“Lunch is ready.” Auntie Trương smiled warmly when she saw me come out.
I scratched my head awkwardly. I’d slept right through noon. “Where’s Tống Dịch, Auntie?”
“He’s busy in the study. He said to wait so you could eat together.”
“Then I’ll go call him.”
I passed the dining table and glanced at it, then stopped short. Every dish was fiery hot, and two of them were covered in a layer of bright red chilies. Just looking at them made me feel like I was burning up. I loved spicy food and started drooling as soon as I saw it, but Tống Dịch was different. He preferred mild food and couldn’t handle spice.
“Auntie Trương, why is everything spicy today? Isn’t there anything mild?”
Auntie Trương looked startled and a little embarrassed. “I used to make mild dishes, but you’d dump them all out and tell me that from then on, everything had to be spicy.”
I understood at once. That transmigrator had to be the one who caused all this. “I don’t have to eat, but Tống Dịch still does, Auntie.”
“You once scolded him for making a fuss and said he looked down on people who couldn’t eat spicy food. So he started trying to get used to it.”
“Good grief, what was Tống Dịch thinking?”
Since my personality had changed after I woke up, Auntie Trương was even more convinced I’d “lost my memory.” She sighed and continued, “A few times, I saw him clutching his stomach after he ate, drenched in sweat from the pain.”
Me: “…”
That was just too much!
At Auntie Trương’s suggestion, I hurriedly made a bowl of mild tomato noodles. Compared with the lavish spread on the table, my bowl looked plain and simple.
Tống Dịch quietly picked up the bowl of noodles, his eyes red-rimmed. I panicked. “I’m sorry. This is the only thing I know how to make. Just eat this for now, okay? Auntie Trương will make something delicious for you tonight to help you recover.”
He shook his head and blinked several times to keep the tears from falling. “I’m fine. It feels like… after all that bitterness, sweetness has finally come.” Then he saw my worried expression, and a glint flashed in his eyes. “Though… maybe I’m not quite fine.”
Huh?
Tống Dịch told me he’d imagined all kinds of sweet moments after marrying me. Who could’ve guessed that for the past two months, even a bowl of soup noodles had been a far-off dream?
Hearing him say that nearly made me cry! I hurried to promise I’d make it up to him many times over.
The wounded look on Tống Dịch’s face vanished at once. A smug glint appeared in his eyes, as if he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
Me: “…!”
As evening fell, Tống Dịch and I sat in the study, trying to figure out who that transmigrator was.
I figured that while I was unconscious, she must have switched souls with me. So all we had to do was find someone who’d been in an accident on the same day as me and had also been unconscious for a long time.
I’d always gotten along well with everyone I knew. Once I started working, though, I did have a few competitors.
“It wasn’t anyone from your company. I checked, and they’re all still going to work as usual.” Tống Dịch added, “Besides, after she woke up, she took an extended leave of absence, then got caught up in a marriage not long afterward and quit altogether. She was probably afraid she’d give herself away at work because she didn’t know your job well.”
I frowned and ruled out anyone from my company. No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t come up with anyone suspicious.
“Take your time. Don’t rush.”
My head was spinning. Out of habit, I opened WeChat and scrolled through my friends’ posts. Suddenly, I saw that Tiểu Đồng had posted a baby’s photo the night before, with the caption, “Mother and baby are both safe.”
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “When was Tiểu Đồng pregnant? And now the baby’s already here?”
Tiểu Đồng and I had been close friends for a long time. Later, she got married and moved overseas, and we lost touch. But how could she not tell me about something as big as having a baby?
“Did she come back for our wedding?” I asked.
Tống Dịch shook his head. “Her husband came in her place and said Tiểu Đồng was busy and couldn’t make it. Thinking about it now, she must’ve been in her last month of pregnancy and traveling was difficult.”
I sighed. We’d promised each other that when one of us got married, the other would be her bridesmaid, and when one of us had a baby, the other would be the godmother. But she didn’t have a wedding, and she didn’t come to mine. Now she’d had a baby and hadn’t even bothered to tell me. Our friendship had faded away in less than two years.
