Chapter 80
The car drove through the neon-lit streets and into the private passageway of the underground parking garage. The elevator went straight to the top floor. When Qi Jin stepped out of the elevator, the studio was brightly lit but empty, with only the low hum of the surveillance equipment. Secretary Li hadn't stayed; Qi Jin had told her to go back first.
A faint scent lingered in the air, a mixture of paint, clay, and cleaning agents, along with a hint of… the warm, spacious smell of fabric dried in the afternoon sun. Qi Jin slowly walked to the workbench, his gaze sweeping over its pristine surface, as if the silent struggle of a few hours earlier had been nothing but an illusion.
She went to the control room and retrieved today's surveillance footage. Instead of quickly browsing, she slowly replayed it frame by frame, starting from the beginning of the event.
The cold white light from the screen reflected on her focused, almost cold face. She watched how Su Xiao arranged the materials, how she whispered with Teacher Wang, how she showed a perfectly timed helpless smile when Lin Xiaoyu was being boisterous, and how she quickly adjusted her expression when Su Xiao (Qi Jin) suddenly appeared, displaying the respect of a professional assistant and a hint of barely perceptible tension.
These are all normal, even perfect responses. This is how a smart, perceptive newcomer should behave.
Qi Jin's fingertips tapped on the keyboard, freezing the image on the moment Su Xiao touched the fabric while guiding her, and on the close-up of her saying, "My hands are faster than my brain; I've remembered things I didn't even know I knew." She played those few seconds over and over, zooming in on Su Xiao's profile, observing the curve of her lips moving, the focus of her gaze, and the extremely subtle twitching of her eyebrows.
At the time, those words sounded like casual words of comfort. But now, combined with the discovery of feeding the cat at dusk, they sound like a faint, eerie prophecy.
My hands are faster than my brain... I've remembered things I didn't even know I knew...
Was Su Xiao implying something? Or was it just a casual remark?
Qi Jin turned off that clip and then brought up the scene of Su Xiao tidying up the dark gray pebble. She watched how Su Xiao calmly picked up the stone and put it back in the basket, her movements fluid and without any extra emotion, as if it were just an ordinary stone.
It's perfectly normal. So normal...it's almost deliberate.
After experiencing such a subtle and tense interaction between the employer (Qi Jin) and the main client (Shi Ye), can an ordinary assistant really remain so calm and devoid of curiosity or inquiry when facing this core "prop"?
Qi Jin's suspicions, like vines, entwined with new conjectures in every seemingly normal detail. She even began to doubt Su Xiao's simple white T-shirt and jeans that day—was she deliberately imitating a "clean and harmless" student vibe or approachability? Her ponytail was tied meticulously, yet a few strands of hair were left by her temples. Was this unintentional, or a carefully calculated design to create a natural and casual image?
She was almost falling into a paranoid scrutiny, seeing everything as a conspiracy.
Until—the scene played as the event was nearing its end, and Lin Xiaoyu was chattering away tidying up the white stones when she accidentally knocked over a sketching pencil on the table. The pencil rolled off and landed at Su Xiao's feet.
Almost instinctively, Su Xiao deftly flicked the rolling pencil with her toe, stopping it in its tracks before bending down to pick it up. That simple act of stopping a rolling object with her toe… was incredibly subtle, incredibly swift, and so natural it seemed like an extension of her breath.
Qi Jin's heart skipped a beat.
Many years ago, in a video clip she secretly filmed of Shi Ye practicing sketching alone in a corner of the studio, Shi Ye made almost the exact same move—a charcoal pencil rolled off the easel, and she was focused on the drawing paper, not even turning her head, but casually stretched out her toes, gently flicked it, and stopped the rolling charcoal pencil at her feet before bending down to pick it up.
That moment of spontaneity and dexterity overlapped with Su Xiao's movements in the surveillance footage at this moment.
Yet another... subtle coincidence deeply rooted in bodily habits that cannot be explained by investigation or imitation.
Qi Jin leaned back in the control chair, feeling a chill rise from her spine and spread to her limbs. It wasn't warmth, nor was it emotion; rather, it was a chill that instinctively arose when facing the unknown and the unsolvable mystery, and... a very faint fear that even she herself was unwilling to admit.
If Su Xiao isn't Qin Ming's person, if these coincidences aren't imitations... then what exactly is she?
A completely unfamiliar Su Xiao who possesses some of Shi Ye's subtle habits?
Or is it...?
A thought so absurd that she herself dared not touch it, like a shadow beneath the ice, quietly surfaced.
She abruptly cut off that train of thought. No, she couldn't go in that direction. That was too crazy, too dangerous. The most urgent things were evidence, investigation, and rational analysis.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She took out her phone and sent an encrypted message to the person in charge of biological samples: "Prioritize obtaining unwashed personal items that Su Xiao has recently come into contact with, such as water cups, tableware, and tissues. Be discreet and avoid alerting her."
She wanted to see where Su Xiao's DNA would lead.
After doing all that, she didn't leave. Instead, she turned off the surveillance camera and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. Outside, the city lights shone brightly, but they couldn't penetrate the deep darkness in her eyes.
Her left hand unconsciously stroked the cold surface of the window glass, her fingertips gently sliding along the glass's texture. Two images kept replaying in her mind: Su Xiao's gentle profile as she stroked the cat in the twilight, and the nimble moment when Su Xiao lightly flicked a pencil with her toes in the freeze-frame of the surveillance camera.
These two images are intertwined and inseparable from the girl after the rain in the depths of memory and Shi Ye's focused attention in the art studio.
The fortress of doubt remained sturdy, but its foundations began to subtly crumble due to the constant emergence of these inexplicable feelings of familiarity. She no longer merely suspected that Su Xiao was a pawn sent by the enemy; she began to suspect that... Su Xiao himself was a colossal enigma that needed to be redefined.
This mystery seems to have some strange and inexplicable connection to the wound in her heart that never heals, and to Shi Ye who disappeared in the explosion.
The night grew deeper.
The city remains bustling.
Inside the "Cloud Peak Studio," Qi Jin stood alone in front of the huge glass window, his shadow stretched long and thin by the light, like a lonely traveler trapped in a maze of truth and illusion, stubbornly searching for an exit, unaware that the exit itself might be another trap...
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Su Xiao was packing newly bought cat food into small sealed bags, completely unaware that her unconscious, "Shi Ye" little habits were being picked up one by one by a pair of cold and sharp eyes, like scattered pearls, and linked together, pointing to a truth she was desperately trying to hide, but which was slowly surfacing.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com