It was a quiet evening when Aiden noticed a photograph on one of Li Yueran's office shelves—a tiny baby, swaddled in white, cradled in the arms of a woman with impossibly soft eyes. Something in the image, a resemblance too faint to name but too strong to ignore, pricked at a memory buried deep within him.
He confronted her carefully. "Who's this?"
Li Yueran froze for the briefest moment, her eyes flickering with emotions she could not allow herself to display. Then she softened her expression and spoke gently. "That's… someone I lost long ago. Someone very dear to me."
Aiden frowned, suspicion curling in his chest. "Lost?" he asked, unsure what to believe.
"Not lost forever," she whispered, her tone warm, coaxing, like sunlight over frost. "Some people leave your life, but they never leave your heart."
He didn't press further, but that image lingered in his mind. Something in her gaze, her gentle smile, the way she carefully maintained boundaries—everything unsettled him, pulling him toward feelings he didn't yet understand.
Li Yueran's pulse raced. This was a test, a misstep, but it revealed something crucial: the seed of trust could be sown even in suspicion, if handled with care.