Rose Lock - Chapter 26

Hua Manyi froze, her body stiff, even somewhat disbelieving that her back would one day be so close to this woman. “Mother Gong…”

Gong Yan retreated slightly, looking at the fluffy, messy ends of Hua Manyi’s hair, her red lips slightly parted. “Does it still hurt?”

The medicine had been fully applied, and she was starting to accept the stinging, so it didn’t feel very painful anymore.

Hua Manyi rested one hand on her leg, the other still held horizontally across her chest. She bit her lip and shook her head.

“Then shall I wrap the gauze for you?” the woman behind her asked again. Hua Manyi lowered her eyes to look at her bare chest, hesitated for a moment, and said, “…Okay.”

Gong Yan picked up the gauze from the dressing table, gently pressed near the wound, and began wrapping the gauze starting from the scapula, around to the right armpit, and then across the front, passing the collarbone. When she touched the hand blocking the chest, she paused.

With the hand in the way, the gauze couldn’t be wrapped further.

The air was silent, only the distant sound of singing could be heard from outside.

Hua Manyi also noticed the pause. She closed her eyes, bit her lower lip tightly, and slowly raised her arm. The woman behind her began wrapping again. She could feel the woman’s body leaning slightly closer as the gauze had to wrap around the front, making her feel extremely close, as if she were being embraced from behind.

Hua Manyi’s entire body was rigid. She focused all her attention on what was behind her, but ignored the slender, jade-like fingers brushing across the tip of her breast, the little finger trailing the gauze, whether it was the gauze or the fingertip grazing her fair, elastic skin. By the time she reacted, the hand had successfully wrapped a circle and returned to the starting point on her back.

A blush gradually rose from her neck upwards. She was somewhat ashamed to look at her own reaction; every time she was touched, an involuntary shiver would run through her.

Especially when touched in that particular area.

Gong Yan stared at her hand for a while. She hadn’t intentionally touched her; it was simply a blind spot wrapping from the back to the front, and she had to rely on feeling. She just hadn’t expected to…

Her red lips curved slightly. All in all, it wasn’t a bad thing.

The second round of gauze required more skillful technique. If wrapped crookedly, not overlapping with the first circle, it would inevitably affect whether it could return to the starting point.

Hua Manyi felt that when the second round of gauze wrapped around her chest, the woman behind her clearly missed the mark, even wrapping the entire cloth over her breast. A slight tightening caused a sense of suffocation to spread from her chest.

She wanted to say something, opened her mouth, but was too shy to speak. She decided to adjust the crooked gauze herself, but didn’t expect the person behind her to also notice the mistake, preempting her by lifting the gauze from underneath, adjusting its position, and re-wrapping. More and more skin was touched. The blush on her neck surged up to the back of her ears. She had a strong urge to cover her chest.

Just as she was about to reach her limit, the woman behind her finally finished wrapping the gauze, neatly tying a flat knot.

“All set,” Gong Yan said, looking at her slender, sensitive back, her eyes slightly darkening. From the moment she kissed her shoulder blade, every touch seemed to elicit a shiver. Was she that sensitive?

Hua Manyi breathed a sigh of relief in her heart, hastily pulled the nightgown she had taken off from the side, put it on with her back to the woman, and looked down submissively at the woman leaning against her dressing table. She thanked her softly, “Thank you, Mother Gong.”

“Well, it’s late now, I—”

Gong Yan intended to stand up straight, but her hand accidentally knocked against a metal box. With a clatter, the loosely covered iron lid tilted at an angle, revealing the beautiful, simple line drawing of an envelope cover inside.

Gong Yan glanced at it indifferently, thinking it was just ordinary correspondence, and continued with the rest of her sentence, “I’m going back. Take good care of yourself. Try to sleep on your right side.”

Hua Manyi nodded. “Manyi understands.”

It was already eleven o’clock at night when she left Fenghai. There were very few pedestrians on the street. Butler Fu quickly opened the car door and respectfully called out, “Madam.” Gong Yan nodded, got straight into the Ford, and disappeared into the night.

“Doctor Hinnerson should still be awake, right?”

Butler Fu, who was driving, was suddenly asked this question. He paused, thought for a moment, and replied, “Not yet. Doctor Hinnerson usually rests around midnight.”

On weekdays, Doctor Hinnerson researched various experiments and had an extraordinary passion for scientific pursuit.

“Take me to his place.”

“Yes, Madam.”

…

Hinnerson’s small clinic was located in a corner of Qingyuan Street. As it was nearing closing time, a car pulled up at the entrance.

