Chapter 40

Outside the window, the sky darkened by the minute. A suffocating feeling, like a rising tide, crept slowly up around her ankles until it seemed about to swallow her whole.

The cold wind seeping through the wall gave off a faint whistling sound, eerie enough to make the hairs on her neck stand up.

The phone in her pocket had long gone silent. It was ice-cold, pressed tightly against her leg.

At this point, she had no one to turn to.

“Is anyone there?”

She tried to call out, but her voice came out scratchy and hoarse. Only the wind answered her.

She should have backed out of this event back then. Why had she insisted on saving face and forcing herself through it?

The room looked as though no one had been inside it for a long time. The paintings on the walls and the furniture stacked in the corners looked exactly like black-clad figures crouching in ambush.

She no longer dared to look. She buried her face in her knees and held back the tears threatening to fall.

“I haven’t even confessed to Aunt Cheng yet. Am I really going to die here...”

No one knew how much time passed, long enough for her legs to go numb, when a knock suddenly sounded at the door.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

She jerked her head up, hardly daring to believe it. Was it an illusion?

“Alai, are you in there?”

It was a woman’s voice!

The next second, she practically scrambled to the door on her hands and knees, pounding on the wood with both hands, panic threading through her voice. “Aunt Cheng, I’m here! I’m in here! Please save me!”

The knocking outside paused for a moment.

“Alai, don’t be afraid. I’m here.”

Those words seemed to carry some kind of magic. They slowly calmed the panic surging through her chest.

Urgent voices drifted in from outside as the woman discussed something with the others. She leaned against the door, relief flooding through her at having narrowly escaped disaster.

Roughly two minutes later, the lock clicked open.

The woman rushed in first, flashlight in hand.

The beam swept across the room before finally settling on the girl curled up in the corner.

“Alai.”

She called the girl’s name, her voice trembling.

The moment Jiang Lai saw her, the tears she had been holding back burst out at once. Her whole body was still shaking, but she opened her arms like a small injured animal desperate for comfort.

“Aunt Cheng...”

“I’m here.”

The woman’s heart clenched. She strode over, crouched down, and pulled her into her arms.

The feeling of losing and then finding something all at once surged back into her.

“Aunt Cheng...”

Jiang Lai buried herself in the woman’s neck, her sobs breaking loose. “I was so scared. I thought I was going to die, and never see you again...”

“You child, what nonsense are you saying...”

The woman’s eyes turned wet, and she couldn’t stop trembling.

The girl’s tears fell on her skin like burning coals, scorching hot and making her heart shake.

“It’s okay, Alai. I’m here.”

The woman gently patted her back, deliberately softening her voice even more than usual.

Her fingertips brushed through the damp strands at Jiang Lai’s temples, wet with sweat.

Jiang Lai said nothing. She only tightened her grip on the hem of the woman’s clothes. Seeing her like this made the woman’s heart ache and soften all at once, and her tenderness toward her deepened again.

The girl cried for a very long time, as if she wanted to cry out all her grievance and fear in one go.

The woman did not urge her. She said nothing, simply stayed quietly beside her.

When she noticed the crying had eased a little, she finally said, “Let’s go out. Xizhou and the others are very worried about you.”

Jiang Lai lifted her swollen, walnut-like eyes and nodded.

The woman took off her own coat and draped it over her.

Jiang Lai was about to refuse, but the woman had already pressed her hand down. “Put it on. It’s very cold outside.”

Only then did she give in. Just as they reached the door, they saw Lin Wanqiu standing not far away. Her face was deathly pale. When she saw the two of them come out, her lips parted, but in the end, she said nothing.

“Jiang Lai, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please forgive me.”

The woman didn’t even glance at her. She took Jiang Lai by the hand and led her away. As they passed by, the woman gave Lin Wanqiu a cold, meaningful look.

Lin Wanqiu’s legs went weak. She had to lean against the wall to stay upright, regret surging through her. This move of hers had probably been the wrong one; if that was the case, she might as well start planning for herself earlier...

Once they left the estate, the crowd waiting outside immediately swarmed toward them.

Song Shiyuan’s eyes were red as she grabbed Jiang Lai’s hand. “Alai, are you okay? It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have left you alone inside. If anything had happened to you, I’d never forgive myself for the rest of my life.”

Before Jiang Lai could speak, the woman had already stepped in front of her.

“Alai isn’t in good shape today. I’ll take her back to rest first. If there’s anything, we can talk after she’s rested.”

“That’s fine.”

Director Zhang nodded, his face full of guilt. “I’m sorry, Jiang Lai. If you’d told me earlier that you didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have had you participate. Mainly because I’d asked around before, and everyone seemed to really like this activity...”

“It’s okay, Director Zhang. It’s my problem.”

She cut off the man, who was still blaming himself. “I should be the one apologizing to you. I was the one who disrupted everyone’s arrangements. I’m sorry.”

Hearing her say that, the man only grew more satisfied with her.

“Xiaoya, the car is ready. Take Alai back to the guesthouse first.”

