Amnesia Trap (GL) - Chapter 52

When the IV drip continued into the afternoon, the high fever finally showed signs of subsiding.

Ji Qingfan’s posture relaxed, and her breathing became steady. Sheng Zhi wiped her sweat whenever she saw it, keeping watch by her side without moving an inch. She wasn’t quite prepared when she suddenly met a pair of eyes that had opened at some unknown moment.

Her fingertips jerked, her grip failed, and the towel—still warm from the water—fell with a splat onto Ji Qingfan’s face, perfectly covering her eyes.

Sheng Zhi froze for a second before whisking the towel away. Every script she had prepared in her head seemed to vanish in that instant. When she spoke, she nearly tripped over her own words: “Ah, you’re awake. Do you… want some water?”

She was speaking to her but wouldn’t look at her; she was so awkward she nearly twisted the towel into a rope in her hands. Ji Qingfan looked at Sheng Zhi, then at the stark white walls of the ward, her frail expression suggesting she didn’t quite understand why she was in a hospital.

“You were drugged yesterday, and then we…” At this point, Sheng Zhi’s voice stalled.

Her face slowly turned red. Every subsequent word felt as if someone had a knife to her throat, forcing her to spit them out one by one. After finishing her explanation, she tried to mentally brace herself. Still not daring to look at Ji Qingfan’s reaction, she set the towel aside, stood up to pour a glass of water, and handed it to Ji Qingfan’s lips with feigned naturalness: “Drink some water first.”

Ji Qingfan seemed shocked by the sheer volume of information contained in those words. This was especially evident when she tried to reach for the cup and realized she had no strength.

Noticing her reaction, the tips of Sheng Zhi’s ears instantly burned. Although Ji Qingfan said nothing, Sheng Zhi was on the verge of bristling, her voice sharp with embarrassment: “I’m already holding the cup for you, just hurry up and drink. M-my arm is very sore too, okay?”

Ji Qingfan’s eyelashes fluttered, and she drank the water.

With a thud, Sheng Zhi set the glass back on the side table. After drinking, Ji Qingfan gave two weak coughs and turned her gaze back to her.

Then, Sheng Zhi heard her say: “Jiao Jiao, you must be exhausted from taking care of me until now, right?”

During the time Ji Qingfan was unconscious, Sheng Zhi had imagined many things she might say upon waking, but she hadn’t expected this to be her first sentence. It made her feel even more uneasy.

Sheng Zhi twirled a strand of hair around her finger. She first shook her head, then nodded, and finally huffed: “As long as you know.”

Ji Qingfan gave a soft hum, still looking at her, her tone gradually filling with a sliver of hope: “…Has Jiao Jiao remembered something? Is that why…”

She spoke slowly.

As her voice trailed off, Sheng Zhi suddenly didn’t know what to say. Ji Qingfan’s attitude seemed far too cautious. Listening to her, Sheng Zhi almost couldn’t resist snapping back, “Is that the main point right now?”

She hadn’t missed the expression on Ji Qingfan’s face when she first revealed what had happened. Even for someone as meticulous as her, this was clearly an “unexpected situation.” Yet even with such an accident, the moment she processed it, she immediately adjusted her state to continue her performance.

Ji Qingfan continued talking to her. Sheng Zhi felt a surge of suffocating irritation; she couldn’t listen anymore.

Is profit really that important?

As long as she can achieve her goal, she uses everything she can, and even her own feelings and emotions take a backseat to profit… A conscious Ji Qingfan should find these events hard to accept, considering how much she hates her.

Sheng Zhi should have felt triumphant seeing Ji Qingfan unable to express her true loathing, just like before. But now, she felt an inexplicable fire in her heart—a strange emotion she couldn’t identify. She didn’t even know what she was angry about.

“Stop daydreaming,” she interrupted Ji Qingfan, her tone turning sour. “However, looking at the situation with Jing Mu, continuing our marriage is indeed the best option.”

As if not expecting her to say that, Ji Qingfan’s breathing hitched. Her expression shifted: “It’s okay if you haven’t remembered anything. I’ll work harder in the future to help Jiao Jiao remember…”

Looking at Ji Qingfan like this, Sheng Zhi only felt that nameless emotion surge more violently.

“Last night, you were drugged.” In this strange mood, she repeated the sentence, word for word.

Ji Qingfan’s expression paused, and she leaned slightly toward her: “I know. But last night, Jiao Jiao, you were by my side.” She curved her eyes slightly. “As long as it’s you, it’s fine.”

Sheng Zhi frowned, feeling the stifled emotion in her heart intensify, but she didn’t say anything more. She didn’t know why she felt this way. It was as if the words she wanted to hear weren’t these, and the reaction she wanted to see wasn’t this.

