Hong Kong- In the 15-year-old studio shot handed out by her solicitor, they seem the oddest of couples - an ageing billionairess whose husband has been kidnapped with a suave young fortune teller standing proudly beside her. In real life, their relationship appears to have been even more of a riddle, with feng shui master Tony Chan Chun-chuen apparently enjoying a champagne lifestyle while Nina Wang lived off fast food and a monthly allowance of a few hundred US dollars.
Wang, Asia's richest woman and the 154th wealthiest person on the planet according to Forbes magazine, stunned relatives by leaving her entire 4.2-billion-dollar estate to Chan in a will made public last week after her death from cancer.
An epic legal battle is now looming in Hong Kong between the childless Wang's siblings and the man who became her close confidante after her tycoon husband Teddy was kidnapped never to be seen again in 1990.
The lonely billionairess originally left her money to her family and to charity in a 2002 will, but secretly changed it to leave everything to 48-year-old Chan as she entered the advanced stages of a three-year fight against ovarian cancer last year.
Details of the extraordinary relationship between Wang and the smooth-talking father of three who many suspect may have been an intimate friend as well as an advisor emerged as her family prepares to mount a legal challenge.
Despite her enormous wealth, Wang, head of Hong Kong's Chinachem group property company, lived a famously frugal lifestyle, buying clothes from factory outlets, queuing for discount theatre tickets and taking guests and business associates out to eat at McDonalds.
She claimed to need only 400 US dollars a month in personal living expenses, perhaps a legacy of her missing husband Teddy, a notorious miser who complained after an earlier kidnapping attempt that Nina Wang paid too much by handing over some 2 million US dollars for his freedom.
By contrast, Chan appeared to enjoy a millionaire lifestyle in the years after meeting Wang, building a multi-million-dollar property portfolio and taking up residence in a sprawling manor house in the city's most exclusive neighbourhood, where he has a collection of luxury European cars.
There has been intense speculation over the studio photograph released by Wang's lawyer of her and Chan together around two years after Teddy Wang's disappearance, which shows them in an informal and apparently intimate pose.
Photographers describe it as a "traditional Chinese wedding photograph" while a fellow feng shui master said it betrayed a relationship that went well beyond that of a feng shui master and his client.
The picture is believed to have been taken around 1992 as Wang's reliance on Chan deepened, partly, according to friends, because he assured her repeatedly that her missing husband Teddy was still alive.
In 1993 and 1994, Chan was frequently seen taking Wang to a Chinese temple where she performed traditional rituals for the safe return of her husband, who was declared dead in 1999.
Between 1993 and 1995, Chan would buy four luxury properties in some of Hong Kong's most sought-after addresses, building up a portfolio valued at more than 6 million US dollars.
He later moved into a sumptuous mansion bought in his businessman brother's name and worth around 10 million US dollars near The Peak - Hong Kong's premier residential district.
The house is filled with features inspired by feng shui - the Chinese art of bringing prosperity through harmony of the elements - including a crescent moon-shaped swimming pool meant to attract money and statues of lions and unicorns which reputedly preserve wealth.
Chan has not been seen since he was declared sole beneficiary of Wang's fortune on Friday and is understood to have left Hong Kong until the furore over his huge inheritance dies down.
Nina Wang's solicitor Jonathan Midgley confirmed that Chan was independently wealthy before her will was released, explaining that he had "been fortunate enough to be successful" in recent years.
His claim to the fortune rests on an oddly worded 2006 will in which she leaves "all of the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, both real and personal, of every kind of description, wherever situated and whether now owned or hereafter acquired" to Chan.
Eccentric Mrs Wang, who wore a pigtail and mini-skirts well into her 60s, took over her husband's property empire and built it into a multi-billion dollar company after his disappearance.
Wang also fought a bitter eight-year legal battle against her father-in-law for control of her missing husband's fortune, during which she was accused of cheating on husband Teddy during their marriage and then forging his will.
Now it seems a similar ordeal awaits Chan when he returns to Hong Kong and - if Nina Wang's experience is anything to go by - he may find that he requires all the good fortune his feng shui expertise can give him to emerge the winner.
