By the time their lingering, tender kiss finally ended—a kiss that went on far too long—both women’s breathing had grown ragged.
“Right, that little toy from yesterday… where did you get it? I put it away in the room after cleaning it.”
Ye Chengxing had no idea where Li Jia had found the little toy yesterday, so she had simply stashed it in the room for the time being. She hadn’t gotten around to asking about it then, but now it occurred to her that it probably had a proper place to be stored. On a whim, she mentioned it offhand.
Li Jia paused at the words, her gaze flickering for a moment. “Mm. It’s in a room on the third floor. Don’t worry about putting it back, Sister—I’ll take care of it later.”
Ye Chengxing noticed that Li Jia’s expression turned subtly unnatural when she spoke of putting it away.
It was as if, despite saying she’d do it later, she had no intention of fetching it right then. More pointedly, it seemed she didn’t want Ye Chengxing handling it at all—a gentle deflection of her offer.
Ye Chengxing didn’t find anything too strange about it, though. She had only brought it up casually upon remembering, and besides, Li Jia had been especially clingy with her lately. With a nod, she let the topic drop.
But that evening, as they lay in the hazy space between wakefulness and sleep, Ye Chengxing felt Li Jia rise quietly from the bed. Li Jia must have thought she was asleep, because she retrieved the little toy from the cabinet and slipped out the bedroom door.
Ye Chengxing had been on the verge of drifting off, but the faint stir of movement pulled her back to full awareness.
Li Jia moved silently throughout, leaving the bedroom as peaceful and quiet as ever—far from enough to disturb anyone.
But… why wait until the middle of the night to put it away?
Ye Chengxing recalled the fleeting unnatural look on Li Jia’s face when they’d discussed it earlier that day.
Had she deliberately chosen nighttime to avoid her?
She hadn’t seen it last night, but today during the day, she had explored virtually every corner of the villa. Naturally, she knew there was a locked room on the third floor.
Li Jia’s expression had grown stiff at the sight of it then, so Ye Chengxing hadn’t pressed, skipping past it without any real urge to unlock and inspect it.
Now, thinking back, that room clearly had some connection to Li Jia.
Perhaps it was even hiding something?
Come to think of it, she’d felt a vague flicker of memory when she first spotted the room that afternoon—something stirring just out of reach before slipping away again.
Lost in these thoughts, Ye Chengxing realized with a start that she had left the bedroom herself. She was heading up to the third floor.
She pressed her lips together.
Even if Li Jia really was hiding something, she shouldn’t follow and spy like this.
She knew that in her head, but when she thought of that room, her body moved of its own accord.
There was even an inexplicable intuition—
That room held a deep connection to their shared past.
The staircase from the second floor to the third was short, but as Ye Chengxing climbed, she couldn’t help imagining what she’d say if she ran into Li Jia midway.
Sneaking after her like this felt wrong, especially since she knew it was wrong and came anyway.
She ran through countless scenarios in her mind while ascending, but she never imagined the scene that actually awaited her on the third floor.
Li Jia must have finished putting the item away.
The door to that mysterious locked room from earlier in the day now stood open, revealing everything inside at a glance.
And there Li Jia stood in the doorway, quietly shedding tears.
She cried without a sound, utterly silent.
If not for the tear tracks visible on her cheeks, even her back view alone wouldn’t have betrayed that she was weeping.
In that instant, a pang of pain twisted through Ye Chengxing’s heart.
And in the second it took to make out what filled the room, the hazy, fragmented memories finally shattered their restraints and flooded in.
