Escaping from the Yandere Young Heiress - Chapter 11

Click.

The sound of the doorknob turning was as clear as if it had exploded in her ear.

Jian Anji’s blood seemed to freeze instantly. Her fingertips turned icy, and the yellow scrap of paper peeking out from the ledger felt like a red-hot branding iron, burning so fiercely she nearly dropped it.

Too late.

Just as the door cracked open a sliver, she slammed the ledger shut on instinct.

The heavy leather cover thudded shut, muffling any last rustle the paper might have made.

At the same time, she clutched the ledger and the other two books she’d taken from the ladder tightly against her chest, hiding her trembling fingers and the panic on her face.

Leng Tan pushed the door open and walked in.

Her gaze immediately fell on Jian Anji, sweeping over the old ledgers clutched in her arms, then glancing at the nearby ladder and the neatly stacked blue folders, clearly organized and filed.

“Time’s up,” Leng Tan said, her voice flat and expressionless, revealing nothing amiss.

She seemed not to notice Jian Anji’s sudden stiffness and overly tight grip, or perhaps she did notice but didn’t care, attributing it to fatigue or nervousness. “All done organizing?”

“Yes, Master,” Jian Anji forced herself to speak, her voice tight but barely maintaining composure.

“I’ve finished archiving everything, sorted by year and project. These ledgers,” she gestured to the ones in her arms, “still have sturdy bindings, and I’ve dusted them off.”

Her heart pounded like a drum, thudding against the ledgers and the damning scrap of paper pressed against the inside cover of the top one.

She dared not meet Leng Tan’s eyes, her gaze fixed on the hem of her morning robe.

Leng Tan stepped closer.

Jian Anji caught the familiar cold fragrance, mingled with the scent of sunlight and aged paper.

Her shadow fell over her.

“Put them down,” Leng Tan said, gesturing to a wide oak desk nearby.

Jian Anji obeyed, carefully placing the three ledgers on the polished surface.

As she set them down, she subtly adjusted the angle of the heavy ledger on top, ensuring its closed cover firmly concealed any corner of the paper that might have been peeking out.

The movement seemed natural, but the tips of her fingers paled slightly from the force she exerted.

Leng Tan’s gaze followed the ledgers to the desk, but lingered only briefly.

She seemed indifferent to these relics of the past, perhaps assigning the task merely to fill the time.

Her gaze returned to Jian Anji’s face, lingering slightly longer this time with her usual scrutinizing look.

“Does your back still hurt?” she asked abruptly.

The question was out of place, jarring against the professional atmosphere of their task handover.

Jian Anji paused, lifting her eyes to meet Leng Tan’s.

In the afternoon light, those eyes remained deep and calm, showing no trace of tenderness related to “Tantan,” nor any hint that she had noticed anything amiss.

“It’s a little better, Master,” she replied cautiously, unable to discern the purpose behind the question.

Leng Tan hummed noncommittally. Her fingers tapped lightly twice on the oak desk, but her gaze remained fixed on Jian Anji.

“The kitchen will send dinner up at seven.”

Another time-related instruction, further dividing and filling her day.

“Yes, Master.”

“That’s all.” Leng Tan glanced one last time at the old ledgers on the desk, as if confirming they were still there, then turned to leave. “You can go back to your room and rest. Or,” she paused at the doorway, not turning back, “you can read the books in the study.”

With that, she opened the door and walked out. Her footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

Once again, Jian Anji was alone in the study, bathed in the increasingly golden-red light of the setting sun. On the desk lay several silent old ledgers, one of them concealing a secret.

She stood motionless for a long time before slowly, almost imperceptibly, exhaling.

Her tense back relaxed slightly, bringing with it a sharper ache.

Cold sweat had already soaked through her inner shirt.

Her gaze involuntarily drifted back to the dark brown leather ledger at the top of the stack.

The cover remained tightly closed, showing no sign of anything unusual.

But the crude sketch and the little girl Tantan’s smile had already been hammered into her mind like a rusty nail, impossible to remove.

They mingled with Leng Tan’s cold gaze, the whip’s crack through the air, and the faint chill of a touch on her shoulder, forever inseparable.

The setting sun painted the study in a faded golden-red hue, making the dust motes dance even more wildly in the shafts of light.

Jian Anji’s eyes remained fixed on the dark brown ledger. The seconds stretched into what felt like an eternity.

Her heart pounded heavily in her chest, each contraction tugging at the pain in her back and squeezing the secret she had just been forced to bury back into the darkness.

Leng Tan’s words, “You can look,” hung in the air like a thin layer of ice over a surface of permission.

Was this a genuine offer of limited freedom?

Was this another silent test? Jian Anji couldn’t tell.

But right now, she had no interest in any of the “proper” books in the study.

All her senses and thoughts were completely consumed by that ledger and the corner of its secrets it had accidentally revealed.

In the end, she didn’t touch it. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t dare.

Those calm, all-seeing eyes might be watching from some hidden corner.

Touching secrets meant taking risks she couldn’t predict.

She turned and left the study.

Her footsteps on the soft hallway carpet felt light and unsteady.

The pain in her back kept reminding her as she moved, but the images in her mind layered over the pain: the smile on the swing, the red marks from the cold whip, the sticky ointment, that hand in the dark… and the name “Tantan.”

Back in the bedroom, still filled with Leng Tan’s cold aura, the morning light had faded. The room was now shrouded in the slightly stuffy gloom of the afternoon.

The bed had been made, smooth and wrinkle-free, as if no one had ever lain there.

A faint trace of Leng Tan’s icy fragrance and the scent of sun-dried warmth lingered in the air.

She didn’t turn on the lights, walking straight to the window. The heavy curtains were still drawn, and she reached out to pull one panel slightly open.

Light flooded in, making her squint.

Outside, day was slipping inexorably into dusk. Thick clouds piled up on the horizon, their edges tinged with dull gold by the setting sun.

The city below continued its noisy bustle, cars weaving through the streets and neon signs beginning to flicker to life. But it all seemed distant and distorted, as if viewed through a thick pane of glass.

She stood there for a long time, until her legs grew stiff again and the dull ache in her back deepened into a bone-weary exhaustion.

The meal would be delivered at seven. That meant she had several empty hours to fill.

Leng Tan had given her the choice to “rest” or “read,” but “rest” felt impossible in this oppressive room, and “read”… She remembered the heavy, rational books in the study, and that ledger she shouldn’t have touched.

In the end, she simply walked to the bed and sat on its wide, cold edge.

The silk sheets still felt inhumanly smooth. She lowered her gaze to her hands resting on her knees.

The cuff of her linen shirt revealed a pale wrist, the faint blue veins visible beneath the skin.

These hands had endured a whipping last night, sorted through documents this morning, and just now… frantically concealed a secret.

She slowly raised her hand, her fingertips lightly touching the darkening bruise beneath her collarbone.

The faint scent of ointment still lingered.

Had Leng Tan seen it? The secret about “Tantan,” absurdly coexisting with the marks Leng Tan had left on her body, all converging in this twilight hour.

In the hallway outside, barely audible footsteps approached and paused at her bedroom door.

No knock, no entry. Just a brief pause before fading away again.

Jian Anji remained motionless, her hand on her lap tightening silently, gripping the soft linen fabric.

The waiting continued.

Night was approaching. Burdened by the lingering pain of old wounds and the weight of that sudden secret, she couldn’t tell if what lay ahead was merely the start of another cycle, or the prelude to some unspoken, deeper transformation.

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