Evanescent Dreams

24. Snow...

When they arrived at Snow Pharmaceuticals, Ye Xue was nowhere to be seen. 

"Our CEO just left half an hour ago," a lady at the front desk told them in an indifferent voice. "She has no schedule today, so will probably not be back until tomorrow. Come back then."

"She ran away..." Chen Siyun murmured to herself and exchanged a glance with Lin Xingren, who had been mute since their encounter with Liu Gujing. 

Lin Xingren scanned the grey and cramped cubicles behind the automatic sliding doors next to the front desk. She could hear the crunching of potato chips and ringing phones. 

"Are the labs in a different building?" she asked the lady.

"Yes, this is only the office part of the company, go to XX street if you're finding for the lab," the lady mumbled, "although I'm not quite sure why you need to go there."

Lin Xingren's mind was cloudy, and she was tired of caring about rules, people, everything. Seeing the lady preoccupied with doing something in her computer, she stepped through the sliding doors before anyone could notice. 

It's not like anyone cares. 

She walked through the mazes of cubicles, desks, hunched backs, and spotted the office with "CEO Ye Xue" written on the door. She squeezed the cold door handle and pushed open the unlocked door. 

A faint scent of vanilla wafted into her face. The minimalist office consisted of nothing more than tidy shelves with books and piles of documents stacked on a wooden table at the back of the room. 

She rummaged through anything that may give any suggestion of Ye Xue's involvement in the murders, but there was nothing. All the books and documents were related to her work at the company. 

Finally, Lin Xingren scanned the desk, now clear of papers, one last time, and noticed a humble picture frame next to the computer. 

I wish I could open that computer, she sighed and held up the picture frame to her. 

Her brow twitched at the old photo that had 2014/3/02 written on the bottom left corner. 

Her eyes widened in gradual realization that the boy inside the photo was Ye Zhen, only a bit younger than the one she saw seven years ago. 

It was a family photo. A tall and bright girl, likely Ye Xue, stood next to him with her hand draped over his shoulder. Behind them were two adults. The dad's face was covered with blotches of dark ink. 

Lin Xingren openly wondered about his past and his situation for the first time. She could not pretend her disinterest anymore. Her mind yelled. What happened between him and his sister? What happened to their dad?  What happened seven years ago? Who is Ye Zhen?  

---

"Snow..." 

His dimly reddening eyes didn't show less pain than hers. 

Ye Xue froze in her tracks and he turned her around to make her face him. 

"Hey...Zhen." 

She blinked back her tears and looked away to evade Ye Zhen's stare.

"You look all grown up. I think you still look better with light colored clothes, though,"  her smile was trembling.

"I really should get going-"

"How have you been doing?" he was quiet and withdrawn, but he didn't look away. This behavior from him brought more uneasiness than him exploding. 

"I-I..."Ye Xue bit her lip and squeezed her lab coat.