NP Chapter 2

The Secret in the Safe

The Secret in the Safe

At six o’clock in the morning, Liang Rui’s biological clock woke her up on time. When she opened her eyes, the outside of the window was still gray-blue, and the central air conditioner emitted a very slight hum. The Smart Home System on the bedside table sensed that she was awake and automatically opened the curtains thirty centimeters, and the dimmed lights slowly brightened.

She reached out to touch the glasses on the bedside table, but her fingertips touched something warm – a cup of steaming black tea, with a sticky note pressed underneath.

“I heard that successful people drink black coffee, but black tea is better after a hangover. – PS: You fell asleep in the music room last night.”

The handwriting was round and cute, and several letters “O” were drawn into small smiling faces. Liang Rui was stunned holding the note. Fragments of last night’s memories gradually pieced together: she worked overtime until two o’clock in the morning and went home. When she passed the music room, she heard intermittent piano sounds. She pushed the door open and saw Ling Yu practicing Chopin’s Nocturne… And then? She only remembered sitting in the armchair and saying, “B flat is too early,” and when she woke up again, she was in her own bed.

There was a little lipstick stain on the edge of the teacup, Ling Yu’s favorite peach color recently. Liang Rui subconsciously wiped it with her thumb, suddenly realized what she was doing, and immediately put down the cup. The eyes behind the lenses narrowed slightly, and she dialed the internal line: “Secretary Li, postpone the morning meeting by half an hour.”

When she walked into the dining room, the aroma of toasted bread hit her face. Ling Yu was standing on tiptoe, stuffing a cereal box into the hanging cabinet. The oversized sweater slipped to her shoulder, revealing her slender collarbone. Hearing footsteps, she turned her head, with a little jam on the corner of her mouth.

“Good morning, Liang…” She suddenly bit her tongue, her eyes rolled, “Sister R.”

Liang Rui’s eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly. Ever since discovering that the “R” signature on the note had been arbitrarily interpreted by Ling Yu as “Sister R,” this title had become the girl’s prank-like insistence.

“Don’t talk while eating.” Liang Rui sat down. Fried eggs and avocado salad had already been placed in front of her, with a suspiciously exquisite presentation.

Ling Yu curled her lips and pushed the hot milk over: “Today is the midterm assessment, I’ll play your favorite ‘Moonlight’.”

“Debussy’s ‘Moonlight’ is not technically difficult.”

“So I added an adaptation.” Ling Yu suddenly leaned closer, and the peach fragrance hit her face. “Like this—” Her finger tapped out a variation on the edge of the table, and the third measure prominently featured the B flat that Liang Rui had pointed out last night.

Liang Rui’s fork stopped in mid-air. This adaptation was surprisingly ingenious, injecting a certain restrained passion into the original tranquil melody, like… like the undercurrent of the sea under the moonlight.

“Not up to standard,” she finally said, but found herself remembering every note.

In the assessment hall of Saint Sound Conservatory of Music, Liang Rui sat in the last row. She shouldn’t have been here – ten o’clock in the morning should have been a video conference with Japanese clients – but the sheet music that Ling Yu had “forgotten” to bring when she left this morning was now lying in her briefcase.

On the stage, Ling Yu changed from her usual casual attire and wore a pearl-white knee-length dress. When the spotlight hit her, Liang Rui found that the girl’s fingertips were trembling slightly.

A cold voice came from the judging panel: “Ling Yu, is the piece you submitted Debussy’s ‘Moonlight’?”

“It’s an adapted version.” Ling Yu’s voice was brighter than usual, “Dedicated to my guardian.”

Liang Rui’s breath caught. When the first note sounded, she recognized the improvised variation from the breakfast table, but the performance at this moment was even more complete. Ling Yu incorporated Rachmaninoff-esque chords into the third movement, the bass in the left hand was as steady as a heartbeat, and the melody line in the right hand… Liang Rui suddenly gripped the armrest of the seat – that was clearly a fragment of her cell phone ringtone, the “antique ringtone” that Ling Yu had teased for a long time when she peeked at her phone last week.

The last note lingered for a long time. Liang Rui then realized that her palms were full of sweat, and several girls in the front row were sobbing softly.

“Technically not rigorous enough.” The chief judge pushed his glasses. “But the emotional expression… is very special. What was the inspiration for your adaptation?”

Ling Yu’s gaze crossed the crowd and accurately locked onto Liang Rui: “Someone said that the original work played an incorrect G Sharp.” The corners of her mouth turned up, “But I think that sometimes mistakes make music more real.”

On the way back, Ling Yu rolled the judges’ comments certificate into a tube and kept tapping her knee. “Hey, were you smiling just now?”

“Focus on driving.” The lines of Liang Rui’s face were tightly drawn.

“You clearly were!” Ling Yu suddenly reached out and poked her cheek, “Right here, there’s a little dimple—”

The steering wheel suddenly swerved. Liang Rui stepped on the brakes and turned her head to grab the offending wrist. The car suddenly became terrifyingly quiet, and she could feel Ling Yu’s pulse beating rapidly under her fingertips.

