Chapter 128 Huo Yanzhi's Secret
The thick copy of "The Republic" stood quietly in the most prominent position on the third shelf of the bookshelf.
Ruan Yao's breathing caught in her throat.
The image she had previously ignored suddenly became incredibly clear in her mind.
Right in front of this desk, right under this bookshelf.
Huo Yanzhi came up from behind, his warm palm covering hers, subtly pulling away her fingers that were about to touch the book.
His warm breath brushed against her earlobe, his voice deep and tender.
"Reading is so boring."
"How about we watch something more interesting?"
At that time, she was filled with shyness and thought it was just flirting between lovers. He easily diverted all her attention, and everything that happened afterward made her forget about this little episode.
Looking back now, that sudden enthusiasm seemed more like a deliberate interruption, a clever, enticing smokescreen.
He was preventing her from touching the book.
Why?
Ruan Yao's heart raced uncontrollably. She slowly walked to the bookshelf, reached out, and hovered her fingertips over the spine of the book.
She took a deep breath, and her fingertips finally trembled as she tentatively pressed the book's cover and side.
The bookshelf remained completely still.
Ruan Yao was not discouraged.
Huo Yanzhi's style of doing things has always been precise and meticulous; he would never touch anything casually.
There must be a specific order.
She gently pulled out the copy of "The Republic" and examined it carefully by the moonlight streaming in through the window.
On the side of the book, on the gold-embossed characters, there are several extremely fine, almost imperceptible signs of wear.
Those are marks left from years of repeated pressing with the fingertips.
Ruan Yao's heart started beating even faster.
She looked at the worn letters and tried to arrange and press them in a certain logical order.
No response.
She tried several more times, but still nothing happened.
The study was eerily quiet, with only the sound of her increasingly rapid breathing.
Just as she was about to give up, her fingertips inadvertently brushed against an inconspicuous publisher's logo at the bottom of the book's spine.
It was a very complex classical pattern emblem.
Her movements suddenly stopped.
She recalled that many things in Huo Yanzhi's study came from the same old European bespoke tailor, and she had seen this logo on many of his personal items.
She leaned closer, almost holding her breath, and searched carefully over the small logo.
Finally, in the center of the most intricate pattern, she found several tiny bumps that had been worn so badly that they were almost unrecognizable.
She stretched out her fingers and pressed down firmly on the bumps one by one, following the order of the worn letters she had found last time.
"Buzz—"
A very faint, almost inaudible mechanical hum sounded.
Ruan Yao abruptly took a step back, watching helplessly as the huge mahogany bookshelf in front of her silently and slowly slid to one side.
A heavy door, gleaming with a cold metallic sheen, appeared on the wall.
Ruan Yao's heart almost jumped out of her throat.
She knew that if he hadn't disappeared this time, she probably would never have discovered this place in her entire life.
She could almost imagine that he had stood here countless times, using his pale, slender hands to open up a world she knew nothing about.
That world holds all his secrets.
She stood at the door, hesitated for a moment, and finally went inside.
As she stepped in, the motion-sensor lights hidden in the wall recesses softly lit up, layer by layer.
The light dispelled the darkness, and for a moment, Ruan Yao stopped breathing.
There is only a single sofa and four walls here.
The walls were covered with her photos from top to bottom.
The little girl with pigtails, wearing a pink princess dress, chasing butterflies in the courtyard of her old home in the south of the city.
The girl who wore the best junior high school uniform in northern Beijing, secretly wiping away tears on her way home because she failed her first math exam.
The girl by the window in the university library, drowsy in the afternoon sun, her face still bearing the marks of books.
And then there's the young woman who, as the CEO of Lexingdao, stood on the stage for the first time at the press conference, appearing calm, composed, and eloquent.
Joyful, sorrowful, proud, and lonely.
She is the subject of every single photo.
The vast majority of those photos were candid shots taken from tricky angles, clearly taken from a distance using a telephoto lens.
Every moment in her life, whether important or mundane, was greedily and completely recorded by an unseen lens.
These photos span over a period of more than a decade.
Ruan Yao approached step by step, her fingertips almost trembling, and touched one of the photos.
That was when she was in high school, participating in a talent show, waiting backstage, nervously clutching the hem of her skirt.
She didn't even remember ever having that expression.
But Huo Yanzhi saw it and recorded it.
Like a most devout believer, he greedily and obsessively used his camera to depict the growth trajectory of his god over more than a decade, yet he never dared to take a single step closer.
Ruan Yao's gaze finally fell on the far end of the room, where a safe was embedded in the wall.
She walked over, but there were no prompts on the black keypad.
But as if possessed, she reached out her hand and, with her fingertips, typed a string of numbers she knew best onto the cold keys.
Her birthday.
With a "click".
The box door popped open.
Ruan Yao's heart skipped a beat.
The safe contained no gold or silver jewelry, only some odds and ends of old items, neatly categorized and placed in exquisite velvet boxes.
An old fountain pen with worn-out paint, a watercolor painting of sunflowers, a small, polished school badge, a movie ticket stub she carelessly tossed away...
There was also a small velvet box, inside which lay a pearl earring, the one she had been searching for but couldn't find a while ago.
Ruan Yao picked up the fountain pen. The cool metallic touch made her feel as if she could see Huo Yanzhi as a young man, how he picked up the pen after she left and treasured it for so many years.
These are things she once possessed, but have long been forgotten by time.
He, however, was like a persistent scavenger, picking up every single fragment she had left behind and treasuring them as precious treasures.
Ruan Yao felt as if her heart was being gripped tightly by a large hand, a bittersweet warmth surging in her chest, forcing her eyes to well up with tears.
She reached into the deepest part of the safe and took out something that was being kept in the best possible condition.
A small, faded pink children's umbrella.
The cartoon rabbit printed on the umbrella has worn down around the ears, and there are even some rust spots at the joints of the umbrella ribs.
Ruan Yao stared blankly at the umbrella, a distant yet vague sense of familiarity welling up in her heart.
This umbrella...
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