Chapter 3

Chapter 3

That night, I moved back into the Han Family’s old manor.

It wasn’t because I missed this place.

It was because I knew very well that the things my mother left behind had to still be in this house.

Three years ago, when I was being dragged away, my grandfather arrived one step too late.

He gripped my hand outside the hospital ward and said only one thing: “Sui’an, don’t be afraid. Your mother won’t have died in vain, and the evidence won’t be lost for nothing.”

Six months later, he passed away from a sudden heart attack. I wasn’t even able to attend his funeral.

Those people kept me locked in the ward, telling the outside world that my condition had worsened and that I wasn’t fit to see anyone.

It wasn’t until today that I stood on the third floor of this house once again.

As soon as I pushed the door open, I was met with a face full of dust.

My room looked as if it had been sealed in time. My books, my piano, and my photos were all still in their original places; even the pot of long-dead mint by the window hadn’t been thrown away.

Lin Manqing didn’t care about my belongings.

She simply assumed I would never come back.

I walked over to the wardrobe, pulled open the bottom drawer, and took out an old photo frame.

Inside was a photo of my mother and me in the music room on my eighteenth birthday.

She was wearing a white shirt, smiling gently, her fingers resting on the grand piano.

The day she died, the police concluded it was a suicide jump triggered by a depressive episode.

But I didn’t believe it.

A week before her death, she had still been teaching me how to read a research and development report, asking if I wanted to study pharmacology abroad after graduation.

A person who was earnestly planning for the future would not suddenly choose to die.

Furthermore, less than three months after my mother’s death, Lin Manqing moved into the Han Family home with Tang Ruoqi.

Later, Han Chengde married her under the guise of “taking care of the child.”

Everything fell into place with a sickening convenience.

I closed my eyes, but my mind was still stuck on that night three years ago.

The night before the wedding, I had overheard an argument outside my father’s study.

Someone had died during the Linchuan Project, which my mother had been in charge of. My grandfather wanted to audit the accounts, but my father wanted to smooth everything over overnight.

Before I could record the conversation, Qi Shuheng hugged me from behind.

“Sui’an, go back to your room first. I’ll handle it,” he had said, handing me a glass of warm milk.

That day, I actually thought he was on my side.

As it turned out, I woke up half an hour later in my room, feeling groggy, with a fruit knife in my hand. Tang Ruoqi was slumped on the floor, a trail of blood on her wrist, sobbing hysterically.

A second later, my father burst in with doctors and bodyguards.

No one listened to my explanation.

No one asked why the knife was in my hand.

They were only interested in condemning me.

I walked over to the piano, lifted the lid, and reached into its deepest recesses.

My mother had once said something very strange to me.

“Sui’an, if I’m ever gone, remember that the most important thing is hidden in the place that sings.”

I used to think she was joking.

Now that I thought about it, this was what she meant.

My fingers brushed against a slight protrusion on the bottom of the wooden board. With a gentle press, a secret compartment popped out.

It didn’t contain evidence.

There was only a slip of paper that had been folded many times.

It was in my mother’s handwriting.

“If the compartment is empty, find the person who truly sings.”

Beneath the note, a number was pressed down.

0719.

My heart leaped into my throat.

Because 0719 wasn’t a date.

It was the room number where I had been confined in the Special Ward of Kangning Hospital.