Inside the clinic, Hinnerson listened to the woman’s question opposite him and fell into contemplation. “This situation cannot be determined without specific information. Craniocerebral trauma, physiological defects, or even external stimuli could lead to forgetting certain things. When a person suffers a major shock, or excessive stress, it can lead to amnesia. Madam Gong, if I may be so bold as to ask, has the person you are referring to recently experienced any kind of stimulus?”

However, Gong Yan had no intention of revealing detailed information. She stood up, bid farewell to Doctor Hinnerson, got back into the car, and headed towards the direction of the winery.

The car wheel rolled over a small piece of stone on the road, and the car body swayed slightly, waking up the woman in the back seat. Opening her eyes, her mind was still pondering whether the events of the night before last were intentionally left unmentioned by Hua Manyi, pretended not to have happened, or if she had truly lost that part of her memory…

Failing to reach a conclusion after some thought, they soon arrived in front of the winery villa. Gong Yan had expected to see a place lit up with lights but was instead met with darkness everywhere. Except for the small hallway lamp the servants had left on for her, the hall and rooms were all dark.

That woman was not in the villa.

Gong Yan listened to the servant’s report, her forehead aching severely. If she had known the woman was out, why would she, Gong Yan, have bothered coming back here? For the sake of this sister, her plan to rest at Fenghai was forcefully abandoned, and her schedule was changed, lest her father criticize her in the future for not treating her sister properly.

“Madam, you have a call.” A servant rushed over.

“Did they say who’s calling?” Gong Yan walked over, asking as she went.

The servant replied, “It’s the Master calling.”

Gong Yan waved her hand, dismissing the servant, and then picked up the brass phone receiver, placing it to her ear. “Father.”

The aging voice of her father came through the phone. “Yan’er, Steven, the doctor treating Shulan’s leg disease in Germany, said she’s disappeared. She even changed the people around her. Your little sister has always relied on you, and I want to know if she’s with you?”

Gong Yan expertly pinched the cigarette away from her lips, savoring the crispness the smoke left in her mouth. “Father, I haven’t seen Shulan here at the moment. Perhaps she’s gone somewhere else.”

“Is that so…” The old man was silent for a long time. “The day you see Shulan, tell her to send me a message. As for her leg ailment, if she no longer wishes to continue the treatment, then so be it.”

“Alright, I understand. Father, please rest early.”

“Yan’er, you rest early too. Oh, and about this,” Father Gong suddenly remembered something and continued, “If Yan’er has someone she fancies, you can bring him back during the New Year for your father to see.”

Gong Yan was momentarily stunned, the cigarette in her hand unmoving for a long time.

“You’re not young anymore; it’s time to consider it. I didn’t interfere before, but your mother still hopes you find a good husband.”

“Mm, I understand.”

After hanging up the phone, Gong Yan sat on the chair with her legs crossed, lost in thought and silence for quite a while. A husband… She had never considered this aspect before, but with it being brought up, a flicker of expectation seemed to flash in her mind, so fast she couldn’t grasp it.

After one cigarette was finished, the wall clock struck midnight. Gong Yan picked up the phone receiver, furrowing her brows as she dialed a few numbers. She waited for a while before the other party answered.

“Hello, may I ask who this is…”

“Jiang Yin, it’s Gong Yan.” Gong Yan went straight to the point. “Have you seen where Shulan went?”

Jiang Yin held the phone receiver to her ear, her eyes lowered. Upon hearing that name, her palms clenched. She avoided looking at the woman beneath her, who was looking up, the corners of her mouth stained with saliva. That woman was staring intently at her, as if one wrong word would push her into the abyss.

“A’Yan, Shulan just came to the Paramount Ballroom to listen to music. I saw it was too late, so I kept her in my room to rest.” Jiang Yin tried hard to keep her body steady, preventing her legs from trembling. “I was just about to call you to tell you, but you called first.”

“Alright then. I’ll have to trouble you to take good care of Shulan.” Gong Yan didn’t suspect anything else. “I’ll have someone pick her up tomorrow.”

“Okay, A’Yan, you rest early.” The moment she finished speaking, Jiang Yin quickly covered the mouthpiece, trying not to let her strange sounds be heard.

“What’s wrong?” Gong Yan heard a sudden “thud” from the receiver, though not loud, it was clearly audible.

Jiang Yin was half-supported by the table, struggling to maintain a steady breath. “Nothing, A’Yan, I’m going to sleep.”

“Good.”

The moment the phone was hung up, Jiang Yin couldn’t bear it and tightly gripped the tablecloth, her face flushed, a choked sob escaping her throat.

“Shulan… please let me go…”

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