Song Jia was working at home when she received a call from Xia Liqin, Song Chen"s a.s.sistant. She answered the call without leaving the sight of the laptop. "h.e.l.lo Young Miss, I will have to trouble you for something." His voice seemed as if he was in a tough situation.
"Go on." She answered while her fingers danced on the keyboard and she turned the phone on speaker.
"Young Miss we are coming back from a site and will take at least two hours to reach C City airport. It seems like the Boss forgot to bring an important doc.u.ment with him." He paused and continued again, "Can you fetch it for us and bring it to the airport directly? If we go to the Mansion now, we will miss our flight to B City."
"Why me? Ask some employee to get it for you."
"You know those are confidential doc.u.ments, can"t be trusted with anyone and if I will take the boss to pick it from the mansion, we will miss the flight. Can you go? I am really sorry for bothering you, young miss."
Song Jia was silent, thinking of ways to reject his request. But before she could reject, he spoke again, "Madam Song has gone to her maiden home, so you can go". Xia Liqin had spent more than half of his life working for Songs, so he knew clearly why she was hesitant, but the doc.u.ments were highly confidential and very important. Apart from Song Chen and Song Jia, no one was allowed to keep it. Not even Wei Xin or Xia Liqin.
"Alright, I will be there. Give me some time." Song Jia hung up and drove to the Song Family Mansion. She felt a little heavy in the heart to see this mansion where she grew up.
Xia Liqin was right, Yue Ling was nowhere to be seen. Seeing Song Jia, the few old maids working at the mansion were quite surprised to see her and greeted her politely. Their surprise was justified because Song Jia never came to the Mansion after she s.h.i.+fted to Wave Manor, except if it was something important. And for the maids who were new, they didn"t even know who she was. Song Jia ignored them and went straight to the study room.
The study room looked just the same as it used to twelve years back. The last time she stepped in here was when she begged her father to not send her to the U.S.A. She still remembered how much she has cried and begged him to not send her but her heartless father didn"t budge. He looked at her emotionlessly and just walked out, leaving behind the crying little girl. She was little back then and his heartlessness. .h.i.t her hard.
Song Jia took a long breath, shook her head to brush off her thoughts and went towards the cabinet where Song Chen used to keep all his important doc.u.ments in. No one was allowed to open that cabinet and it was always locked with a pa.s.sword only Song Chen knew.
Song Jia went to the cabinet and unlocked it with the pa.s.sword Song Chen has messaged her on we chat.
After unlocking the cabinet, Song Jia opened the first drawer in the third row and rummaged in it to look for the file, until she found it. She pulled it out and after locking it back, she was about to leave when she stopped. She came back and unlocked the cabinet again. Ever since she was little, she wanted to see the face of the woman who gave birth to her and then abandoned her. In the entire mansion there wasn"t a single picture of her and the maids back then were not allowed to speak of her mother. She had an inkling that she might find something here if she was lucky. After going through the entire cabinet, which took her a lot of time, she found an envelope at the very back in the lowest row that looked slightly whithered. She pulled out and stood up but the envelope slipped from her hands and a few sepihued photos got spread on the floor. She bent down to pick them up and when she saw it, she felt her hands trembling. This was what she was looking for. The edges looked tattered and worn, and a few pictures that were not kept properly were even stuck to each other and got distorted when she peeled them apart, indicating they had not been touched for a long time.
She looked closely and saw one of the photos, which was still intact had three people, a man who looked like Song Chen in his youth with brown hairs and chiseled face. There was also a woman and a small child wearing a cotton dress sitting on the woman"s lap. Judging from the clothes, the child looked like a girl. Song Jia looked closely and saw a small mole below the child"s lip which Song Jia also had. She has not seen any of her photos of the time when she was an infant. But the date printed on the bottom right corner showed that it was of the time when she would have been one and a half year old. So was this.... her mom? Song Jia"s lips twitched, why did she look so familiar? Familiar like she has seen her recently.
She saw other photos one of which was a wedding photograph of Song Chen and the same woman. This had to be her mother. Song Jia"s eyes got filled with water as strange emotions developed in her chest. There were also two red booklets inside the envelope. They were their marriage certificate. She opened one with trembling hands and read the name. It read, "Liu Anna" and the photo of the same woman and Song Chen was pasted on it. Song Chen looked happy, smiling wide but Liu Anna had a poker face, emotionless. Seeing her Song Jia knew, it was her mother that she resembled. Same hair, same eyes and even the smile of them was quite similar. A teardrop quietly flowed down from her eyes, they were moist but she looked coldly at the photograph and murmured, " So it"s you, my mother. If only you didn"t leave me back then, I might have had a happy family today. A family that would have doted on me and a family in which I would not have to be tagged as a murderer. A family in which my father would have loved me and a family in which I would not have been abandoned for three years. But sadly I have nothing today. My father doesn"t even care to spare a second glance at me. He loves his second wife so much, that he chose her over me. I have a stepmother that hates me to her core and thanks to you I will never get my dad back. You have no idea how much I have craved for you and dad when I was young. Why did you leave me? Did you never feel like coming back and checking on me once? Did you even try to find out if I am dead or alive? Tell me, didn"t you miss me, even a bit?" She complained as if Liu Anna was standing in person and not the photograph she was talking to. After some time, her eyes got colder and she laughed dryly. Her emotions were getting pent up and everything she was speaking, were the words she had always wanted to say to her biological mother. "I guess you didn"t. You must be enjoying your life wherever you are. Right? But you know what? I don"t hate dad, I am just disappointed with him. But you, I will always, ALWAYS hate you. Always!" She placed the photographs back in the envelope, took the file and turned to leave. However, she stopped when she reached for the doork.n.o.b, turned around and came back again. She pulled out the envelope. For some reason which even she didn"t understand she pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the photograph in which she was sitting on Liu Anna"s lap and Song Chen was beside them. She then took a photo of Liu Anna"s marriage certificate too and then placed everything back and left the mansion for the airport.