Milady felt her palms grow damp with sweat.
She had to come up with a plausible motive immediately, one that would explain everything without raising suspicion… 'What should I say? What can I say to stop Aunt Hong from connecting the dots between Terry, Huai Tuo, and the casino?'
She had only a split second to react. She and Terry never associated with each other, so even a simple excuse like "we were just chatting" would sound too forced.
'That's right, Terry wasn't alone that night.'
"Doesn't Terry go to the park often too?" Not daring to pause for too long, she quickly changed the subject. "She and Wei Lian... they usually go together, you know."
As she put a slight emphasis on Wei Lian's name, a wave of discomfort washed over Milady, and she felt a faint sense of humiliation. How could she let herself be backed into a corner where her only option was to feign interest in some boy?
Milady dug her nails into her palms, a storm of complex emotions churning in her chest. She could never bring herself to feign shyness or admiration, so she simply lowered her head, hoping Aunt Hong would misinterpret the gesture.
"That business with me playing poker against him..." she said through gritted teeth, continuing to feed her aunt clues. "Did you hear about it from Wei Lian, Aunt Hong? Did he mention me? What did he say about me? He wasn't mad, was he? He didn't seem mad that night."
'Never again after today.'
Aunt Hong finally shifted her weight. "Oh, no. Terry told me."
Milady couldn't tell if her aunt believed her.
"This ball... Wei Lian will be there, right?" she added.
Aunt Hong clearly had no interest in wasting time on the topic of Wei Lian. She waved a dismissive hand and changed tack. "How long were you at the casino that night? Why did Terry tell me she couldn't find you right after you all arrived?"
"Ahem... You already know, Aunt Hong. I've never set foot in a casino. I don't even know how to play any of those games. Just looking at them makes me anxious." Milady wrung her hands. She didn't have to feign her nervousness—it was very real. "Terry was mad at me that night and wanted to see me lose money... but I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of everyone. So after we got inside, I snuck off and hid. Once they were gone, I wandered around for a little while and then left too. I didn't dare stay there by myself... The place seemed a little chaotic. I wasn't really paying attention to how long I was there. It probably wasn't long."
"You weren't hurt, were you?" Aunt Hong asked with concern.
Just as the word "no" was about to escape her lips, Milady swallowed it back.
"Hurt?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Why would I have gotten hurt?"
...This Aunt Hong was no easy mark.
Aunt Hong knew far more than she was letting on, and she had deliberately hidden traps in one innocuous question after another, waiting to see if Milady would slip up.
At least an hour had passed between the time Terry and her group left the casino and the moment the White Shark Ship crew caused a commotion. If Milady had casually answered that she "wasn't hurt," it would prove she was well aware of what happened in the casino later—something that couldn't possibly be explained by "wandering around for a little while."
"It's nothing." Aunt Hong frowned in thought for a moment before asking, "That night at the casino, did you see anyone else from the Tower family?"
The moment she heard the question, Milady nearly let out a long sigh of relief. The focus was off her now... which meant she had passed this round of questioning, for the time being.
"Besides our group? Oh, no, I didn't see anyone else. Were there other people there too?"
"I'd like to know that myself." Seeing she wasn't going to get any more information, Aunt Hong gave a vague reply and then suddenly tapped her forehead. "Oh, that's right, I think the date for the ball was changed. I can't quite remember. Tell you what, I'll go ask, and I'll let you know once I find out."
Milady smiled and nodded as if she were greatly looking forward to it, rising to her feet with Aunt Hong. As she walked her aunt to the door, she asked casually, "Where do you work, Aunt Hong? Are you hiring?"
Before leaving, Aunt Hong turned back and smiled at her. "Security."
As Milady slowly walked back to the living room and sat down, the evening sun streamed in through windows that hadn't been cleaned in days, casting the faint shadows of their smudges across the floor.
Ever since Yidan had gone, her home was slowly devolving into a chaotic graveyard. Without someone to wipe, clean, and maintain them, the everyday household objects deteriorated at an astonishing rate, left scattered everywhere as if on their last legs.