“Who are the Youngs?” Wye Mun asked eagerly.
“Why are you suddenly so interested in these people?” Dr. Gu queried.
Wye Mun considered the question carefully before he answered. “We are trying to help my daughter’s friend, since she is quite serious about the boy. I’m not familiar with the family.”
“Of course you wouldn’t know them, Wye Mun. Hardly anybody does these days. I have to admit that my own knowledge is very outdated.”
“Well, what can you tell us?” Wye Mun pressed on.
Dr. Gu took a long sip of his tea and leaned into a more comfortable position. “The Youngs are descended, I believe, from a long line of royal court physicians, going all the way back to the Tang dynasty. James Young—Sir James Young, actually—was the first Western-educated neurologist in Singapore, trained at Oxford.”
“He made his fortune as a doctor?” Wye Mun asked, rather surprised.
“Not at all! James was not
the sort of person who cared about making a fortune. He was too busy saving lives in World War II, during the Japanese occupation,” Dr. Gu said, staring at the crisscrossing patterns of ivy on his fence as they suddenly seemed to transform into diamond-like patterns, reminding him of a chain-link fence from a long time ago.
“So you knew him during the war?” Wye Mun asked, jarring Dr. Gu out of his recollection.
“Yes, yes, that’s how I knew him,” Dr. Gu said slowly. He hesitated for a few moments, before continuing. “James Young was in charge of an underground medical corps that I was briefly involved with. After the war, he set up his clinic in the old section of Chinatown, specifically to serve the poor and elderly. I heard that for years he charged his patients practically nothing.”
“So how did he make his money?”
“There you go again, Wye Mun, always chasing after the money,” Dr. Gu chided.
“Well, where did that huge house come from?” Wye Mun asked.
“Ah, I see the true nature of your interest now. You must be referring to the house off Tyersall Road.”
“Yes. Have you been there?” Peik Lin asked.
“Goodness, no. I only heard about it. Like I said, I really did not know James very well; I would never have been invited.”
“I dropped my friend off at the house last week, and I could hardly believe it when I saw the place.”
“You must be joking! Is the house still there?” Dr. Gu said, looking quite shocked.
“Yes,” Peik Lin replied.
“I would have thought that the place was long gone. I must say I’m quite impressed that the family never sold out in all these years.”
“Yes, I’m quite shocked that there’s a property this large on the island,” Wye Mun cut in.
“Why should you be? The whole area behind the Botanic Gardens used to be full of great estates. The Sultan of Johore had a palace over there called Istana Woodneuk that burned to the ground many years ago. You say you were there last week?” Dr. Gu queried.
“Yes, but I did not go in.”
“A pity. It would be a rare treat to see one of those houses. So few are left, thanks to all the brilliant developers,” Dr. Gu said, glaring in mock anger at Wye Mun.
“So if James Young never made any money, how did—” Wye Mun began.
“You don’t listen, Wye Mun! I said that James Young wasn’t interested in making money, but I never said he didn’t have any. The Youngs had money, generations of money. Besides, James married Shang Su Yi. And she, I can tell you for a fact, comes from a family so unfathomably rich, it would make your eyes water, Wye Mun.”
“Who is she, then?” Wye Mun asked, his curiosity piqued to boiling point.
“All right, I will tell you and shut you up once and for all. She is the daughter of Shang Loong Ma. Never heard that name, either, right? He was an enormously wealthy banker in Peking, and before the Qing dynasty fell, he very smartly moved his money to Singapore, where he made an even greater fortune in shipping and commodities. The man had his tentacles in every major business in the region—he controlled all the shipping lines from the Dutch East Indies to Siam, and he was the mastermind behind uniting the early Hokkien banks in the thirties.”
“So Nick’s grandmother inherited all of that,” Peik Lin surmised.