Escaping from the Yandere Young Heiress - Chapter 17

The blood-red sunset was finally swallowed by the city’s own relentless light pollution, turning the sky into a murky, dark purple-gray.

The living room’s main light remained off, leaving only a few warm yellow light strips embedded in the walls to illuminate the vast space. This created a patchwork of alternating light and shadow, dividing the room into disjointed zones.

The chilling words “like blood” lingered in the air, like the sunset’s lingering warmth seeping into the carpet, refusing to dissipate.

Jian Anji stood in the living room for a long time, until her legs grew stiff and the pain in her back became sharper in the stillness. Only then did she slowly move toward the kitchen.

She poured herself a glass of cold water. The chill of the glass spread through her fingertips.

Leaning against the cold countertop, she took small sips, her gaze drifting aimlessly across the smooth, empty wall opposite her.

The housekeeper had already left, restoring the kitchen to its spotless, uninhabited state. Only a faint mix of cleaning agent and food odors lingered in the air.

Dinner time should be approaching.

But today felt different.

There was no sign of the usual early meal delivery, nor any indication that Leng Tan would emerge from her study or bedroom to head to the dining room.

The apartment was filled with a tense, expectant atmosphere, more unsettling than any explicit command.

She washed her glass and put it back in its place.

As she left the kitchen, her gaze drifted casually across the dining room.

The table was bare, the lights off, shrouded in shadow.

Just then, a sound came from the master bedroom.

Not footsteps, but the sound of the closet door sliding open and shut, the faint rustle of fabric, and… the zip of a zipper?

The sounds continued for a moment before falling silent.

Was Leng Tan changing clothes?

At this hour?

A flicker of doubt crossed Jian Anji’s mind.

Normally, unless she had a special evening event, Leng Tan would change into loungewear or a robe as soon as she got home.

Her suspicion was quickly confirmed.

The master bedroom door opened, and Leng Tan emerged.

She had changed out of her dark green velvet gown and into a black suit.

Not the sharp skirt suit she wore during the day, but a more tailored black blazer and trousers, paired with a simple black silk shirt, the collar unbuttoned.

Her long hair was still up, but looser than during the day, with a few strands falling free.

She seemed to have touched up her makeup, her lipstick a slightly darker, brick-red shade.

She looked… different.

The calm composure she’d shown during the day remained, but now it was overlaid with a colder, harder shell, even carrying a subtle tension and aloofness.

Like a black blade sheathed, yet its cold light still faintly visible.

Her gaze swept across the living room, easily finding Jian Anji standing in the shadows by the kitchen door.

Her eyes were calm, but they held an unmistakable declaration of her intention to go out.

“I’m going out tonight,” Leng Tan said, her voice deeper than usual. “Don’t wait up.”

Don’t wait up.

This meant dinner might be canceled, or Jian Anji would need to fend for herself.

It also meant several hours of genuine, unsupervised alone time tonight.

“Yes, Master,” Jian Anji replied, lowering her gaze.

Leng Tan said nothing more as she walked to the entryway, where a small black clutch lay waiting.

She picked up her clutch, checked its contents, and slipped into a pair of sleek black heels that matched her suit.

The sharp click of her heels on the marble floor echoed rhythmically, a stark contrast to the muffled thud of her steps on the soft carpet during the day.

Instead of opening the door immediately, she paused before the full-length mirror in the entryway, straightening her already impeccable collar and cuffs. Her gaze lingered for a moment on her reflection.

The look in her eyes was complex, as if she were confirming something or shifting into a different state of mind.

Then, she pulled open the door and stepped out.

The door clicked shut behind her, the mechanical sound of the lock engaging echoing clearly. Next came the elevator’s arrival chime, the doors sliding open and closed, and then… silence.

In the vast apartment, Jian Anji was suddenly alone.

An absolute, overwhelming silence surged in from all sides, instantly engulfing her.

This silence was different from the emptiness of the day, which had been permeated by Leng Tan’s invisible presence.

Now, it was truly empty.

She stood there, dazed.

The pain from the wound on her back, the lingering chill of the water glass in her hand, and the eternal glow of the city outside the window all became exceptionally clear, yet impossibly distant.

Leng Tan’s icy fragrance still seemed to linger in the air, but it was rapidly dissipating, replaced by the bland warmth of the central air conditioning.

Don’t wait for me.

Jian Anji slowly walked back to the living room and sat on the sofa facing the window, where Leng Tan had been sitting moments before.

A faint trace of body heat and the velvety texture of the fabric remained on the cushion.

She gazed out the window.

Night had fully fallen, and the city lights glittered like a starry river, yet not a single star belonged to her.

Alone.

In this exquisite, gilded cage.

Bearing unhealed wounds, a secret she shouldn’t have learned, and that unsettling phrase: like blood.

Time suddenly became immeasurable.

Would the next few hours be a rare moment of respite, or another form of torment, even more hollow than before?

The silence grew heavy, pressing down on her eardrums and weighing on her chest.

Jian Anji sat on the sofa for so long that the neon signs on a building across the street changed their advertisements three times. The warm air from the central air conditioning seemed to carry a hint of the night’s chill.

In the absolute silence, the pain in her back became intensely focused, like a tireless reminder.

The ointment had long dried, and the gauze’s edges rubbed against her skin, causing a faint, prickly itch.

Hunger finally crept in, her stomach contracting emptily.

