After Becoming Roommates with an Obnoxious Wealthy Heiress - Chapter 26

Qin Shuyue, where is she?

The next day, as the sky was just beginning to brighten, Qin Shuyue crawled out from under her covers and tiptoed out the door.

Her movements were extremely light, making almost no sound.

As she stepped into the hallway, her gaze froze for a split second at the door of Room 601. Then, acting as if she had seen nothing, she looked away.

She lowered her head; she had nothing to her name, dressed in plain clothes, her face etched with the exhaustion of a poor night’s sleep.

She had absolutely no energy this morning.

Suddenly remembering something, her eyes snapped upward.

She hurriedly pulled her phone from her pocket.

Opening WeChat, her gaze rested on the messages from Wu Xuhua.

Silence.

From the moment they parted last night until now, Wu Xuhua had not sent her a single message.

It made her worry uncontrollably—had something happened to Wu Xuhua?

As she put her phone back in her pocket, debating whether to stop by the police station on her way to the restaurant after class, she suddenly froze.

Her pocket was empty. Aside from her phone, there was nothing else.

She stopped dead in her tracks, and the thoughts in her mind came to a jarring halt as well.

For a moment, her mind went blank.

She reached out and felt every single pocket and opening on her person.

Still, there was nothing.

Although Qin Shuyue tried her best not to recall the events that took place in Room 601 last night…

Zhu Lingyi had pinned her down firmly, and while she was struggling and flailing—could that bank card have fallen out then?

Yesterday, when she returned, she saw Zhu Lingyi lying on the sofa, her hand weakly covering her eyes. For a moment, she remembered how her mother used to lie on the sofa just as weakly when she had headaches, closing her eyes against the piercing glare of the fluorescent lights.

Qin Shuyue was afraid the light would hurt Zhu Lingyi’s eyes, so she turned it off to ease her discomfort.

She never expected that by turning off the lights, she would lose her most precious possession!

That was the item Wu Xuhua had risked everything to entrust to her. How could she have lost it just like that?

Why couldn’t she do even such a small thing right?

What a fool.

She couldn’t do anything right; how was she any different from the trash on the side of the road?

Qin Shuyue criticized herself incessantly. It seemed that by insulting herself over and over, she could feel a little better, and the weight of her guilt would lighten.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Go back into 601 to look for the card? What if Zhu Lingyi was still angry?

But she couldn’t just lose that bank card. If Zhu Lingyi threw it away as trash…

No!

At that thought, Qin Shuyue stopped overthinking.

She had no choice; she had to return to the scene.

Qin Shuyue took a shaky, deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Yesterday, she had acted on her own and turned off the light without asking Zhu Lingyi, and then she had reflexively kicked her off the sofa when she was grabbed, which angered her…

Thinking it over, those two things must have been what made her angry.

If she went to apologize, she didn’t know if she would be forgiven.

It was just…

She had no other way!

She had to stay in 601; she had to stay here!

Her mind made up, she knocked on the door of 601.

The door opened quickly. Qin Shuyue squeezed her eyes shut, took a sharp breath, and immediately bowed, apologizing to the woman behind the door. “I’m sorry, Miss Zhu! I shouldn’t have turned off the lights yesterday without your permission, and I accidentally kicked you off the sofa. It was all because of my carelessness. I sincerely apologize to you and hope you can forgive me!”

A silent breeze blew past; the silence was deafening.

When Qin Shuyue bowed to apologize, the discomfort from last night hadn’t vanished. It had eased slightly with Xu Lian’s help, but for some reason, her body began to tremble again.

She pressed down hard on her shaking left hand, straightened up, and hid her hands behind her back.

Forcing a smile, she looked up at the woman behind the door.

“Miss Zhu…”

Before she could finish, she froze.

The person standing behind the door wasn’t Zhu Lingyi at all!

The person who had opened the door and listened to her apology was the servant by Zhu Lingyi’s side.

At the same time, a hint of awkwardness appeared on the servant’s face.

“Uh, Miss Qin…”

The servant didn’t know what to say to ease the atmosphere.

Behind her back, Qin Shuyue’s hands began to shake even more violently. She pinched her palm hard and squeezed out a smile for the servant. “Hello, I left something in the dorm and wanted to come back to get it.”

Upon hearing the request, the servant looked at her with difficulty. “Miss Qin, it’s not that I won’t let you in. Last night… Little President Zhu was in a terrible temper, and she was the one who personally told you to leave the dorm. Now that she hasn’t relented, I can’t just let you in.”

Hearing this, Qin Shuyue bit her lower lip slightly and asked, “Is Miss Zhu awake?”

The servant shook her head, her eyes seemingly hiding a certain look. “Little President Zhu was a bit drunk last night and is still sleeping. Besides, it’s only 5:40. There are specific people assigned to wake her up when it’s time.”

The implication was for Qin Shuyue to stop asking about Zhu Lingyi.

Zhu Lingyi’s affairs were none of her business; there were professionals to handle them, and she had no right to interfere.

