“What took you so long?” Lily’s smiling face was the first thing that Zhou Jingren noticed when he walked inside the study. He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“I had to finish an important meeting.” He sat opposite her. “I thought you were in the secret room?”
“I was.”
“Wait — don’t tell me you saw a ghost?” he raised an eyebrow.
“What? Of course not.” Beaming, she stood from her seat and pulled him towards the bookshelves. “But… I’m afraid I will see one. So I waited for you.” First of all, the room that she saw was just the same as the room that she saw all those years ago. This meant the room had been like this for god knows how long. Second, she had seen enough ghost movies to know that a pregnant woman and ghosts did not do well in one scene. What if the ghost took a liking to her unborn child? Lily shivered inwardly. Maybe her imagination was just over the top. But still…
To avoid this, she chose to have a tall man accompany her, hoping that it would intimidate the ghosts.
After opening the bookshelf, Lily told him to use the light on his phone and follow her. “It is a little tight. But that is because this mechanism is really old. So it needs some overhauling.” She uttered while going down the stairs. “Look at this,” she pointed at the first labyrinth on the door. “My grandma loves puzzles. Amazing, right?”
“You said this house had been around for so long, this mechanism might have been here even before Grandma Ye owned this place.”
“That makes sense.” Lily nodded and started tapping on the door. Slowly, it opened, and once again, revealed the space. “Alright… maybe this mechanism existed before.” She pointed at the next puzzle. Zhou Jingren’s reasoning was right, maybe it already existed, and she just didn’t realize it before.
After entering the last letter of the code, the wall next to them moved and revealed the room. “This space didn’t exist before.” She stated as she walked inside the room, the floor squeaking beneath her. “I don’t remember entering another password using the combination lock. When I was a kid.”
“So how did you figure out the code?”
Beaming, Lily instantly turned towards him. “Simple. I’m a genius.”
He chuckled in response. He heard from Yang Mi that Lily seemed to be in a foul mood earlier. So, seeing her act like this immediately made him smile. “Right. Our child will surely get this special genius gene of yours.”
“Of course.” She walked towards the furniture and started removing the white cloth that covered them. “This chair… is really old. It might not be able to support someone of your frame.” She walked towards the table and held a frame of her grandmother’s younger photo. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Hmmm.” He stood next to her, his eyes scanning the room. “This is an enormous room.” He noted.
“Yes, it is. Also… there should be a small kitchen over there. Though… I don’t think that it’s working anymore. We used it to boil water for her tea. I don’t remember her cooking something inside this area.” Smiling, Lily touched a small dent on the table. “I made this. It was, um… I believe I used some pencils to create such markings. Of course, grandma scolded me.”
Lily continued. “That chair should be good.” She pointed at another wooden chair before she checked the drawers of the table.
“Hey, there’s a lamp in here.” Zhou Jingren said. “I think it’s working.”
“Do you have something that we could use to light it?” Lily asked.
“No. But I can always go upstairs to— “
“Then nevermind.” Lily interrupted him. “Don’t leave me alone.”
Her words earned a chuckle from her husband. He shook his head and walked towards the bookshelf. “These books… are pretty old.”
“Hm.”
“Are you familiar with any of these?”
“No.” Lily shook her head as she opened the last drawer. “There’s a vault in here.” She remembered seeing the vault when she was a child. All those memories seemed to come back to her as she continued to explore the place. This time, the vault did not require any complicated coding. She knew that her grandmother used her birth date, except the sequence is different. Instead of having the month or date first, her grandmother used the year and jumbled the remaining numbers instead of using zero and five for may, she used five and zero. Lily was pretty familiar with the combinations as she saw her grandmother open this vault countless times when she was a child.
Now that Lily thought about it, her grandmother had another vault in the Qin Mansion that Lily now owned. She immediately took a mental note to check that one out later as well. As expected, the vault opened after she entered the code.
“She still had some jewelry here.” She uttered as she held a jewelry box. Aside from the jewelry box, there was also a leather-covered notebook. Lily took both out and examined the vault. After making sure that nothing else was there, she closed the vault and sat on the chair next to the table.
She examined the notebook and immediately noticed the yellowish edges of the paper as well as the aged leather. She opened the notebook and immediately saw that it was her grandmother’s journal. But wasn’t this too short for a life journal? Lily didn’t remember seeing something like this when she was still in the Qin Residence.
Without reading its entries, Lily started flipping through the pages and noticed that the dates were all random. Some were months apart from each other and some others just days from one another.
“A journal?” she heard Zhou Jingren walk next to her.
“Hmmm.” She nodded. “I will pay respects to my grandmother before reading them.” She slowly closed it. “We should visit the columbarium before this day ends.”
“Of course,” he nodded. “What’s inside the jewelry box?”
Lily did not answer him, instead, she opened the box and examined its contents. “Some family heirlooms.” She uttered before she paused. Frowning, Lily held a small grey rock. “What’s this?”
“A moon rock?” he asked.
