Ye Jinzhi gave a soft hum of acknowledgment. He took a pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet, crouched down, and carefully placed them by Bella's feet.
Bella looked down, her mouth twitching uncontrollably.
The pattern on the slippers was exactly the same as the one she had seen in the bathroom back then: a chibi version of Ye Jinzhi holding a chibi doll in his arms.
She changed into the slippers and silently followed Ye Jinzhi up to the third floor.
She had expected to be taken straight to the study for a showdown, but to her surprise, Ye Jinzhi stopped at the door of a guest room.
"It's late. Should we... talk tomorrow instead?" he turned his head and asked tentatively.
"No," Bella frowned, her tone resolute.
Her mind was full of questions right now; how could she possibly be in the mood to sleep?
Seeing the determination on her face, Ye Jinzhi didn't insist. He nodded in compromise, "Alright, wait for me a moment, let me tidy up first."
He led Bella into the study, then turned and left the room.
A short while later, he returned carrying sliced fruit, along with some snacks and drinks.
Bella didn't stand on ceremony. She forked a piece of watermelon and popped it into her mouth.
Before she could even have a few bites, he unexpectedly brought over a steaming bowl of tomato beef noodle soup.
She gave it a quick glance; it looked very appetizing and was probably delicious.
"You must be starving, right? Try it and see if you like it."
Bella took a bite. It tasted great, and she instinctively nodded at him.
"I'm going to go wash up first. Take your time eating, just wait for me for a bit."
Bella didn't even look up, merely giving a perfunctory hum.
The moment she heard the door click shut, Bella immediately put down her chopsticks, stood up alertly, and began to inspect the study.
She walked around the room, her frown deepening.
The furnishings and the arrangement of the bookshelves were basically the same as what she had seen when she time-traveled here a few nights ago.
"Not much has changed, really."
Bella muttered softly.
The first night, she had stumbled upon the awkward scene of Ye Jinzhi doing some manual crafting, and later she got so immersed in him tutoring her in math that she had absolutely no idea what time period she was in.
But a woman's intuition told her that she had definitely traveled several years into the future.
After all, the oppressive aura in that man's every movement and his calm, dark demeanor were completely different from the somewhat green and youthful Ye Jinzhi standing before her now.
Then, on the second night, she went to the bathroom and saw the man kneeling on the floor.
Later, when she got hold of the camera and looked down to check the preview images and adjust the aperture settings, the screen displayed the date.
June 5, 2027.
She had silently memorized it at the time.
Bella had a premonition that it definitely wouldn't be the last time.
She would probably travel to the future again, so she could only look for another opportunity to verify it next time.
Bella withdrew her searching gaze and sat back down at the desk.
She picked up her chopsticks and quickly devoured the rest of the noodles. After all, she had gone straight to sleep after school without eating anything.
Almost the instant she swallowed the last mouthful of broth, the study door was pushed open silently.
The young man had changed into a dark bathrobe. The collar hung loosely open, and droplets of water still clung to his skin, trailing down his collarbone and disappearing into his robe.
His wet short hair looked as if it had been roughly run through with his fingers, appearing somewhat messy.
He closed the door behind him and asked naturally, "Are you full?"
Bella put down her chopsticks, met his gaze, and nodded.
Ye Jinzhi walked over slowly, naturally took Bella's hand, and led her to the sofa area on one side of the study.
"Have a seat."
Bella sat down obediently and watched as the young man sat down leisurely right across from her.
The study fell silent for a moment.
Once Bella was settled, she simply stayed silent and slightly lowered her eyes.
At a time like this, whoever spoke first would lose the upper hand. She wanted to see exactly what he was planning.
Ye Jinzhi stared at her for quite a while before lowering his head and letting out a soft chuckle, his voice carrying a hint of helplessness.
"Don't be nervous, Bella."
He took a deep breath, as if trying to suppress the churning emotions in his chest.
When he looked up again, his tone was sincere.
"First of all, I want to apologize to you for all my overstepping behavior."
Bella raised an eyebrow but didn't speak.
She simply leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest and sinking into the back of the sofa.
Seeing her body relax slightly, Ye Jinzhi leaned forward, resting his crossed hands on his knees, his gaze burning.
"Bella... I missed you very much."
"Did... did you miss me?"
Ye Jinzhi spoke softly, his tone carrying a hint of probing and unconcealable grievance.
Bella, sunken into the sofa, just looked at him without giving a single response.
Ye Jinzhi didn't seem to care about the answer. He smiled to himself, a gentle look rising in his eyes.
"It's okay. Bella, you are my doll."
After saying that, as if presenting a treasure, he carefully brought out an exquisite doll from his arms and steadily offered it to Bella.
This was Bella's first time closely examining the doll she had once possessed from a human perspective.
It was indeed a very beautiful doll.
