The Creator's Grace - Chapter 32

“Miss Zhang, please come here for a moment.”

Chi Yu spoke to the Planning Department before returning to Ran Jin’s office.

The entire Planning Department was working overtime, and every eye in the room turned toward the “lucky” Xiao Zhang. In Xiao Zhang’s mind, only two words appeared: “I’m dead.”

Could it be that my slip of the tongue earlier actually caused some unpleasantness between the Young President Chi and President Ran?

When she entered the office and looked around, President Ran was nowhere to be found, which scared her so much her scalp felt cold.

“I have some things to ask you.”

Xiao Zhang stiffened her posture, bracing for a blow. “Please, go ahead!”

“You’ve been President Ran’s assistant for so long, you must know what she likes to eat. Tell me about it.” Chi Yu held her phone in both hands, waiting to take notes.

Xiao Zhang maintained a peaceful smile while her heart confirmed that Ran Jin’s absence definitely had something to do with her big mouth. However, the Young President Chi seemed to have good manners and showed no intention of scolding her.

Xiao Zhang immediately opened her food delivery app and listed Ran Jin’s most frequented restaurants and her most-ordered dishes: Kung Pao Chicken, shrimp dumplings, clay pot rice, beef chow fun, golden ribbonfish… and various soups.

With a mindset of making amends, Xiao Zhang eagerly offered, “Shall I draw up an Excel sheet for you later?”

Chi Yu: “…That won’t be necessary, I’ve noted them all down. Thank you.”

Xiao Zhang immediately replied, “The Young President Chi is too kind! If there’s anything else I can help with, just say the word!”

After Xiao Zhang left, the more Chi Yu looked at the dishes recorded on her phone, the hungrier she became. From noon until now, she had only drunk coffee and eaten nothing; because she had been facing Dong Ling at lunch, she hadn’t had much of an appetite. Now, with a screen full of her favorite foods, her stomach was involuntarily growling.

Thinking about this, Chi Yu suddenly noticed something. She looked over the menu once more, froze, and sent a WeChat message to Xiao Zhang:

【Actually, go ahead and draw up that Excel sheet for me.】

Xiao Zhang: “…”

Xiao Zhang worked efficiently, and a few minutes later, she sent over a list of Ran Jin’s regular takeout orders. Looking at the spreadsheet, Chi Yu confirmed the suspicion in her heart.

Every single food Ran Jin “loved” to eat was something Chi Yu loved, or used to love. There was no mistake.

Back when she still lived at home, Auntie Su would specifically collect the dishes Chi Li and Chi Yu liked and write them on a small blackboard by the fridge. Every meal, while considering nutritional balance, had to include at least one dish that suited the sisters’ tastes. Almost all the dishes Auntie Su used to write on that blackboard were in this spreadsheet.

But it only contained what Chi Yu liked; there was nothing her sister preferred.

This meant that over the years, Ran Jin had not only never refused anything the Chi family gave her, but she had never even shown a preference for anything of her own. If there was one single expression of “liking” she had ever shown…

Chi Yu’s gaze shifted uncontrollably toward Ran Jin’s desk, thinking of that white rose hidden underneath.

The last time Chi Yu had tried to expose her feelings in front of her, Ran Jin had rounded it off perfectly, and Chi Yu hadn’t brought it up since. Part of it was shame, but most of it was an avoidant mindset. After all, in her heart, Ran Jin was her sister’s girlfriend; even if they had broken up and her sister had passed away, she and Ran Jin had still shared overly intimate behavior.

In Chi Yu’s mind, the relationship between her and Ran Jin still existed because of her sister. Rationally speaking—aside from situations where she wanted to suppress the other woman—there was an uncrossable chasm between them. Especially now, as she was gradually coming to see that Ran Jin might be innocent.

But more and more clues were being laid out before Chi Yu, forcing her to repeatedly ponder one question:

What exactly was the relationship between my sister and Ran Jin?

Why did her sister bring Ran Jin into the home back then, and why had she spent all those years grooming her? Were her sister and Ran Jin really lovers?

When Chi Yu entered deep thought, she would subconsciously bite her knuckle. Her memory was excellent; although she hadn’t carefully observed how they interacted, they had lived under the same roof. Thinking back seriously, their most intimate gesture was her sister putting an arm around Ran Jin’s waist. Aside from that, they rarely even held hands, let alone engaged in deeper intimacy like kissing.

Most of the time when Chi Yu was with them, she would walk with her sister while Ran Jin followed behind carrying their things, or drove the car. Of course, it couldn’t be ruled out that her sister didn’t want to engage in adult behaviors in front of her younger sister and had avoided them on purpose.

But combined with the small room in the bedroom and the formation of Ran Jin’s strange personality, there seemed to be a truth hidden here—something within reach, yet always just an inch away from being touched.

Chi Yu had always wanted the truth, and she still did. She wanted to know how her sister died and what Ran Jin was hiding. At the same time, she realized that beneath the truth lurked a monstrous beast. Once she lifted a corner of that truth, she feared she might be torn apart.

But she had no way back.

When her parents died, her sister had unhesitatingly cut off her own future, taken over the mess, and sheltered Chi Yu through every storm until she grew up. Chi Yu could never forget that. Now that her sister lay in eternal sleep under suspicious circumstances, even if there was a mountain of swords and a sea of fire ahead, she had to charge in.