The woman nodded. “Director Zhang, then we’ll head off first.”

Before leaving, she hugged Song Shiyuan and comforted her softly, “I’m really fine. Don’t blame everything on yourself.”

The car was warm, and Jiang Lai immediately felt the temperature in her body begin to rise again.

“Hungry? I have some cookies here.”

The woman took a bag of cookies out of her purse and handed them to her.

Jiang Lai shook her head, feeling drained all over. “Aunt Cheng, I’m not hungry. I don’t want to eat.”

Seeing that, the woman didn’t force her.

“Alright. When we get back, I’ll make you some porridge. You should at least eat something and settle your stomach.”

“Mm.”

Cheng Shuyang suddenly turned sideways and leaned toward her.

Jiang Lai instinctively dodged. Her lips barely brushed the woman’s earlobe. The woman went still. When she turned back, her expression showed no sign of discomfort, but her eyes were darker than before.

“Sorry, Aun...”

“Were you scared?”

The woman’s voice was as usual. She lifted a hand to smooth the loose hair by her ear, casually brushing her own earlobe in the process.

Jiang Lai didn’t dare look at her anymore. She only gave a vague nod.

Soon, the two of them arrived at the guesthouse.

“You go upstairs and rest for a while first. Once dinner is ready, I’ll come up and call you.”

Jiang Lai was changing her shoes at the entryway. When she looked up again, the woman was already in the kitchen, apron on, cooking.

Stripped of the polished glamour she had under the spotlight, the woman was even more attractive to her now.

No matter how she looked at her, it still wasn’t enough.

Silently, she went upstairs.

She let herself sink into the soft bed.

The room was dark, with only moonlight filtering through the curtains and casting mottled shadows on the floor. She turned over and stared at the ceiling, suddenly feeling very tired.

Sleepiness slowly crept over her.

In the kitchen, the woman was carefully simmering the porridge when the phone on the table rang at the worst possible moment.

“Hello? Wanwan?”

“Mom!”

Xia Wanwan’s lively voice came at once from the other end.

“Why are you calling me so late? What is it?”

“Where’s Alai? I just called her and she didn’t answer. Is she okay?”

“...You’re looking for her for something?”

“Can’t I look for her if it’s nothing?”

The girl sounded a little annoyed.

The woman sighed, then told her everything that had happened, not leaving out a single detail. When Xia Wanwan heard that Jiang Lai had been locked in a room for a long time, she couldn’t sit still anymore.

“Is Lin Wanqiu crazy? How could she dare do that!”

Seeing her daughter’s reaction, the woman’s suspicion deepened.

“Wanwan.”

She chose her words carefully. “Alai... has she experienced something like this before? Why was her reaction so strong?”

Xia Wanwan was silent for a moment before her voice came through the receiver again.

“When Alai was in college, her classmates played a prank on her and locked her in a storage room for an entire night.”

The woman’s eyes widened in shock. “Why?”

“Alai was outstanding back then, so of course there were people who disliked her. They deliberately waited until she went to get something, then locked her in. That day also happened to be during a heavy storm; she shouted in there all night, and no one heard her.”

“After that, she became especially afraid of being alone in a very dark room.”

The woman’s heart tightened as she listened. No wonder Jiang Lai had looked so nervous when she heard they were going to play escape room; that clearly hadn’t been motion sickness. It had been fear. It was all her fault—why hadn’t she realized it back then?

If she had noticed, maybe today’s situation never would have happened...

A wave of self-reproach crashed over her.

“Mom, what happened today has nothing to do with you. You don’t need to blame yourself so much.”

Xia Wanwan slapped the table so hard that even Cheng Shuyang on the other end of the phone heard it. “That Lin Wanqiu is such trash. Just wait. The next time I see her, I’ll tear her apart and get revenge for Alai!”

“Alright, I’m going upstairs to check on Alai first. I’ll call you back later.”

After hanging up on her daughter, she carried the bowl of porridge and carefully pushed open the door to the girl’s bedroom.

The room was very dark, with only a small night light on.

On the large bed, the girl was curled up in one corner, looking pitiful and heartbreaking.

She set the bowl of porridge gently on the table, then crouched by the bed and carefully pulled the blanket up around her. Her gaze fell on the girl’s red, swollen eyes.

After a long silence, a voice nearly choked with sobs came from the woman’s mouth. “Alai, I’m sorry...”

The woman lowered her eyes, and her lashes cast a shadow beneath them, hiding the redness at the corners of her eyes.

“I should have realized sooner. It’s all my fault...”

Her fingertips slowly tightened as she unconsciously gripped the bedsheet, pulling out deep wrinkles one after another.

“After taking so long to find you, you must have been so scared in there...”

Tears fell without warning. She bit down hard on her lip, not letting a single sound escape, yet her shoulders still trembled uncontrollably, like reeds in the autumn wind, on the verge of breaking.

The only things left in the air were the woman’s muffled sobs and the sentence she kept repeating.

“Alai, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry...”