“Miss Rong, is there anything in particular you’d like to eat?”

Once they had moved into a new private room, Yao Na passed her the menu. Rong Qian waved it off. “I’ve already eaten — order whatever you like.”

Yao Na nodded and handed the menu over to Zong Yutang. After selecting a few dishes, he asked Rong Qian almost in passing, “Miss Rong, can I get you something to drink?”

It was the first thing Zong Yutang had said to her since they’d sat down. Rong Qian looked up at him. Their eyes met, and Zong Yutang was inexplicably seized by nerves. “Miss Rong — is something the matter?”

“You know me.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

Zong Yutang nodded quickly. “Yes — though at this moment, Miss Rong doesn’t yet know me.”

Rong Qian narrowed her eyes slightly. In truth, she had felt a subtle wrongness since some time ago. Now, hearing Zong Yutang’s words, she finally understood what was off.

Her position had been reversed.

Once, she had been the one who knew what the future held. But now the tables had turned — she had become the one who knew nothing.

“There’s no one else here now. Go ahead and tell me — how did you know I would come here?” She paused after asking, then offered a guess: “Or is it that I told you myself, and asked you to come find me?”

Yao Na thought for a moment. “You could say that — and you could also say that’s not quite right.”

“What kind of answer is that?” Rong Qian frowned. She wanted something definite — not this hedging from both sides.

Yao Na told her: “You did tell us who you were — but it was Shen Yi who instructed us to come find you on this particular day.”

“Shen Yi?” Rong Qian was taken aback. If it was Shen Yi, that meant he had eventually come to know that she wasn’t some time-traveller after all…

The thought sent a sudden urgency through her, and she immediately asked: “Is Mu Chaoxue actually Shen Yi?”

But Yao Na’s expression turned genuinely puzzled. “Mu Chaoxue? Who is that? How could he be Shen Yi?”

“Is there any possibility — any at all — that Shen Yi didn’t actually vanish from the ship back then, and instead changed his name and went into hiding?” Rong Qian placed herself in the mindset of a police officer, analysing the situation with cool rationality. She needed to rule out every possibility.

Yao Na was visibly shaken by the question. “Miss Rong, why would you think that? Shen Yi — he really did die.”

“He died?” For some reason, that word — died — sat painfully in Rong Qian’s chest.

Yao Na glanced at Zong Yutang, whose expression had also grown grave. He took over, his voice low and measured: “Miss Rong, the fact that Shen Yi was officially declared dead — that is beyond dispute. Given the circumstances, he had absolutely no possibility of survival.”

“What do you mean? Explain yourself clearly.” Rong Qian knew Shen Yi had disappeared at sea, but she had never known the details.

Zong Yutang lowered his eyes, his voice quiet and heavy: “Before he fell overboard, he had already been shot in the chest. His disappearance was simply what was announced publicly. In reality — he died on the spot.”

Rong Qian’s pupils contracted sharply. The words — shot in the chest, died on the spot — caused her heart to clench involuntarily, the pain so acute it was almost difficult to breathe.

Even so, she forced herself to stay analytical. “The reason I suspected Shen Yi might not be dead is that an elderly man has recently appeared — someone called Mu Chaoxue. He looks very similar to Shen Yi, and he has lost his memory, with no recollection of his past.”

Yao Na and Zong Yutang exchanged a glance, and what passed between their eyes was mutual bewilderment.

After a brief hesitation, Yao Na asked: “Miss Rong, where is this elderly gentleman who calls himself Mu Chaoxue? Would it be possible for us to meet him?”

“Unfortunately, he went missing after meeting with Thomas — and the meeting took place at your casino.”

“At Hongxing Casino?” Yao Na was surprised, but she shook her head — she had known nothing of it.

With that on the table, Rong Qian decided there was no point in holding anything back. She said directly: “I came here wanting to ask you a few things. I hadn’t expected you to come looking for me yourselves — but since you’re here, I’ll be blunt. Did you send someone to attack me?”

When it came to uncovering the truth, Rong Qian brought no personal feeling to the process. On the contrary, when her own safety was involved, she was only more impartial.

Thomas, Hongxing Casino, an attack, the Yao Family — these threads woven together made it very difficult not to point the finger in their direction.

That said, suspicion was one thing. Whether it was actually true was another matter entirely.

Yao Na, upon hearing that Rong Qian suspected them of ordering the attack, was so startled she rushed to clear her name — she was practically on the verge of swearing an oath.

Watching Yao Na’s flustered reaction, and weighing it against her own analysis, Rong Qian also felt that the likelihood of them being responsible was low.

As for why — perhaps it was simply because they were people Shen Yi had trusted.

Just as Rong Qian believed, without a shadow of doubt, that Shen Yi would never harm her.

“Shen Yi, Thomas, and Shen Fengran — what exactly happened between them back then?” Rong Qian didn’t want to keep guessing. She needed to know the precise nature of the relationships that had existed between these people and Shen Yi.

Yet the account Yao Na gave aligned closely with what Rong Qian had already pieced together.

Shen Fengran had indeed been at odds with Shen Yi — the two of them locked in a persistent struggle, both open and covert. As for Thomas, he had also been making trouble for Shen Yi from the shadows.

And unfortunately, while Yao Na knew that both men had been adversaries to Shen Yi, she had little knowledge of the specifics. The main reason was that Shen Yi kept everything to himself, dealt with things on his own terms, and rarely shared what was weighing on him.

Getting so limited an answer, Rong Qian couldn’t pretend she wasn’t disappointed — but she set that aside. Getting back to the point, she said to Yao Na: “All right. Now you can tell me — what did you actually come here for?”

Yao Na glanced at Zong Yutang. He nodded, rose from his seat and left, returning a few moments later carrying a black bag. He opened the zip and reached inside, drawing out an old, well-worn camera.

Rong Qian blinked. “This is…?”

“This is the camera that Steward Fu used to photograph you.”

She had already half-guessed it — but hearing it confirmed from Zong Yutang’s own lips still left Rong Qian visibly astonished. This was the one? After all these years, it had survived.

“Miss Rong, this is what Shen Yi asked us to pass on to you.”

Zong Yutang placed the camera in her hands and said with solemn care: “There is one last frame of film left in this camera. He wanted you to take a photograph with it.”

“When you go back through time to find him, you must make sure to bring that photograph to him.”