Chi Yu’s thoughts deepened until she heard a sound at the door. She looked up; it was Ran Jin. Ran Jin was back, holding a takeout box. As if nothing had happened earlier, she placed the food in front of Chi Yu.

“Is takeout from this place okay for dinner? It has your favorite Kung Pao Chicken.”

Chi Yu glanced at the box; it was that Chinese restaurant she liked. “Thank you, Sister Ran,” Chi Yu said. “What about you?”

“I ate downstairs.” Ran Jin took off her heavy coat. As she hung it up, the tailored waist of her suit highlighted the curves of her figure.

“You ate very fast.” Chi Yu’s gaze fell on Ran Jin’s lower back, and she quickly looked away when Ran Jin turned around.

“Eating alone is naturally fast.” Ran Jin sat back in her chair.

Chi Yu minimized the Excel sheet and picked up her phone. “Then I’ll order for Xiao Zhang and the others, but I won’t order for us.”

“Mhm,” Ran Jin said. “There’s actually nothing else left. You should head home after you eat.”

Chi Yu replied, “Aren’t you finished too? I’ll drive you back.”

Ran Jin’s hand, which had been clicking the mouse, paused for a moment before resuming. The faint click-click echoed in the quiet office.

“No need.” To Chi Yu’s surprise, Ran Jin refused her. “I have some other things to attend to. Go home yourself.”

Chi Yu sat in her car; without the heater on, it was as cold as an ice cellar. She turned on the heat and drove slowly toward home.

The feeling of being rejected by Ran Jin was foreign. In Chi Yu’s memory, Ran Jin had never refused her before her sister’s death. Whatever Chi Yu requested, Ran Jin would fulfill it immediately. Whatever she wanted to eat, drink, or have, as long as Ran Jin could manage it, she would offer it up at once.

Even during the days of confrontation after her sister’s death, Ran Jin had tolerated her constant testing on the edge of transgression, and had even approached her voluntarily.

Why tonight, of all nights, did she suddenly refuse?

“Why do you have to ‘get used to it’? You could have told me you don’t like it.”

It was likely because of that sentence. One must get used to what they dislike, while hiding what they love. The city lights reflected in Chi Yu’s pupils, and her brow unknowingly furrowed into a small mountain.

The next day, Ran Jin didn’t come to the office. Chi Yu only found out from Xiao Zhang that she had gone out of town on a business trip. Chi Yu found it bizarre. Ran Jin’s entire schedule was in her hands, and there was absolutely no work requiring her to go out of town. How could she just leave?

“What’s wrong?” Xiao Zhang asked cautiously. “Do you need help with anything?”

Chi Yu smiled and said, “It’s nothing, I was just asking.”

She then returned to the cold office, took out her phone, swept aside a heap of notifications, and opened Ran Jin’s WeChat Moments. Ran Jin’s profile picture was a gray rubbing of a fossil, looking like some kind of extinct fish. Chi Yu stared at the image for a while, thinking about how Ran Jin had been meticulously handing over every detail of the Group’s affairs, as if she could disappear at any moment.

A stifling, ominous aura of mortality made Chi Yu’s breathing gradually heavy.

Ran Jin’s Moments were open to Chi Yu, but there was little content. It was the same as always: only a single photo of Chi Yu and her sister from the Lunar New Year. It was just like that thin album Ran Jin had taken away—it only contained the Chi sisters, with no trace of herself.

Chi Yu gripped her phone, find it stranger the more she thought about it. Ran Jin’s inner world didn’t seem to revolve around herself; perhaps in her heart, the most important thing was that period of memory at the Chi house.

Chi Yu looked at herself in the photo, head tilted against her sister’s, holding New Year couplets and smiling like a plump peach. It felt like a very, very distant time…

Lost in thought, Chi Yu didn’t realize her finger had accidentally swiped the screen, “liking” the photo. She also didn’t know that Ran Jin’s Moments were open only to her.

When Ran Jin returned to the sea surface in a submersible from a depth of four hundred meters, the dizziness and nausea made her linger on the mother ship’s deck for a long time to recover.

“Unwell?”

In the sea breeze and the glow of the sunset, Zhou Yu brought over a cup of hot water and handed it to Ran Jin. “Drink some water to settle yourself. I told you I could go down alone, but you insisted on coming along.”

“Thank you.” Ran Jin took the cup but didn’t drink.

She watched the heavy sun gradually drop below the sea level. The sunset glow was like fire, making the swaying sea surface look as if it were about to boil.

This world has an end, doesn’t it?

The magnificent sunset burning away the scenery fell into Ran Jin’s eyes, bringing her a sense of relief that everything was about to conclude. Returning to the lounge, Ran Jin checked her phone; it was all work-related.

Her lips were dry, and a small crack had formed at some point, which was slightly painful. Ran Jin used to not care about such things, but her lips had taken it upon themselves to remember the nourishment Chi Yu had given them; now even a tiny pain was sensitive and pretentious.

Ran Jin bit her lip gently, trying to swallow the longing spreading through her chest. She had survived countless days and nights like this before; she could do it again.

But when she saw a little red dot on her Moments, her heart, which she had comforted for so long, suddenly skipped a beat. She opened it and indeed saw Chi Yu’s profile picture, with a tiny red heart next to it.

Ran Jin gazed at that heart—quiet, small.

This world has an end, doesn’t it?

But at the end of the world, there would not be those hands that had once warmed her. Thinking of Chi Yu, she couldn’t bear to bury herself like this; she couldn’t bear to cut off all connection with this muddled world that contained Chi Yu.