked, "Maybe there are a lot of valuable antiques inside. If you find the myna bird, you'll be rich."
Ding Ba had no interest. "The valuable stuff must have been taken by someone else. Why would anything still be left?"
"That's not necessarily true. Maybe we'll find a bargain! Let's pick it up!"
Ye Qingqing was in high spirits. Wearing a mask, she browsed around and found mostly toys and books, as well as old clothes and shoes. Although the styles were outdated, the materials were excellent. Ye Qingqing also found quite a few dolls, numbering over a hundred.
"This young lady is so lucky; her parents must spoil her rotten," Ye Qingqing remarked.
Ding Ba scoffed, "Even the happiest person dies."
Ye Qingqing sighed and continued rummaging through the box, eventually finding one filled with photo albums. Some were framed, and most were group photos, likely family portraits of the Gong family. The people in the photos were all dressed in clothes from the Republican era, and they were black and white, giving them a strong sense of the era.
At the bottom was a solo photo of a man in his forties, dressed in a suit and leaning on a cane, standing in front of the gate of the mansion with an imposing air. Ye Qingqing paused for a moment, then blinked, took the photo frame out separately, and wiped it clean with a handkerchief.
"What's wrong?" Lu Mo asked.
Ye Qingqing pointed to the man in the photo frame and asked, "Doesn't this person look like a myna bird?"
Lu Mo was initially nonchalant, but after a few glances, his expression turned serious. The man in the photo did indeed resemble Ding Ba somewhat, especially his face and eyes, which were remarkably similar.
Who looks like me?
Ding Ba, who was on the terrace, heard this, walked in with a smile, glanced at the photo frame, and didn't take it seriously at all. "I don't think it looks like him. I'm much better looking than him."
“It really looks like him! If you stick on a mustache, you’ll look exactly like him. Go stick on a mustache now!” Ye Qingqing became interested. Her sixth sense told her that Ding Ba’s background must be related to the man in the photo.
Ding Ba couldn't refuse, so he had to let Lu Mo put a fake beard on him. Lu Mo cut a few strands of his hair, shaped it into a mustache, and glued it on. Then he had Ding Ba change into a suit and put on a top hat, making him look even more like the man in the photo.
The only difference is their demeanor. The man in the photo exudes the nobility and authority of a superior, while Ding Ba has a carefree and irresponsible air about him—completely different qualities.
"Who is this man?" Ding Ba asked curiously.
"There are words on it, let me see."
Ye Qingqing wiped the text on the photo frame; there was a line of small regular script on it—
"On the eighth day of the third month of the thirty-first year of the Republic of China, my father, Gong Yi, celebrated his fortieth birthday."
Ye Qingqing read it aloud softly, then calculated, "The 31st year of the Republic of China is 1943. He was forty years old then. If he were still alive now, he would be ninety-three. This person is named Gong Yi. He should be a member of the Gong family, right?"
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