It had seaweed-like brown curly hair that cascaded down its shoulders to its waist, gently fanning out.
A thin layer of bangs on its forehead perfectly covered its eyebrows.
Its eyes were large, like sapphires, clean and translucent.
The face was small with rounded contours, and the skin was so white it seemed somewhat unreal.
The nose was especially delicate and petite, the lips were thin and light in color, with the corners slightly turned up. It looked very obedient yet completely lifeless.
It wore a light purple lace gown, the layered skirt adorned with pearls.
Looking at that face that bore a seventy-percent resemblance to her own, Bella felt an inexplicable chill run down her spine.
"I am not your doll."
Bella shifted her gaze away from the doll and looked straight into Ye Jinzhi's eyes.
"You are."
The young man spoke very slowly, emphasizing every single word. "The last time I saw you was on June 1st of last year. We got into a car accident, and I lost a lot of blood. It was you... you were the one who spoke and woke me up."
"Are you letting your imagination run wild? Classmate Ye, you're someone who has dominated the top spot in our grade for years. How can you even say something so unscientific?"
Bella shook her head, as if looking at an incurable lunatic.
"Classmate Ye, look closely. This is made of silicone. How could a doll possibly speak?"
She tried to shatter his fantasy with common sense, but the young man in front of her didn't waver in the slightest. Instead, the corners of his lips slowly curled up into a triumphant smile.
He leaned in a bit closer, his breath brushing against Bella's cheek.
"Bella, have you forgotten?"
He reached out a finger, lightly grazing over Bella's trembling lips, his tone filled with absolute certainty.
"The voice you're speaking with right now... is exactly the same as the voice I heard coming from the doll's mouth back then."
"So what if it's exactly the same?"
She shook her head and looked at Ye Jinzhi with a smile.
"There are plenty of people in the world with similar voices. Just based on your one sentence, are you trying to label me as some kind of... monster?"
"Not a monster," Ye Jinzhi let out a soft chuckle.
He maintained his previous posture, his gaze roaming over her lips.
"It's a miracle."
With that, Ye Jinzhi sat back in his seat. His fingertips hovered in the air, tracing the side of her neck from a distance.
"Bella, there are no two identical leaves in this world, nor are there two identical fingerprints."
He murmured to himself, his tone steady, "So, what about voices?"
He paused for a moment. "The thickness of the vocal cords, the size of the resonance cavity, even the position of the tip of the tongue against the teeth... these subtle physiological differences determine everyone's uniqueness."
Bella held her breath. Listening to these words spill from his mouth, she felt as if the blood in her veins had slowed by half a beat.
"There's also the speaking speed, the intonation, and the muscle inertia during pronunciation."
Ye Jinzhi grew more excited as he spoke. His pitch-black pupils locked onto her slightly stiff expression, and he lowered his voice to a whisper.
"When all of these are added together, the probability is infinitely close to zero, Bella."
He stood up again, moving silently to her side, and leaned in close:
"So, Bella, are you still not going to admit it?"
"Or should we discuss that... translucent screen in front of you?"
Bella's disguise shattered completely in an instant. She jerked her head up, her eyes full of unconcealable horror.
"You..."
The words meant to maintain her composure all caught in her throat. She subconsciously looked at the empty space in front of her, which was clearly devoid of anything.
Why?
Logically, only she could see the system panel, not to mention that there was nothing there right now.
Ye Jinzhi naturally caught the change in her eyes, but when he truly saw it clearly, hostility and regret collided violently in his chest.
He shouldn't have pushed her so hard.
Noticing Bella's slightly trembling shoulders, the certainty and composure in Ye Jinzhi's eyes quickly faded, and a sense of unease quietly sprouted in his heart.
When she revealed a vulnerable posture, the one who felt suffocated first was actually him.
"Bella, no matter what you want, I will promise you."
Ye Jinzhi pulled her into his arms, tightening his embrace.
He softened his tone, patting her back gently over and over, as if comforting a frightened kitten.
"As long as you ask," he murmured against her ear.
Resting on the young man's shoulder, Bella, hidden in the shadows where he couldn't see, slowly concealed all the horror and panic in her eyes.
The trembling she had deliberately displayed stopped at this moment. The corners of her mouth curled up slightly, only to vanish in a flash.
"Will you leave again, Bella?"
His voice was kept very low, as if afraid of shattering something, yet his tone couldn't stop trembling.
Bella hesitated and shook her head, meeting those eyes of his that seemed capable of swallowing her whole.
"I don't know. Why... why are you asking this?"
Ye Jinzhi didn't answer immediately. His gaze simply lingered on her face before he let out a soft chuckle.
He raised his hand, his fingertips naturally brushing across her cheek. The pad of his finger gave her delicate skin a gentle pinch, a hint of punishing intimacy hidden in the gesture.
"Because we've met many times before."
