chapter 3

chapter 3

At five that afternoon, I watched Lin Jin leave the tower and walk toward the parking lot.

She was a small woman, yet she drove a massive Jeep.

I followed her. Ten minutes later, her car entered a quiet, beautiful gated community full of villas.

I was mildly surprised. Lin Jin was merely a logistics employee. I had never imagined she could afford to live here.

I was driving a Porsche Cayenne. When I told the gate attendant I was visiting a friend, he did not question me too closely and raised the barrier.

Soon I found her Jeep parked outside a house. I stopped far down the road and stared at the villa in a daze.

I did not know what I was doing. I had not even decided what I hoped to achieve by following her.

Perhaps it was the red marks on her neck.

Perhaps it was her mysteriously smudged lipstick.

Whatever the reason, my anxious nature, my compulsions, and my habit of inventing fears had seized control of my mind.

I felt frustrated, guilty, and disgusted with myself.

After sitting there for a while, I prepared to leave.

Then a car slowly approached.

I knew that car as well as my own.

Qin Shen’s black Cullinan.

For one instant, all the blood in my body seemed to freeze. I could not move.

The Cullinan stopped outside Lin Jin’s house.

No door opened. No one got out.

With a trembling hand, I called Qin Shen.

The phone barely rang once before his gentle voice answered. “A-Li, what’s wrong?”

I forced my emotions down and said evenly, “Qin Shen, are you still busy at the office? If you’re feeling unwell, come home early today.”

He laughed softly. “I’m already out. I left work a little while ago. A senior official suddenly asked to review a project proposal, so I’m taking someone over to discuss it in person.”

“Who are you taking?” I asked slowly.

“Secretary Lin.”

Through the window, I saw Lin Jin open her front door. Carrying a folder, she hurried to Qin Shen’s car and climbed inside.

Qin Shen remained on the line, patiently explaining, “I was probably just tired earlier. It’s nothing. A-Li, Secretary Lin is in the car now, and we’re about to leave. Don’t worry. I’ll be home by seven.”

When the call ended, I let out a long breath.

He had been candid. He had hidden nothing.

It was merely a coincidence. By chance, a senior official had called after business hours. By chance, Lin Jin was serving as his secretary. By chance, it happened on the same day as my ridiculous stalking expedition.

I calmed myself and watched the Cullinan drive around the flower bed and out through the main gate.

I started my own car. Then a realization stopped me cold.

When the Cullinan left, the barrier had risen automatically.

I slowly turned toward Lin Jin’s villa.

It was a graceful three-story house. Warm pink curtains glowed in the upstairs windows, and a neat row of lush potted plants lined the balcony. Its owner had tended it with care.

I sat rigid in my car like a stone statue.

Ten minutes later, I stood outside the villa.

There was a keypad lock on the door.

As if guided by a ghost, I entered six digits.

960703. My birthday.

The lock clicked open.

For a moment, nothing felt real. I raised a numb hand and pinched my cheek.

It hurt.

This was no dream.

I closed my eyes, opened the door, and stepped inside.

The room stopped me in my tracks.

I had expected to find a cozy home. Instead, the room was bizarrely out of place: low-hanging crystal chandeliers, an entire wall paneled in rosewood, enormous oil paintings, and several sets of high-backed tables and chairs.

It looked less like a living room than an elegant private restaurant.

I stood by the door and stared as my heart slowly sank.

I had seen this room before.

On several occasions, I had video-called Qin Shen around dinnertime. This was the room behind him.

A laugh slipped from my throat. In the silent house, the sound echoed with absurdity.

As I looked around, the open bathroom door caught my eye.

At the beginning of winter last month, I had given Qin Shen a red scarf. I had followed video tutorials and knitted it stitch by stitch over half a month.

Now that scarf was tied to the toilet lid, one end hanging down as a handle.

I went upstairs and entered the master bedroom. An enormous double bed dominated the room, much larger than a standard one, as though it had been custom-made. A black lace nightdress lay carelessly across the pillows, blatantly seductive.

The walk-in closet held row after row of men’s clothing: suits, shirts, pajamas, all in Qin Shen’s style.

In the bathroom, toothbrushes, towels, and razors came in matching pairs for a man and a woman.

I picked up the razor. Stubble remained caught in its seams.

The world around me went utterly still.

Time slowed. The air seemed to thicken around my body until I could neither move nor breathe.

I did not know how long I stood there before footsteps sounded on the stairs, followed by voices.

The woman asked, “You’re really not staying for dinner?”

The man replied, “I’ll shower and leave. I have to be home by seven.”

Terror overwhelmed me.

I did not want to face the truth about to reveal itself. Afraid of seeing something that would sicken me for the rest of my life, I fled to the balcony and crouched against the wall.

But the glass cabinet doors reflected two faces with perfect clarity.

Qin Shen.

Lin Jin.

I wrapped my arms tightly around my shaking body.

Qin Shen took off his coat, suit jacket, and watch with measured ease. Lin Jin stood beside him and said gently, “Why not go home later tonight?”

He did not answer.

“You already told her a senior official needed you. We don’t get opportunities like this often—”

“You’ve crossed the line.”

Qin Shen’s voice was glacial.

Lin Jin bit her lip, fell silent for a moment, then whispered, “But you enjoyed it earlier, didn’t you?”

Qin Shen’s hand stopped on a shirt button. He lowered his gaze to her without speaking.

Her hand slipped beneath his shirt and moved down.

“You couldn’t finish while she was there, could you?”

“Why don’t we finish before you shower?”

Gasps and moans soon drifted from the bedroom.

Outside, snow began to fall—the first snow of winter.

I stared, mesmerized, as though the gray sky had pulled me from my body and sent me rising endlessly upward.

Even then, I could not force myself to burst in and confront them.

I was afraid of the revulsion.

Afraid that one glance would stain every remaining day of my life.

I did not even have the strength to go downstairs and leave.

Before my mother died, she had sighed and said that I had inherited her sensitivity and anxious mind, but not her decisiveness. Fortunately, Qin Shen was meticulous and dependable. With him protecting me, she said, I could live a lifetime without fear.

My mother had understood me perfectly.

She had been wrong about Qin Shen.

Snow floated down in great soft drifts, laying a thin veil of white over the world.

Lin Jin emerged in her nightdress, languid and sated.

Footsteps thudded on the stairs. A middle-aged woman appeared, holding the hand of a boy about three years old.

“Mommy! Auntie brought Chengcheng home!” the child called sweetly.

Lin Jin smiled and went to embrace him.

The bedroom door opened. Fresh from the shower, Qin Shen stepped out in an identical set of clothes.

The little boy’s round eyes lit up.

“Daddy!”