Escaping from the Yandere Young Heiress - Chapter 10

The sunlight continued its westward descent, its shadows creeping slowly across the study floor like a silent timer.

Beside Jian Anji, the stacks of categorized documents grew taller, the neat blue rows gradually swallowing the chaotic mountain of loose papers.

The sharp, burning pain in her back had evolved into a dull, pervasive ache, intertwining with the carpet’s softness and the numbness in her knees to form a persistent, low-intensity torment.

She rose briefly only once, to drink half a glass of water in the living room.

The cool glass and the clear water sliding down her parched throat brought fleeting relief.

As expected, a plate of delicate pastries sat on the coffee table, but she didn’t touch them.

Returning to the study, she knelt back in her designated area, a space defined by documents and sunlight.

Leng Tan didn’t enter again.

Yet her presence lingered, manifesting as faint, occasional sounds from outside the study door or the faint, lingering scent of cold fragrance in the air.

This “present absence” was more unnerving than direct surveillance, making it impossible to relax.

By the time Jian Anji had filed the last stack of loose pages into their respective folders, it was nearly three in the afternoon.

She exhaled softly, her breath carrying both fatigue and a faint sense of relief at having completed her task.

Carefully shifting her weight, she braced herself against the bookshelf and slowly stood up.

Maintaining the same posture for so long had left her legs numb, and her vision briefly darkened.

Leaning against the bookshelf, she waited for her circulation to return and the dizziness to subside.

Then, she looked up at the second task Leng Tan had assigned: the leather-bound ledgers on the top shelf, near the window.

She needed a ladder.

The ladder was in the corner of the study—a lightweight, foldable aluminum model.

She walked over, carried it to the window, and set it up.

Climbing a few rungs, she reached a height sufficient to access the top shelf.

Dust motes danced in the sunlit air like fine golden powder.

She reached for the ledger at the far end.

The dark brown leather cover was unevenly faded with age, its edges worn and the gilded lettering mottled. The moment her fingertips touched it, she felt a dry, rough texture and the musty scent of long-accumulated dust.

It was heavy.

She carefully lifted it down, dust cascading from its pages.

Opening the first page, she found the paper yellowed and brittle. The ink script was neat and old-fashioned, resembling accounting ledgers from decades past, recording pitifully small sums and trivial expenses.

This didn’t seem to be Leng Tan’s business ledger, but rather a record of household finances from an earlier era perhaps belonging to her parents or even grandparents.

Each stroke of the pen meticulously documented the daily necessities of that distant time: firewood, rice, oil, and salt. These entries stood in stark contrast to the current space, filled with capital operations and cold, calculated control.

Jian Anji paused, stunned.

She hadn’t expected to find such content.

Why had Leng Tan asked her to examine these? Was it another form of test? Or a careless gesture?

Following instructions, she carefully inspected the binding.

The cotton thread had yellowed with age but remained sturdy.

She gently brushed away the accumulated dust from the cover and spine, moving with utmost care to avoid damaging the fragile, aged materials.

The dust swirled in the sunlight, carrying the lingering scent of time.

After examining one volume, she returned it to the shelf and reached for the next.

The second volume contained similar content, but dated even earlier.

As she removed the third and final volume, the ladder wobbled slightly; not because of her, but due to the ledger’s extraordinary weight.

She steadied the heavy book in her arms, preparing to descend. Just then, a folded, yellowed slip of paper slid out from the inner cover of the ledger, drifting down like a withered leaf to land softly on the carpet.

Jian Anji instinctively glanced down.

This wasn’t accounting paper.

The paper was softer, with irregular edges that suggested it had been hand-cut.

Through the folded crease, she could faintly discern faded, non-ink markings.

She hesitated.

This wasn’t part of her assignment; it might even be something she shouldn’t see.

Yet the slip of paper lay at her feet, bathed in sunlight, like a silent invitation or perhaps an inadvertently revealed secret.

Slowly, she climbed down the ladder, bent over, and picked up the paper.

The paper felt dry and brittle beneath her fingertips.

Gently, she unfolded it.

It was a pencil sketch.

The drawing was childlike, the lines a little crooked, but the subject was clear: a little girl with pigtails, sitting on a swing, against a background of a garden sketched with a few simple strokes.

The girl’s smile was rendered with curved lines, conveying pure joy.

In the lower right corner, written in the same childish handwriting, was a name and a date.

The name was: Tantan.

The date was a summer from many, many years ago.

“Tantan.”

These two childishly written characters pierced Jian Anji’s eyes like tiny needles, catching her completely off guard.

Sunlight streamed through the paper, almost revealing the back. There was nothing else there, only this simple, joyful sketch of childhood and this affectionate, even endearing nickname, so utterly different from the cold, formal name “Leng Tan.”

Time seemed to freeze in that instant.

The dust motes floating in the study, the distant, muffled city noise outside the window, the persistent ache in her back, the numbness in her knees… everything receded into the far background.

Only this fragile, yellowed piece of paper remained, with the smiling little girl on it, the one called “Tantan.”

Leng Tan.

Tantan.

Could that woman, the one who wielded the whip, her eyes glacial, her control absolute have once known such moments?

Sitting on a swing, simply loved, or at least allowed to possess such a carefree portrait? Who had painted this picture?

Her parents? Siblings?

Or… someone long vanished into the depths of time?

Countless questions surged like silent currents beneath the ice.

But what rose even before the questions was an overwhelmingly complex, almost suffocating emotion.

Not sympathy, nor curiosity, but a sharper, more disorienting cognitive dissonance; a blend of absurdity and dread.

She had seen something she shouldn’t have.

A crack in Leng Tan’s cold, perfect facade; a vulnerable fissure composed of childhood whimsy and an innocent smile.

This crack itself was more dangerous than any solid wall. It implied that beneath that icy exterior might lie something else—something soft, fragile, something human.

For Jian Anji, trapped under Leng Tan’s absolute control, this knowledge offered no comfort. Instead, it became a heavier burden, a more fatal secret.

The fingers gripping the edge of the paper trembled slightly.

It wasn’t just the fear of being discovered though that fear was real enough but the stark contrast between the possibilities represented by this scrap of paper and the reality of her experiences, the pain and confinement she endured. The contrast was so sharp, so dizzying.

Was the “Tantan” on the swing and the “Leng Tan” who had left whip marks on her back last night truly the same person?

If so, what unfathomable abyss lay between them?

Just then, footsteps echoed outside the study once more.

This time, the footsteps were clearer, more direct, approaching the study door.

Jian Anji’s heart clenched violently, threatening to shatter her ribs.

Overwhelming panic seized her. Blood rushed to her head, then drained away, leaving behind a cold numbness.

Without time to think, her body reacted before her mind could process. She frantically folded the sketch along its original creases, trying to shove it back into the thick leather ledger.

But her hands trembled, and the paper’s edge scraped against the aged pages, producing a faint rustling sound that, to her ears, sounded like thunder.

The paper wouldn’t slide in smoothly, a corner still protruding.

The footsteps had reached the door.

The doorknob turned.

Support Escaping from the Yandere Young Heiress