Volume 4, Chapter 3: Storing Sweet Nothings

"Do I? I've forgotten," he lied calmly, then added, "In fact, the day before you came to my house, Yuan Ai had visited. To make her believe that I still couldn't forget about her, I deliberately arranged the study, pretending to let her see it by accident. The cigarette case wasn't the one she gave me; I had long thrown the original into the fireplace and burned it. What you saw was a counterfeit I made later, luckily she didn't notice the difference. All the photos were Xiu's collection. I borrowed them from him; he said he shouldn't avoid the past, no matter how unbearable, as it was all part of his growth."

I suddenly realized that everything had been a prop set up for the scene! I had an epiphany.