“Seatbelt,” Liang Rui released her hand, her voice an octave lower than usual. “Buckle up.”

Late at night, Liang Rui stood in front of the safe in the study. The blue light of the electronic screen reflected on her face, displaying the third warning of an incorrect password entry. Her fingertips hovered above the keyboard, and she hesitated to press down.

——0415, Su Wen’s birthday, incorrect.

——1023, the company’s founding date, incorrect.

——0809, Ling Yu’s birthday.

The safe made a slight “click” sound. Liang Rui took a deep breath and pulled open the metal door. The top layer was equity documents, the middle layer contained Su Wen’s medical record copies, and the bottom layer… Her wrist trembled slightly when she took out the velvet box.

Inside the box was a silver musical note brooch, with a yellowed photo pressed underneath. Twenty-year-old Su Wen hugged eighteen-year-old Liang Rui in front of a campus music festival poster, both wearing ridiculous cartoon T-shirts. On the back of the photo was written: “To Rui Rui, even if you can never tell the difference between F Sharp and B flat.”

Next to the brooch was an envelope, with the wax seal intact. Liang Rui gently stroked the three words “To Ling Yu” on the envelope. This was the letter Su Wen left for her daughter’s coming-of-age ceremony. According to the will, she had to wait until Ling Yu was twenty years old before she could…

“Wow! This is Mom’s handwriting!”

Liang Rui turned her head sharply. Ling Yu was standing at the door wearing Pikachu Pajamas, holding two cups of hot cocoa in her hand, and the marshmallows on the mugs were melting. Her gaze fell on the envelope in Liang Rui’s hand, and her smile gradually solidified.

“Is that… for me?”

Liang Rui quickly closed the safe, but it was already too late. Ling Yu put down the cup and rushed over, the pajamas stirred up a gust of wind with the fragrance of shower gel.

“It’s not time yet,” Liang Rui hid the envelope behind her.

“I’m already seventeen!”

“The law stipulates that adulthood is eighteen.”

“Then what is this?” Ling Yu suddenly pointed to the open middle layer of the safe, “‘Congenital Myocarditis Diagnosis Record’?” Her voice began to tremble, “Mom didn’t die in a car accident…?”

Liang Rui’s temples throbbed. She should have locked the door, she should have… Ling Yu had already pulled out the stack of documents, and the pages rustled in her hand.

“So all these years…” Ling Yu’s fingernail scratched out a crease on a certain part of the medical record, “Mom has been receiving treatment? And you… you’ve been paying the medical expenses?” She flipped to the last page of the bill details, “These numbers… this is not what ordinary friends would…”

The lenses of Liang Rui’s glasses reflected a cold light. She reached out to take back the document, but Ling Yu dodged it. The girl retreated to the bookshelf, her back knocked over a row of business magazines, which scattered all over the floor.

“Why did you hide it from me?” Ling Yu’s voice was like a taut piano string, “Mom was still having surgery in Switzerland three months before she died… and I thought she was just on tour in Europe!”

“This was her wish,” Liang Rui said word by word, “Su Wen didn’t want you to live in the shadow of waiting for death.”

“Then what about you?” Ling Yu suddenly raised her head, tears welling up in her eyes, “All these years… watching us mother and daughter… what did you feel?”

Moonlight slanted in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting swaying shadows of trees between the two. Liang Rui’s Adam’s apple moved, but she couldn’t make a sound. What could she say? Say that every time she saw Su Wen’s critical illness notice, she felt like she had been hit by a blunt object? Say that she secretly recorded every performance video of Ling Yu just to show Su Wen in the hospital bed? Or say… that the promise she made to Su Wen before her death was far more than simply “taking care of Ling Yu”?

Ling Yu’s tears finally fell. She squatted down to pick up the scattered documents, her hair hanging on the floor like a black waterfall. Liang Rui saw her shoulders trembling, but she stubbornly didn’t make a sound.

“Ling Yu,” Liang Rui rarely called her full name, squatted down and held her cold fingers, “Some truths are like dissonant intervals…” She paused, searching for a suitable metaphor, “They sound very harsh when heard directly, but in a suitable harmonic progression…”

“It will become the most beautiful resolution,” Ling Yu muttered, finishing the second half of the sentence, raising her tearful eyes, “This is what Mom used to say.”

They looked at each other quietly on the moonlight-covered floor. Liang Rui suddenly realized that this was the first time since Ling Yu came to her house that they had truly talked about Su Wen. Not polite reminiscence, not deliberate avoidance, but a real commemoration with all the pain and confusion.

Ling Yu’s hand slowly released the medical record, and instead grabbed Liang Rui’s sleeve: “Tonight… can you accompany me to play that ‘Moonlight’?” Just the original version, without any adaptations.”

Liang Rui’s glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose. She didn’t push them back, letting her vision become blurred: “Okay.”

When the piano sounded in the apartment late at night, Liang Rui found that Ling Yu had quietly changed a note – the G Sharp that she always played wrong was now accurate. And her left hand always gently pressed on the back of Liang Rui’s hand, as if afraid that she would suddenly disappear.