The Rose Again

Right after she hung up the call, Lily's alarm rang and alerted her. When she was about to get out of the room, she heard footsteps approaching the lab. She found it weird to hear Lin Que's voice coming from down the hall because he always spoke in a low volume. Her phone vibrated and a text notification from Lin Que popped up saying, "hide."

"Fuck! Hide where? There's nowhere to hide...." Lily could only hide behind one of the stations, but it was definitely not a safe place to be in. Just in case her phone makes any noises, she set it on silent mode and covered her mouth.

Lin Que and Alan stepped into the lab looking for something. Alan was distracted by the stacked reports on his desk as he searched for the one file that he needed to scan to a patient. Purposely, Lin Que left the door opened and looked around to see where Lily was hiding.

When he spotted her shadow from one of the stations, Lin Que pointed towards a different stack of files from across the lab, "maybe the file is over there." Listening to his advice, Alan nodded and walked across the room. While Alan had his back towards the door, Lin Que signaled her to leave by pointing towards the exit.

Lily used this opportunity to get out of there and ran as fast as she could to Lin Que's office. She inhaled and exhaled heavily with her arms on her hips as she coughed dry air out of her throat. "Geez, almost died in there from a heart attack. So this is what being a spy feels like. Thank god I have no talent in that area."

After 15 minutes later, Lin Que came back to his office to find a lipstick stain on his mug and the content inside of it gone. A sticky note was stuck to his computer screen, "Thank you for the water and everything else, Mwah!" She left her lip signature on the note before she had left his office.

He sighed, "this girl always makes me worried. Let's see...hmmm?" His phone vibrated, and dozens of voice messages were sent from her side. She explained to him everything that happened while she rushed to where Susu and Chen Mu were located.

Lin Que's response to her mountain stacked messages was a simple one, "turn your GPS location on." If she stayed and waited for him, he would drive her on his own. Actually, he had already expected her to be gone by the time he got back because that was how her personality was.

She shared her location with him indefinitely and told him to keep his eyes on Alan. Lin Que already knew what she would want him to do when that report comes out, so he prepared a surprise visit to the lab for a second time.

Meanwhile, Lily drove her car and dialed Susu's number again. Chen Mu picked up immediately and gave her their address since they weren't sure how safe she currently is and they needed to double check the pills to make sure that it was really Susu's medicine. Within half an hour, Lily arrived at Chen residence.

When she walked in, she saw Susu looking overwhelmed and trembling slightly on the couch. Although Chen Mu and everyone else had tried to distract her, but nothing helped. Lily pulled Susu in her embrace and whispered, "don't worry, nobody can harm you. We won't let anybody do anything to you."

Susu couldn't think of any reasons about why Shen Wen and Tian Yuo would steal her medicine. No matter how she thought about it, things only grew creepier. During the time that they were waiting for Lily's arrival, they asked Susu to think carefully about her relationship with the Tian family. The more she thought about it, the more her head started to hurt.

Susu had her eyes closed while Lily comforted her. Suddenly, her eyes widened, "Repeat what you just said." She looked up, and Lily slowly repeated her words again.

"Again." Susu shut her eyes as she focused on the warm tone that Lily used. After Lily repeated for her words for the third time, Susu gasped, "I remember where I heard that from. I remember now!"

Ariana scratched her head, "we all remember too because she just repeated the same words like five times."

"No, no , no. I meant that I remembered when I was little, my mother whispered that to me. She always said that she would protect me and won't let anyone hurt me. That was before she disappeared. My mother was never around during the day and always visited me secretly at night. She said my dad didn't like her going outside, so she stays at a place where he couldn't find her. It was our secret!"

Susu covered her ears with her sleeves and shut her eyes, forcing herself to recall more memories. Unfortunately, she only remembered that much. Chen Mu rubbed her back, "Don't force yourself. You were still young back then, so it is normal to not remember things. How about we listen to Lily's story first?"

"Oh right!!" Lily took out the medicine that she had swapped and walked them through what had happened at the hospital. Chen Mu listened as he double checked the pills to make sure it was really Susu's medicine. After Lily had finished speaking, Chen Mu confirmed that the pills were Susu's medicine.

Xin Ya was the first to break the silence, "what would the Tian family want from Susu? I mean, Susu is sick, but even if they found out about it, would they have helped?"

"Them? Help? That would have been the best sarcastic joke I've heard so far. Whatever they are planning, it isn't something good." Ariana's emotions started conquering her rationality and she started to breakdown in tears as her heart flooded in pain. Chen Nan soothed her back and made her take deep breaths to settle her feelings.

Although Xin Ya and Chen Ting didn't know what happened between the Tian family, Ariana and Chen Nan, it was definitely something deeper than flying abroad. Chen Mu's expression grew uglier by the minute as his hands gripped his phone tightly. 'Ariana's family, Chen Nan's parents...and Susu's mother...'

Susu mumbled, "Now that I think about it...ever since I was young, Auntie Shen Wen always asked me if my mother left me anything. I always told her I didn't have anything from my mother because my father didn't want me to miss my mother so he threw everything of hers away...But she never stopped asking me. She just twisted the words when she asked me indirectly every time."

"Then could it be that you have something that she wants or has been looking for? If you think about it carefully, if she claims that your mom passed away soon after you were born, then why would she ask you about your mother's belongings?" Chen Nan said as he remembered the details that Chen Mu and Susu had said about her background.

The more they thought about it, the more suspicious everything sounded. "it's true...who would ask a child if their mother left them anything like that? It's like she wanted to look for something and she knew that children at your age at that time wouldn't be able to lie about it." Ariana's rasped voice stuttered as she tried to calm herself down.

A sudden thought came across Chen Mu's mind. He turned towards Susu and asked, " Sweetie, try your best to relax your tensed body. Focus on breathing. Good. Good...Now, try and think of the times with your mother. Other than saying that she would protect you, did she give you anything to hold onto? Anything to keep away from other people?"

Hearing his words, Chen Nan comforted Ariana while whispering, "With us here, we won't let history repeat itself, okay? It's alright. I'm here. We can stop them."

She nodded as she wiped her tears away and looked at Susu, hoping she would remember something. Susu grabbed Chen Mu's hands, "The rose design. The rose. That was the last thing she taught me and she told me to always keep it safe wherever I go."

"Do you still have it?" Chen Mu asked.

She nodded, "I have it. When she made it, she used a type of material that would maintain the rose color. She told me that as long as I had this in my hands and didn't tell anyone about it, then I'll be safe. That's where I got the inspiration of creating the....."

Chen Mu's eyes widened along with hers as they figured out the connection. "The rose design..that Karen plagiarized...the layout is very similar to the one that my mom taught me. Could it be that what Shen Wen was looking for been..."

"Very likely that there is something either related to or in the rose that your mother gave you." Lily completed the sentence for them. Although there were many missing information in between, they somewhat found a connection between the series of events.