Monday morning started a little late when Jisoo woke up and found the sun had flown high. Its light was peering through the closed curtains, and from outside the room, she heard Yixing talking to someone in a low voice. She got up and sat on the bed, so wasted after staying up all night in the hospital and only returned at around four in the morning to the hotel. She stared at the wall clock above the door, seeing that it was nine, Jisoo realized he had only slept five hours in total for these two days.

It's been quite a hectic month for them both, well, as usual. Her mother in law started showing the chemo aftermath now after her five-week circles of therapy. She felt a wave of very terrible nausea all day, and given to her age, she was collapsing again after the vomiting had used up all her energy and she had to be admitted to the hospital in Beijing for the second time this month. She was still vomiting when they arrived at the hospital and it was really a breakdown to Yixing seeing his mother was helpless against her intensive therapy in the past few weeks. He stayed by her side all the time, and Jisoo stayed with him for moral support, even though she was feeling so terribly exhausted after the all-nighter.

The guest was gone when Jisoo came out of the bathroom after completing her morning routine. Yixing was sitting at his desk with the laptop on, a handsfree was on his ear while he was reading and signing some documents.

"Who was it?" Jisoo asked as she approached him in his working table.

"My father's secretary. He came by to give me some stuff," he pointed at the pile of files at the edge of the table with his chin.

And Jisoo went to take a look at them. She's actually not someone who wanted to know things in normal times. She never touched Yixing's work, anything that was on his desk at home only became an ornament in her eyes because she wasn't very interested in knowing much about what Yixing was doing—besides that because she also already had enough work to do for herself. Unless Yixing volunteered to tell her about what he was doing, Jisoo never really asked. But today, for some reason she seemed to want to see what he was actually doing. She was inspecting the document files that were piled there one by one when her eyes caught something. Jisoo found an envelope that was slightly different in size than the others, which caught her attention because the envelope looked like it shouldn't be there in the first place.

"What is this?" Jisoo asked again, took the envelope and turned it over. She found handwriting messages that read "To Yixing", and Jisoo was a little curious what it was about by not finding the sender's name anywhere on the envelope. Her feeling said this was strange, because that person wrote only 'Yixing' without mentioning his family name, as if their relationship was quite close. In addition, the handwriting was seemingly written by a woman.

"What was what?" Yixing raised his eyes from the laptop's screen, and Jisoo showed him the handwriting on the envelope. She watched him pause for a moment, as if thinking of who it might be, until a few moments later his mouth opened like he was about to say something, but paused for a moment,

"I think it's from Meng Jia. The police officer left it in the lobby of my father's office a few days ago." he said briefly uninterestedly.

"Have you read it?" She then asked.

He shook his head, "Not yet. I guess if you don't find it, I wouldn't know it even existed." he then shrugged and returned his gaze to the laptop screen right away.

Jisoo opened the envelope and took out the content. There was only one sheet of paper there, which didn't seem to have that much handwriting messages. She unfolded the paper and read the message. And there was only a sentence, but it's enough to make her heart drop to her belly for its shocking revealation.

'You don't actually think that it's really over, do you?'

Jisoo tried to control her face when Yixing raised his head again and looked at her for a moment. She cleared and got back at him,

"You really haven't read it?" Jisoo asked again, just to be sure that he didn't know what was written in it.

And Yixing shook his head again, "No," he said simply.

"I don't think you need to read it then. It's not important."

"Okay." he nodded.

"Okay." she repeated a bit awkwardly. She then raised her eyebrows as she squeezed the letter and took it to the bathroom. She was very grateful because at this time Yixing chose not to ask anything even though her request was rather strange. He might take her being jealous, because he was smiling when he nodded to obey her words, and she wanted to let it stay that way.

Jisoo threw the paper into the toilet and flushed it down. She had no idea what happened, but her hands were trembling at that moment. She was scared all of sudden, she didn't understand it... What did Meng Jia mean by that? What hadn't ended between them? Was there anything else that she tried to hide from him?

She remembered Yixing telling her about his findings when he searched all that woman's residences. Yixing had destroyed the USB containing the only evidence of her actions; what Jisoo was thinking, was this all related to it? If this was what she meant it, then was there another USB that Yixing hadn't found yet?

It felt like her limbs were weakened in an instant, Jisoo rested her palms at the edge of the sink to prop her limp body. Cold sweat damped the side of her face, Jisoo felt the anxiety started to spread throughout her body. She really couldn't understand, what exactly did that woman want from her husband? What was she up to?

The possibility that this was just a bait to attract Yixing's attention had crossed her mind. Yixing always ignored the woman's request, he never accepted her request for an audience. Was this just a bluff so that Yixing was willing to meet her before the execution? Was it really about that? But what if it's not that?  What if Meng Jia really meant that something was still out there, waiting to be revealed to the outside world? What would happen if they still ignored this message? She was afraid that this message was genuine and something's waiting to destroy Yixing in the future.