Qin Shuyue lowered her eyes and asked softly, a hint of pleading in her voice, “Since she’s still sleeping, could you let me in for a moment? Just a moment. I’ll leave as soon as I find it. It’ll be very quick.”

The servant refused her without the slightest hesitation.

Her words were sharp and official. “Miss Qin, after we settled Miss Zhu into bed last night, we tidied up downstairs. We didn’t notice any items left behind. Even if there were, they have likely been thrown away by the cleaners. Besides, even if I let you in, there are surveillance cameras in the dorm that upload real-time backups to Little President Zhu’s computer. None of us dare take it upon ourselves to let you in. If you come in and find nothing, but end up waking her, who will take responsibility for the consequences?”

The servant sighed. “Miss Qin, we are all just trying to earn a living. Please don’t make things difficult for me anymore.”

With that, she shut the door decisively, giving Qin Shuyue no chance to explain.

She stood outside the door, her hands behind her back trembling uncontrollably.

She wanted to take her phone out of her pocket, but her hands shook so much she couldn’t hold it. With a “smack,” the phone fell face-down on the ground.

Qin Shuyue crouched down to pick up the phone, her shoulders shaking up and down.

“Little President Zhu, it’s time to wake up. Your itinerary will be sent over shortly.”

Zhu Lingyi woke up feeling groroggy, not even knowing when she had lost consciousness the night before.

In the darkness, she remembered pinning someone down, but things after that were blurry.

Her head ached, and the smell of alcohol hadn’t dissipated yet; the pungent scent made her frown in disgust.

She held her forehead with one hand. The lingering effects of the alcohol—or perhaps that medication—hadn’t worn off, and she felt off all over.

Sitting up in bed, she leaned against the headboard and reached for the glass of warm milk on the nightstand.

This was an old habit of hers: drinking a glass of warm milk upon waking and before sleeping.

As she reached for the glass, her hand brushed against something on the bed, and with a “thud,” it fell to the floor.

The servant waiting outside heard the noise and immediately knocked twice.

“Come in.”

Zhu Lingyi’s muffled voice came from inside. After receiving permission, the servant immediately pushed the door open and entered.

There had been a sound of something falling in the bedroom. At first, the servant thought Zhu Lingyi had accidentally fallen out of bed and rushed in to help her up. But seeing that it was just a small blue card that had fallen, she silently breathed a sigh of relief.

The servant walked to the bedside, picked up the bank card, and held it by the edges with both hands before Zhu Lingyi’s eyes.

However, Zhu Lingyi had no memory of this at all. In fact, she didn’t recall having this bank card.

She took the card from the servant and turned it over, examining it carefully.

On the back of the card, in the space for the cardholder’s name, someone’s name was faintly written, yet it looked as though it had been deliberately erased, leaving only a recognizable surname.

Wu.

The “mouth” radical at the top of the character seemed to have been written with great force, as if left by someone in a moment of agitation, but the strokes following it were very light, making the full name almost impossible to discern.

It was like a cat tasting fish for the first time—wildly happy yet incredibly cautious, afraid it would melt if kept in the mouth or break if held in the hand.

Zhu Lingyi raised an eyebrow slightly, then tossed the card back to the servant.

She said coldly, “This isn’t my card. Where did you find it?”

Then she picked up the warm milk and drank it in one go.

The servant thought for a moment. “It was found in the gap of the sofa this morning. Because it was in such a hidden spot, we thought it was a card you had lost.”

“Which sofa?” Zhu Lingyi asked.

The servant replied, “It was found in the middle one.”

Memories of last night flickered in her mind.

Though blurry, she had some basic impressions.

Qin Shuyue… seemed to have been on that sofa yesterday?

Then the card must be hers?

But she quickly dismissed the idea.

The cardholder’s surname was Wu; how could it be Qin Shuyue’s?

At that moment, the servant seemed to remember something and hurriedly added, “Miss Qin came to knock on the door this morning, saying she might have left something here. But we didn’t let her in to look.”

Zhu Lingyi’s head ached; her memory felt like it was cutting out, her recollections of last night coming in fragments.

But one scene she remembered very clearly.

The moment she had roared “Get out” at her, the instantaneous change of panic and shock on Qin Shuyue’s face.

She had silently walked off the sofa and slowly headed toward the door with her head down.

When she opened the door, the light from outside flooded over her. Then, as she slowly closed the door, the darkness swallowed her up, and the light was seen no more.

Her eyes shifted slightly, and she asked the servant in a raspy voice:

“Where is Qin Shuyue?”

“Two vegetable buns, one meat bun, and one mushroom and chicken bun! Plus a bottle of soy milk! Qin Shuyue, hurry up! Be quick with your hands! Faster, faster, faster!”

Sister Yu stood there, her hands constantly directing Qin Shuyue to grab this and that.

“Hurry up, hurry up! they’re rushing for their 8 AM classes!”

It was a sweltering day, and the air conditioning in the kitchen was useless. She was drenched in sweat, beads of it rolling down her forehead. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, ignoring them.

Someone saw her wiping her sweat and grumbled dissatisfiedly, “If that sweat drips in, how am I supposed to eat these buns!”

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