The Lost Lamb's Trap - Chapter 26.2

Chapter 26.2: Stars

Today, she wore an all-black pantsuit with chunky heels and a jeweled cufflink. She rarely wore black, but today’s all-black outfit was particularly formal and severe. She left the department with a quick pace.

Yang Ruiqi kindly said, “The trip didn’t happen yesterday. The director didn’t seem to be feeling well. The Ta Shan trip wasn’t urgent, so it was postponed for a day.”

Duan Jiayang lowered her head, not asking for more details.

Lin Ke came back shortly after leaving. She stopped next to Duan Jiayang. Duan Jiayang looked down at her high heels and sharp pant hems. Lin Ke said, “Since you’re all going out for dinner, I’ll join you. It’s on my way.”

Yu Xiao asked, “Director, what time is your flight?”

“Eight o’clock,” she replied.

“That’s perfect. We can make it,” Yang Ruiqi said.

They were so in sync, you’d think they had rehearsed their conversation.

Lin Ke glanced at Duan Jiayang’s desk, her hand resting on it. The ruby on her cufflink was dazzling.

The restaurant they went to was a colleague’s recommendation, a hidden gem in a quiet alley. The delicious smell of food wafted in with the wind. Duan Jiayang wasn’t getting a promotion, so no one said anything like “congratulations.” Before the food was served, they raised their beers and said, “To a bright future, to a bright future.”

Duan Jiayang didn’t drink. The last two times were embarrassing enough. She said she was driving and couldn’t drink. When a colleague poured beer for Lin Ke, Lin Ke’s hand covered the glass.

The others had their own fun. The company was paying, so they ate to their heart’s content.

“Director Lin, do you have a partner?” A male colleague, who was a little drunk, leaned over. He had asked this last time, and here he was again. These men seemed to only be curious about things like this.

Lin Ke looked up but didn’t speak. She squinted her eyes slightly, as if she was thinking.

The male colleague joked, “You must have a lot if you have to think about it.“

Lin Ke said, “Just one.”

“Wow, we got it out of her!” a few colleagues cheered, their faces flushed. The others clinked their glasses and took a drink as punishment.

Duan Jiayang’s chopsticks paused as she was picking up a dish.

Their eyes met. Lin Ke looked at her, and she looked at Lin Ke. The stray lines were now intertwined.

Their relationship couldn’t be called a romance. They never expressed love to each other from beginning to end.

Duan Jiayang knew Lin Ke’s gesture was unnecessary.

But looking down would make her seem guilty.

The male colleague “oohed” for a long time. “Did you meet them abroad? Are you still together?”

“No.”

Duan Jiayang’s heart skipped a beat.

“Then who is it…”

Lin Ke showed a faint, unsmiling curve on her lips. She turned her head to look at the male colleague who asked the question. A visible blush appeared on his face as he held his beer glass.

Lin Ke lightly put a finger to her lips and shushed softly.

It was both seductive and provocative.

It made your heart flutter, and you couldn’t explain where it itched.

“A secret is a secret,” Lin Ke said. “A secret lover.”

A few male colleagues wouldn’t give up, asking about “unrequited love” or “a missed opportunity.” The female colleagues rolled their eyes at them, telling them to shut up. “You’re only asking questions you shouldn’t be asking. No matter what they do, it’s none of your business.”

The air conditioner in the restaurant wasn’t strong enough. It was stuffy. Duan Jiayang couldn’t stand being inside anymore. She got up and walked out. The scorching heat still hit her face.

She didn’t have a complete grasp of Lin Ke’s madness. She didn’t know where Lin Ke’s limits were. It was better not to listen anymore, afraid that her “stepsister” identity would be exposed.

It was August, and the cicadas in the trees had stopped chirping, leaving only the random buzzing of other insects. The streets ahead were bustling with people going in both directions. This alley was much quieter. She stood in the alley, leaning against a tree at the end, smelling the oxygen that had been polluted by who-knows-how-many pollutants.

Until she smelled the cheap tobacco smoke.

Duan Jiayang turned her head. Lin Ke was standing not far away. The smoke drifted from her direction, just covering the curls on her profile. Was she smoking?

Lin Ke wasn’t someone who couldn’t smoke.

Lin Wan smoked women’s cigarettes, and Lin Ke could imitate her perfectly.

Perhaps it was being in a small alley. The two of them were standing on the same ground, yet there was a sense of a distorted, misplaced timeline.

In the night, the smoke encircled her face, scattered by a gust of wind, and caught in the light, revealing a fiery, vibrant color.

Lin Ke was all in black, standing alone and still.

The night was made lonely by her presence.