The young man's breath was close at hand, his tone full of helplessness. "It's just that you don't seem to remember any of it."
Bella practically embodied a living question mark right then and there. "Huh?"
"Many times?" she muttered, repeating his words and falling into self-doubt. "How is that possible..." She hadn't lost her memory.
Ye Jinzhi stared into her eyes, his gaze darkening slightly before he immediately hid that fleeting gloom behind a gentle smile.
"It's okay. It doesn't matter if you don't remember."
He leaned down, his cool fingertips trailing along her earlobe, his tone tender.
"I will... make you remember, bit by bit."
Bella subconsciously frowned, a trace of wavering actually sprouting in the deepest part of her heart.
"Could it be... that she really forgot?"
But those supposed "many meetings" were clearly a complete blank in her memory.
"Bella, there are no coincidences in this world, only inevitabilities."
He didn't even look at her face, just stared at a certain point in the void and continued:
"You saved me. That makes logical sense. Therefore, the grace of saving my life should be repaid with my body. That is very fair."
Ye Jinzhi turned his head. "Bella, don't push me away, and don't sink into fear. I will stay by your side, just like that summer day when you pulled me back from the cracks of death's fingers."
"Go to sleep, it's late."
He stood up, casually smoothing the loose strands of hair by her ear, and took her hand to lead her out of the study.
"Bella, you'll have to make do with this room for tonight."
Ye Jinzhi opened the bedroom door, his fingertips smoothly pressing the switch on the wall. Warm yellow light instantly filled the room.
"You can move back to your old room tomorrow. Although it's cleaned every day, it's better to check it over again during the day just to be safe."
Bella stopped dead in her tracks, looking at him with utter absurdity on her face. "I... used to live in your house?"
"Didn't you?"
Ye Jinzhi turned back, looking at her against the light, a faint, almost imperceptible nostalgia spreading in his eyes.
He raised his hand and vaguely gestured at her height, his tone carrying obvious indulgence:
"You were so spoiled back then. You'd throw a tantrum over a single extra wrinkle in the bedsheets, insisting that I smooth it out with my own hands before you'd agree to sleep."
Listening to his serious tone, Bella's temples throbbed, and she spoke almost subconsciously:
"You're really full of nonsense."
She crossed her arms, smiling as she sized up this handsome and refined face.
"Even screenwriters wouldn't dare write something like this. Me, spoiled? Insisting you make the bed yourself? Why don't you say I also had to listen to your bedtime stories before I could close my eyes?"
"Heh, that actually did happen."
Ye Jinzhi raised an eyebrow slightly. There was not a hint of guilt in his expression, but rather a certain playful certainty.
"Bella, you actually have your memories, don't you? It's just that thinking back on it now, you feel you were too clingy and it's too embarrassing, so you refuse to admit it to the death?"
The smile on Bella's face froze, and a string of question marks slowly popped up above her head.
She looked at Ye Jinzhi's "I'll just quietly watch you act" expression, and for a moment, she couldn't tell if he was crazy, or if she had actually done such things and simply forgotten.
Seeing that she didn't believe him, Ye Jinzhi leaned against the wall. "Let me think. For example, late one night after watching a bloody suspense drama, a certain someone actually asked me for a bedtime fairy tale.
When I refused, you wouldn't sleep. I told you the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and halfway through, you were so scared you actually covered my mouth."
Bella: ???
"Huh? What's so scary about the story of Little Red Riding Hood? Your screenwriting skills are degrading a bit fast, aren't they? Can't you come up with something else?"
"Is that so?" Ye Jinzhi chuckled softly.
"After the wolf killed the grandmother, it made her flesh into a dish and poured her blood into a wine bottle. When Little Red Riding Hood arrived home, the wolf patiently coaxed her into eating that 'food' herself."
Bella's brows twisted into a tight knot.
The direction of this script... why was it so different from the version she had heard where the big bad wolf got stones sewn into its belly?
Why did it feel so deeply morbid?
"The wolf told Little Red Riding Hood to take off her clothes and throw them into the fireplace, then get into bed. In the end, Little Red Riding Hood was devoured alive by the wolf, without even a scrap of bone left behind."
Bella: ???
"...Finished? That is it? Where is the hunter? What about that plot-device guy with the scissors?"
"The story comes to an abrupt end right here."
Ye Jinzhi spread his hands, his tone flat. Then, he deliberately leaned in close, lowered his voice to a whisper, and intentionally put on a fierce expression:
"So, Bella, you must remember that in the forest, there are not only wild beasts, but also... men with ulterior motives."
Hearing this, Bella felt that this guy was acting so realistically that for a split second, she even started to doubt herself:
Was I really a massive drama queen in the past?
Whatever. As long as I do not admit it, my dark history can never catch up to me.
Even if I really did throw tantrums and make a scene here before, that was something the old Bella did. What does it have to do with the present me?
