Downfall

Curiosity was said to kill the cat. And the cat was never the same again.

Ying Yue bit her lip, internally debating over whether she should head over and check it out. On the way here, Fei Huangjin had asked her to move in and she agreed. Furthermore, she was his wife now. What was holding her back?

A small smile bloomed on her lips and she trudged over to the door. She looked back towards the direction of the kitchen and could still hear the faint sound of chopping and pan-searing.

Turning the knob, she found that it wasn't locked. The door opened without a single creak, and Ying Yue slipped inside, realizing that it was Fei Huangjin's study. The interiors were decorated in dark blue and brown. The place was extra-neat. And the books on the shelves looked like they had a particular order to them -- tall books here, hardbound books there, and so on and so forth.

She smirked. Typical Fei Huangjin.

She sauntered over to the large desk on one side of the room and ran a hand on it. It was clean. There was a mischievous look on her face as she pulled out his leather tufted swivel chair and sat on it like a queen, her elbows resting on the armrests and with one of her legs crossed over the other.

She giggled and leaned back, kicking away her slippers and propping up her feet on the desk. She should get a desk and chair like this for herself, she thought.

When she swiveled her chair to the left, her legs were pulled to that direction; and when she swiveled the other way, her legs were again pulled to that side. Ying Yue felt her heel dragging a paper from the desk and pulled her feet back.

"Oops." The documents neatly stacked at the middle was now a blundering mess. What would Fei Huangjin think if he found his own secretary messing this up with her feet? She snickered.

She sat up properly and arranged the papers together. However, there was an odd one out among them -- a familiar-looking envelope on top of it all.

The initially amused look on her face collapsed into a confused frown. This was the letter from the bunker. The one addressed to Fei Huangjin's bunker. Didn't Fei Huangjin say he left it at the headquarters?

There was a flash of indignation in her eyes as she examined it carefully. It was unsealed and obviously opened.

He said he hadn't read it yet. Fei Huangjin lied to her.

Breaking someone's trust was like crumpling a piece of paper. It can be flattened again and even be ironed out, but it will never be as smooth and pristine as the way it was before. That was the funny thing about trust: once betrayed, it can't be put together the exact way it once was.

Ying Yue's eyes darted to the door, listening intently for any incoming footsteps before proceeding to open the letter.

And in it, was the familiar handwriting of her brother.

"No," she murmured.

The crinkling of the paper as she gripped it tightly was sharp and unpleasant to her ears. Her vision started to mist and get blurry as tears prickled her eyes. Every sentence in the letter was like a knife stabbing at her heart, and when she got to the line that said, "You once said that caring too much for my sister would be my downfall," she almost couldn't finish reading it.

A painful cry escaped her lips and a tear spilled over one cheek.

Ying Shen died trying to start over with a new life. Ying Shen died because he wanted to be better for her. Ying Shen died and didn't leave a letter to her, choosing instead to write to his former master.

Ying Shen died. And the documents were still missing.

The hands holding the letter shook.

"Ying Yue? Ying Yue, dinner's ready!"

Startled, she dropped the letter on the desk and struggled to place it back in the envelope with shaky hands. It took her several attempts to get it in without looking like a crumpled mess, and she hurriedly fixed the documents on the table with it.