The sharp confrontation in the office earlier, and now standing quietly together, was truly twisted. She was about to leave, but Lin Ke turned around first.

It turned out she wasn’t smoking. It was a younger, shorter man next to her. Thankfully, she wasn’t smoking. Otherwise, in their two years of rebellion, they would have added an unhealthy habit to their list of sordid affairs.

The man standing next to Lin Ke got up and came over with his phone to add her. Lin Ke coldly refused. He was probably trying his luck. Seeing that she wasn’t interested, he went somewhere else to smoke.

They looked at each other. The sparkling lights rippled in the moonlight.

Lin Ke said, “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m going to Ta Shan?”

Duan Jiayang didn’t say anything.

She changed her way of asking. “Do you know why your dad is making me go to Ta Shan?”

Duan Jiayang still didn’t speak. She answered her own question.

“Because your dad knows and is certain that I will go.”

Lin Ke had to see if it was a good place and if it was suitable for her to go. Even if she knew her dad was purposely sending her away to make her go on a blind date, she had to go once.

The drunk Duan Jiayang from that night kept saying she was stupid. The Duan Jiayang from six years ago would never have said something like that. If someone called her stupid, she would have gotten angry.

“I wanted to prove something. That Xiao Yang isn’t stupid.”

But she didn’t know that these words had just poked a thorn in Duan Jiayang’s heart.

Duan Jiayang’s lips were slightly pursed. An insect flew past her. She raised her hand to wave it away.

Lin Ke asked, “Do you think we can have a calm and good relationship like a normal couple?”

To put it dramatically, Duan Jiayang’s heartbeat had been abnormal since that moment. She couldn’t tell if it was from being stifled or something else. Her breathing trembled along with it.

Her gaze landed on the flying insect that had just moved.

Duan Jiayang said, “Not at the moment.”

“Mm, indeed. The thought of me being gone for a few days and you being intimate with someone else without me watching makes me feel extremely chaotic.” She turned, her high heels clicking on the stone path.

“Lan Yao confessed to me,” Duan Jiayang said, then regretted it, afraid that Lin Ke would go crazy. But she thought about the people coming and going here and figured Lin Ke wouldn’t be so impulsive as to do anything to her. She moved closer to the light.

“So, you’re telling me you’re going to accept her?” Lin Ke asked.

Duan Jiayang didn’t say anything, standing in the light. Every expression on her face was captured by Lin Ke.

Lin Ke said, “Xiao Yang, do you know why my cooking was so bad back then?”

Duan Jiayang guessed she was going to say the same thing she said before—because Xiao Yang loved to eat grass, so her cooking was bad. She held her breath, her clenched fingers tightening and then loosening.

But Lin Ke said, “There’s a type of person who is naturally bad at controlling things. They know that a bowl of rice is enough for two people, and a single person only needs half a bowl. But they’ll keep adding to it when they cook, adding until they can’t tell if it’s enough or not. So they add more, and in the end, they mess up how much they’re supposed to make.”

When they lived together before, Lin Ke would eat a normal amount from a bowl when there was someone to cook. When she was home alone and cooked for herself, she would make a huge pot. She would often eat from a very large bowl and a very large pot, only stopping when she couldn’t fit any more food.

She said, “I’m not like Lan Yao, who can take one step at a time, gradually, and with a good sense of control. Sometimes, when I go too far, I go all the way.”

As she said this, Duan Jiayang had no doubt that she could rip her skirt and have a sordid affair with her right here. Lin Ke’s repressed aura was invading her. Even though Lin Ke hadn’t done anything, her breath hadn’t brushed past her, and her fingers hadn’t touched her, her nerves were repeatedly reaching a climax.

“Xiao Yang, be a good girl these next few days when I’m gone.”

Xiao Li and the others stumbled out. They had forgotten about the main characters. Duan Jiayang didn’t plan on going over to say goodbye. She just listened to their drunken plans on how to get back.

Lin Ke handed her car keys to a female colleague who hadn’t been drinking. She looked back at the tree, and Duan Jiayang was no longer there. Duan Jiayang had walked to the side of the road, lowered her head, and gotten into a black Xue Tang car.

In an instant, several people looked at Lin Ke at the same time. Her eyes were lowered, and her slender eyelashes covered her pupils, which were tinged with the color of the night, making it impossible to read her expression.

The only thing they knew was that as her eyes blinked, her body was trembling slightly.

“Director, is your flight… running late?”

It wasn’t until the car carrying Duan Jiayang drove forward, its headlights shining, that everyone finally understood in the glare of the high beams: Director Lin was angry, very angry.