I was sitting there feeling down when my phone rang. I looked at the number—oh, it was Tiểu Đồng’s mother.
“Hello, Duyệt Duyệt? Have you eaten yet?”
“Yes, I have, Auntie,” I replied.
“Duyệt Duyệt, Tiểu Đồng hasn’t been answering my calls lately. Every few days, she sends me a WeChat message saying she’s busy and I shouldn’t look for her. But my eyelid keeps twitching, and I have a bad feeling something’s happened to her. Do you know anything?”
“Don’t worry, Auntie. She and the baby are both fine. Congratulations—you’re about to become a grandmother!”
“What? A grandmother? Tiểu Đồng… was pregnant?”
I froze. “You didn’t know? She just gave birth to an adorable baby boy yesterday.”
“Oh my goodness, I had no idea! She and I aren’t very close; she only calls me once every two weeks. But I haven’t been able to reach her for three months, and she didn’t tell me about something this important. Honestly…” Her voice turned reproachful.
Standing beside me, Tống Dịch heard her and frowned. I knew exactly what he was thinking.
Suppressing a sigh, I tried to keep my voice calm. “Why don’t you try calling her again?”
“All right, I will. Thank you so much, Duyệt Duyệt.”
After hanging up, I took Tống Dịch’s hand and murmured, “She’s my best friend.”
“She might even be the person who knows you best.”
I shook my head emphatically. “It can’t be her.”
“But no one’s been able to contact her for the past three months.”
“She just doesn’t answer the phone. She still replies on WeChat.”
“Anyone could be replying on WeChat.”
I thought for a moment, then said, “She and her mother have never gotten along very well. Maybe Tiểu Đồng was moody late in her pregnancy and just didn’t want to talk to her mom.”
Tống Dịch fell silent and said nothing more.
This dragged on and on, until Tống Dịch and I decided to fly overseas and get to the bottom of things with Tiểu Đồng. But when we arrived, we were stopped right outside the door.
“I’m sorry, but the lady of the house went to a private postpartum care center to recuperate. She hasn’t been home lately.”
“Then we’ll go to the postpartum care center to see her.”
“I’m sorry, that postpartum care center has very strict privacy rules and doesn’t allow visitors.” The housekeeper hurried to refuse. Seeing how serious we looked, she added, “Besides, the lady of the house cares a lot about her appearance. Her figure’s changed after giving birth, and she doesn’t even want to see the master right now.”
Tống Dịch gave a cold laugh. “Does she not want to see us, or is she afraid to?”
The housekeeper’s face went deathly pale, as if we’d hit a nerve. “Who are you, anyway? What nonsense are you talking about?”
“I was just asking offhand. What are you so nervous about?” Tống Dịch kept his voice calm.
“Um… I have to go to the market. You two should leave.”
Tống Dịch watched her for a moment, then took my hand and led me away. We rented a hotel room nearby. My thoughts were in turmoil the whole way, and I didn’t feel like saying a word.
Tống Dịch gently tucked my hair behind my ear. “Duyệt Duyệt, you need to prepare yourself.”
The look of resolve in his eyes made me uneasy.
“There’s something we overlooked. She’s been unconscious for the past three months. After waking up, she wouldn’t have been able to function normally right away. She would’ve needed time to recover. That’s why she’s avoiding us.”
I tried to argue back. “But how could someone who’s unconscious have a normal pregnancy? The chances of that are so low.”
Tống Dịch pressed his lips together and looked at me, his expression complicated. “I just had someone look into it. They’ve fired all the old housekeepers.”
I suddenly understood. “Maybe having a baby was just an excuse. She was never pregnant at all.”
If she really was pregnant, why hadn’t she told her own mother? She must have made the whole thing up and hidden away in that so-called postpartum care center. Back home, if her mother hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have suspected a thing when I saw her post on social media—not even after she’d been out of touch for more than three months.
“Tống Dịch, I want to know the truth,” I said firmly.
“All right.”
Sometimes, people who seem to have nothing to do with the matter hold the key to the truth. We went to find the old gardener in the neighborhood. To our surprise, we heard a completely different story.