He turned without another word and went back to fussing over his garment racks, dragging them even farther from her general direction before disappearing downstairs. A small, petty gesture that landed more pointedly than he probably intended.
It's not like I knew you were up here, she thought, mildly offended, before deciding it wasn't worth the energy. She waited out the fire alone, watching the doll burn down to ash before carrying the cooled bin back to her apartment to finish unpacking gifts.
"I want pizza," she announced to no one, staring at the neat rows of pre-portioned, nutritionist-approved meals filling her fridge. Doctor's orders. Lin Lin's enforcement. She reheated dinner with the enthusiasm of someone facing a punishment and ate it while texting her manager increasingly dramatic complaints about her food cravings, then spent the rest of the night buried in scripts, weighing her options for the comeback role.
The next morning, for the first time in her adult life, she slept straight through her body's usual five a.m. alarm-free wake-up call. A habit baked in from years of early call times for hair and makeup. A year of comatose stillness, apparently, had finally broken that internal clock for good.
"Starving," she muttered, wandering out to find breakfast already laid out — two boiled eggs, a tuna sandwich, fresh apple juice, courtesy of her assistant's early morning visit. "Xiao Chan really wants to break my heart, sending texts like she cooked all this herself," she grumbled and surrendered to reality, peeling the boiled egg.
She caught up on her socials while eating. Her discharge had stayed a trending topic overnight. An avalanche of well-wishes drowning out the handful of predictable trolls. It warmed something in her chest, reading through hundreds of strangers genuinely relieved she was okay.
After cleaning up, she changed into workout clothes for a light morning jog, repeating her usual mantra under her breath: stay fit, stay pretty — and opened her front door directly into a happily wagging tail.
She crouched immediately, charmed despite herself, scratching behind the dog's ears as it leaned its full weight against her hand. He's so adorableeee!!!
When she raised her eyes, she found a familiar pair of crimson ones looking back at her.
"Good morning," she said, smiling.
He didn't answer right away. Behind him, the dog suddenly went rigid, ears pinned back, a low growl building in its throat as it stared past her shoulder at something she couldn't yet see.
"Arthur, calm down," the man murmured, frowning at his dog's strange behavior.
Ding Jia, against every instinct telling her not to, turned to look at whatever had set the dog off.
What stood several feet behind her stopped her cold. A woman, barely clothed, blood pooling silently beneath her bare feet. Bruises mottled her arms in dark, ugly patches. And her eyes — flat, hollow, lifeless — were locked directly onto the growling dog.
Then, slowly, deliberately, they shifted.
Onto Ding Jia.