Sheng Zhi ordered a meal, all of which was suitable for a patient but not so bland as to be unappetizing. She pursed her lips, used a spoon to stir the porridge, and fed it to Ji Qingfan.

The atmosphere was odd. Yet Ji Qingfan acted as if she didn’t notice, maintaining a smiling, pleasant demeanor throughout. Like before, she spoke sweet words of love, expressing her hope that Sheng Zhi would remember their “loving memories.” It was as if this accidental event wasn’t as significant as Sheng Zhi thought. After all, in her words, as long as it was her, anything was fine, and she would work even harder to make her remember the past.

She had already gotten her wish to see Ji Qingfan crying and pleading with her; the original one-month deadline had been extended into a vague timeframe. Sheng Zhi could continue to make things difficult for Ji Qingfan and watch her endure and compromise for the sake of profit.

These were the exact things she had been thinking about before this happened. But Sheng Zhi didn’t feel happy at all now. Not only was she unhappy, but her mood remained terrible for several days.

During these days, she took over all the work. Jing Mu’s company couldn’t withstand Shengshi’s deliberate targeting; the internal conflicts within the Jingpang Group were now at a breaking point under the pressure, and the shareholders all had their own agendas. It was on the verge of collapse. They only stayed in Nanrao now to inspect local projects and because Ji Qingfan was still hospitalized. Once the inspections were done and Ji Qingfan recovered, they would return.

Everything was going smoothly, and there was nothing to worry about. As for work, she was becoming increasingly proficient.

Yet Sheng Zhi’s mood remained awful. She wanted Ji Qingfan to keep acting for her, but now she felt a series of bad emotions because she was acting. The more she observed Ji Qingfan, the more she felt that all the thoughts popping up in her head were unnecessary. Her tension, her worry, her guilt, and…

It was all so unnecessary. Because Ji Qingfan didn’t think it was a big deal at all. While she was trapped in her emotions, Ji Qingfan treated the incident as a point of leverage to be utilized.

What did everything that happened that night actually mean to Ji Qingfan? It was just like those kisses. The first time Ji Qingfan kissed her, she just did it—from the initial touch of the lips to the entanglement of the tongue. In the end, she was the only one obsessing over it.

Sheng Zhi tried not to think about it, but the images of that night seemed to work against her, becoming inescapable. She simply couldn’t forget.

She remembered the palpitations; she could recall every look in her eyes and every lingering movement. That night, they were like two plants tightly entwined under a rainstorm. Even in her dreams, those sweet gasps and extreme longings appeared from time to time. She had needed her so much, embraced her, called her name with a tearful voice, and begged her. Her pleasure, her tears—everything shifted because of her.

The intoxicated look and the far too realistic reactions of Ji Qingfan were completely different from her current composed calm and hypocritical performance. This difference became a polarized chasm, splitting her feelings for her to opposite ends. She couldn’t reconcile them.

The more she wanted to forget, the more she remembered; the more she wanted to be indifferent, the more she cared. Sheng Zhi filled her schedule to the brim, minimizing her time with Ji Qingfan as much as possible, hoping this would make her feel better and stop her from thinking about “those” things.

She didn’t know if Ji Qingfan had noticed. But Ji Qingfan would send her messages and voice notes, saying how much she missed her. She would also send photos and videos—it might be a shot she got in the morning, what she had for lunch, the contents of a book she was reading in the ward in the afternoon… she would tell her when she was going to sleep, and sometimes, as if unable to restrain her grievance, she would ask if Sheng Zhi could say goodnight to her.

Once, Sheng Zhi’s hand moved faster than her mind and replied “Goodnight.” The next second, Ji Qingfan sent a voice message. It wasn’t long—only a few seconds. But in those few seconds, Ji Qingfan not only said “I love you so much,” but followed it with an ambiguous, voiced kiss.

It was very lingering. Sheng Zhi, wearing headphones, felt a blush-inducing illusion that she had actually been kissed. In her embarrassed irritation, she chose to “favorite” the message.

As if trying to cover something up, after that message, Sheng Zhi stopped replying to anything Ji Qingfan sent. Yet even her lack of response didn’t dampen Ji Qingfan’s enthusiasm; she continued to share things with her tirelessly, as if merely being able to message her was enough.

When she saw these “reporting” messages from Ji Qingfan, Sheng Zhi told herself she felt nothing and that she would never report or share things with Ji Qingfan like that. However, after a few days, when Ji Qingfan didn’t report in, she couldn’t help but start wondering what she was doing.

Is she resting? Or doing something else?

Her mind drifted, and when she snapped back to reality, Sheng Zhi found that she had sketched the outline of a figure on the white paper in front of her.

Long hair like mist; judging by the silhouette, it was a beautiful character.

But the face, where the features should be, was a complete blank—as if the person holding the pen couldn’t imagine what kind of expression this character should wear.