Limited-Time Attachment - Chapter 5

The headlights swept across the silent street, the shadows of the trees appearing hazy.

The night was quiet. Lush flowering trees lined both sides of the road, and the villas were spaced far apart. As the car rounded another bend, a low-key yet grand wrought iron gate came into view, the Chinese style villa, with its dark color palette, sat half-hidden in the night.

The designated driver, visibly nervous while behind the wheel of Song Ming’s top-spec McLaren, a model not yet released domestically, pulled into the driveway. “Is this the place, Boss?”

Sitting in the passenger seat, Song Ming was looking down at her phone. Hearing the driver, she looked up. New messages were popping up constantly in just a few moments, another row of red notification dots had appeared. Song Ming glanced at them, curled her lips into a smile, and turned off the screen. “Yeah, this is it.”

Ji Shan could actually be reliable once in a while.

Having afternoon tea with some model really wasn’t as “interesting” as attending a party.

Once the booking was closed, she gave the driver a tip (a habit from living abroad). Song Ming stepped lightly up the stairs, took out her keys, and opened the door to the villa.

The massive house was empty, but fortunately, it was cleaned regularly, so it looked no different from when she last left. This party’s location was a bit remote, almost on the outskirts of the city. Song Ming didn’t feel like driving back to her apartment downtown, so she simply came to this long vacant villa.

Messages continued to flood her phone. Song Ming picked the ones she liked to reply to, she deleted messages from one or two men without even looking at them.

Half a minute later, a friend request popped up. The verification message was a string of exclamation marks. Ji Shan’s breakdown and exasperation pierced through the screen for a moment, even his “artsy male youth” profile picture looked frantic.

Song Ming paused, then couldn’t help but chuckle.

The poor guy had been lumped in with those tactless men and deleted by mistake.

After laughing, Song Ming heartlessly turned off the screen and placed the phone face-down on the table. She could easily imagine how noisy he would be the moment she accepted the request. Song Ming anticipated the annoyance, and suddenly even the innocent phone felt irritating. She tossed it aside.

She hadn’t been to this house in a long time. Looking around, she remembered there seemed to be a study on the second floor.

The study was spacious, with a high-backed sofa facing a floor to ceiling window. Song Ming opened the electric curtains and walked habitually to the sofa. Feeling like something was missing, she glanced to the left. Sure enough, on a stylish small table sat a bottle of red wine and a glass, exactly the kind she usually drank.

Only then did Song Ming relax, feeling the comfort of being “home.”

She sat on the sofa. In the distance was an artificial lake. Streetlights shaped like palace lanterns surrounded the water at regular intervals, providing a perfect view of the hazy night from her position.

Song Ming took a shower and lazily curled up on the sofa in her bathrobe. Glancing at the night sky, her brain, numbed by alcohol and music, suddenly misfired. She remembered something said at the party today. While she was drinking with a girl who had fox-like, alluring eyes, a slightly tipsy Zhou Chenglin had laughed and called her “thin blooded” (fickle).

The girl had followed suit, acting spoiled and calling her “heartless.”

Heartless. Song Ming wanted to laugh. She hadn’t done anything to the girl, so why call her heartless?

By the way, what was that girl’s name…?

Song Ming couldn’t remember. The name was in the contact notes, and the phone was downstairs.

Getting the phone would definitely mean more noise. Her urgent desire to fill her life with excitement seemed to have washed down the drain with the shower water; from this moment on, she didn’t want anyone to bother her at all.

Whatever, Song Ming thought, propping up her head. Whoever it is, what does it have to do with me?

Thin-blooded… A familiar voice seemed to ring in her ears, laced with hatred and mockery:

“Song Ming! Is this what you call loving me? … You really are thin-blooded.”

Song Ming frowned, a slight headache blooming.

She wasn’t very willing to recall that past. That woman was indeed beautiful, exquisite from her toes to the strands of her hair. Her lipstick shade always looked incredibly kissable. The lines of her back were sharp yet soft, feeling like top-tier jade to the touch.

But that mouth of hers was truly merciless. In the past, when the two couldn’t reach an agreement, Song Ming would always end the argument by silencing her with a kiss.

As sharp and hard as the words she spat out were, her lips were just as soft. The taste of her lipstick was always a light sweetness. Song Ming was once deeply addicted to it.

Unfortunately, even the deepest addiction has an end. Some people’s love is like fruit, if left for too long, it inevitably rots.

Song Ming gave a self-mocking laugh and stood up, walking toward a floor to ceiling bookshelf that covered an entire wall.

The mahogany shelves were filled with books of various genres and languages. Song Ming’s fingers brushed over the spines, aimlessly searching for something to pass the time. Her fingertips stopped at a hardcover book of poetry with a dark red and gold pattern.

She actually had a very good memory, if she wanted to, there was almost nothing she couldn’t remember. But she had little impression of this poetry collection. She only remembered the first half, she couldn’t recall a single line from the latter half at all.

Song Ming looked up. The book was indeed shelved among those she had already read.

“Strange.”

Song Ming smiled and pulled the book out. She almost never made such a mistake. On a boring and weary night like this, using a small error to reminisce about the past seemed like a decent bit of fun.

She even took a leisurely sip of wine, opening the book with a sense of anticipation.

As she flipped through, the crisp white pages met some resistance. Song Ming flicked her finger, and a bookmark fell out, fluttering to the floor.

She leaned over to pick it up and found it was just the stub of an expired banquet invitation. A line of elegant handwriting was written on it, the half-faded ink carrying a tone of outdated intimacy: Baby, a little surprise for you. Let’s see when you find me.

Song Ming froze.

She recognized the handwriting. She remembered the banquet.

Without even turning the stub over, Song Ming recalled that it was from a party two and a half years ago, back when she and a certain someone were inseparable.

Right, that was it. She had fallen asleep after reading only half the book. Someone had put the book away for her, intentionally placing it in the “finished” section and leaving this bookmark behind.

After a long silence, Song Ming put the bookmark back into the collection and pushed the entire book back onto the shelf, out of her sight.