She rose and walked to the kitchen.

Opening the massive double-door refrigerator, she found it neatly stocked with ingredients and semi-prepared foods, enough for a lavish dinner. But she had no appetite.

In the end, she took out a carton of milk, poured it into a glass, and microwaved it.

The hum of the microwave briefly broke the silence, but its absence left an even deeper void.

Carrying the warm milk back to the living room, she didn’t turn on more lights, sipping it slowly by the dim glow from the window.

The milk slid warmly down her throat, offering a fleeting warmth that failed to reach the deeper cold within.

The hours alone stretched like rubber, each second elastic yet elusive.

For the first time, she could truly decide how to spend these hours, but her mind was a blank slate, leaving her feeling lost and uncertain.

Read a book?

The books in the study, still carrying the lingering scent of secrets, repelled her.

Watch TV?

The massive screen felt more like a cold surveillance monitor.

Go back to bed?

Sleep remained out of reach, knowing Leng Tan might return at any moment.

In the end, she simply curled up on the sofa, clutching her empty glass, her gaze drifting aimlessly into the void.

Her thoughts wandered uncontrollably, leaping from the whip marks on her back to the cool balm, from the sketches in the ledger to the sunset described as “like blood,” finally settling on Leng Tan’s departing figure: the black suit and the slightly deeper brick-red lipstick.

Where was she going?

Who was she meeting?

What was she doing?

The questions surfaced naturally, even though she knew they were none of her business and shouldn’t concern her.

But in this world completely controlled by Leng Tan, any scrap of information about the controller herself was like a faint light in the darkness, drawing her attention like a moth to a flame.

Her outfit, her demeanor… it didn’t look like a typical business engagement. There was an air of secrecy, even danger, about it.

Time ticked by, minute by minute.

The clock hands steadily moved toward nine, then ten.

The only sounds in the apartment were her own breathing and heartbeat.

Leng Tan hadn’t returned, nor had she called or texted. Of course, she wouldn’t leave Jian Anji any way to contact her.

As night deepened, a new feeling began to stir. Not relaxation, but a tense mix of anxiety and vague worry.

Leng Tan had said, “Don’t wait up,” but “don’t wait” didn’t mean “don’t worry” (if that word even applied here).

More fundamentally, Leng Tan’s absence meant a temporary vacuum in this system of absolute control.

And for Jian Anji, who had long been trapped within it and grown accustomed to its rules (even if painfully so), this vacuum brought not freedom, but a sense of instability.

It was like an object long subjected to intense gravity suddenly losing that force. The result wasn’t liberation, but weightlessness and disorientation.

She stood up and began pacing slowly across the living room. Her footsteps were light, almost silent on the thick carpet.

She walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and gently pressed her forehead against the cool glass.

Below, the city still buzzed with traffic, neon lights flashing, and countless windows glowed with warm light, each telling stories of normal lives that had nothing to do with her.

Her gaze drifted upward, unconsciously toward the entrance of the apartment building.

The driveway curved, streetlights cast a dim yellow glow, and cars occasionally drove in or out.

She didn’t know if Leng Tan would return from that direction, or when.

As her eyes wandered aimlessly, two blinding headlights suddenly pierced the night from around a distant bend in the driveway. The car swerved sharply, speeding toward the apartment building’s entrance with an urgent, almost frantic energy.

Jian Anji’s heart skipped a beat for no apparent reason.

The car screeched to a halt at the apartment building’s entrance, its headlights extinguished.

Too far away and in the dim light, she couldn’t make out the car’s make or license plate, only a blurry black silhouette.

The driver’s side door swung open.

A figure in a black suit stepped briskly out of the car.

Even through the distance and the glass, Jian Anji recognized her instantly: Leng Tan.

But her demeanor was… different.

Gone was the composed, icy detachment she’d displayed when she left.

The way she closed the car door seemed a little rougher than usual. Instead of heading straight for the apartment entrance, she stood still, tilting her head slightly upward, as if taking a deep, quick breath of the night air (or perhaps focusing on something high up in the building).

The night wind ruffled the stray strands of hair around her cheek.

Then she raised a hand and rubbed her temples with a firm, almost agitated motion.

The gesture lasted only a few seconds, but it carried a rare hint of fatigue or irritation.

She lowered her hand, her shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly, as if shedding a heavy burden or perhaps donning her usual mask once more.

She started walking toward the apartment entrance, her steps regaining their usual steady rhythm. The sound of her heels clicking against the pavement was muffled by the distance and the glass, barely audible.

But that brief moment when Leng Tan stood by the car, tilting her head back and rubbing her forehead, was like a frame frozen in slow motion, burned vividly onto Jian Anji’s retina.

Leng Tan… has moments like this too?

This realization struck her with even greater force than discovering the sketches in the ledger.

The sketches belonged to a distant past, but what she had just witnessed had happened only minutes ago, in the present, belonging to the ever-composed Leng Tan.

Jian Anji instinctively took a step back from the glass window, as if afraid the woman walking into the building below might sense she was being watched.

Her heart pounded in her chest, a mix of inexplicable panic and deeper unease.

A few seconds later, the elevator’s crisp arrival chime echoed from the direction of the apartment door.

Then came the sound of a key sliding into the lock and turning.

The door opened.

Leng Tan walked in.

Support Escaping from the Yandere Young Heiress