She raised her head and looked at her face in the mirror. What should she do? She could only ask to herself.

"Baobei, are you okay?"

She caught Yixing's worried gaze from the mirror, he walked into the bathroom and stood next to her in concern.

"You look so pale, what happened?" he lowered the toilet seat and took her hands to guide her to sit on it.

"I'm just a little tired."

Jisoo did feel unwell right now. She just returned from Busan yesterday and rested a few hours before flying to Beijing. She'd been occupied with the IRO office schedule, her foundation was also waiting for an official decree to run as a non-profit firm that Jisoo had been having some meetings with all the lawyer teams to work on their prospective clients' list. At the same time, she also helped Xiaotong to learn Korean, when she wasn't that busy the girl would visit her at the office. They would practice speaking together when she wasn't studying with her assigned language teacher. She was glad to see that her development was quite significant, Yifei wasn't bluffing when she said that Xiaotong was a fast learner, because in just one month the girl was able to have simple conversations smoothly, although Jisoo needed to polish her dialect to sound smoother.

Back in the schedule, July was filled with national conferences and joined-researches with some of the team of other universities. Since all classes have ended, she scheduled more trip activities to the outside Seoul. In between her activities, Jisoo also had to work on her collaborative book with Professor Hauss, as well as a series of interviews with the book editor who was writing her autobiography. She only had free time on weekends, which she spent to fly to Beijing to be Yixing's company, because it was his mother's chemotherapy schedule on weekends. So, yeah, she was very very very wasted right now.

"Oh, Beibei. I knew I shouldn't have let you come with me," Yixing took a towel on the shelf and wiped the sweaty side of Jisoo's face.

"I'm fine, Yixing, I want to be with you. The past week was just quite hectic,"

"Okay, then I guess it's better if you stay in today. I'll go visit my mother and be back at lunch, alright? We're going home early this afternoon."

Jisoo only nodded, having nothing else to say. Staying at the hotel was a good idea anyway, she didn't deny that this was just what she needed the most. She followed him back to the room and sat by the edge of the bed while Yixing was preparing to leave.

"Send my love to your mom," she said.

"I will. You take a rest, get well soon." Yixing gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek, then on her lips before he pulled away to walk out of their suite. Jisoo followed him again to the living room and waved her hand goodbye. "Call me if you need anything!" he exclaimed before the door closed with a soft thud.

And then she waited, she looked at the clock to count of the time.

Ten seconds. 

Twenty seconds. 

Thirty seconds... a minute passed.

She turned around to the bedroom, had herself sit by the edge of the bed again as she reached her phone on the nightstand and dialed a number.

The person she called answered her at the third ring,

"Jisoo? Hey, can I help you?" he greeted, from the sound of his voice Jisoo was sure that he didn't think that she, of all people, would give him a call. Because she never did.

"Luhan, hi, and yes, I need your help." she said right away.

To be honest, Jisoo really didn't know what to do. She didn't really know who Meng Jia was, she knew that woman's story only from Yixing, and that wasn't enough to make her be able to judge with certainty how her character was—aside from the fact that she was shameless. And Jisoo didn't know who to talk to besides Luhan. Yixing had had so many problems that he had to solve, and Jisoo didn't want him to deal with her again. That's why she chose not to tell him about the letter in the first place. Well, it's maybe that, and maybe also because she was jealous. But clearly, she felt like she was in Yixing's position when he decided not to tell her about Taeyeon. For the moment being, she knew that she did the right thing.

And that's why she told Luhan about Meng Jia's letter now. She told him her suspicions, her skepticism that it was a threat, but at the same time the anxiety if only this really meant exactly what was written there. And from the way Luhan responded to her story, Jisoo was very sure that he already knew what happened between Yixing and that woman. Luhan sounded surprised, both didn't expect that the woman would send Yixing a letter like that when it was said that they had 'cleaned up' all the evidence that led to Yixing's connection with her.

"Can you help me to take a look at it? Yixing once told me that he paid a detective to follow Meng Jia last year, maybe he could help us to look even more thoroughly. I want all of her assets to be re-listed, I want to investigate all her family members, her relatives, her acquaintances, we can't miss anything or anyone. Meng Jia has nothing to lose anymore, Luhan. If she really decides to create a new scandal for Yixing, we won't be able to do anything to fight her."

"Okay, don't worry. I'll have my people to take a look into it." Luhan answered.

"And make it fast, alright? We don't have any more time. If we don't have any updates about this by next week, I can't help but have to meet this woman. And you know, I don't like this idea at all."

Jisoo moved and stepped out of the room, sauntering the living room to stand behind the window wall. She leaned the side of her body and her head to the window frame, looking out to the outside view in daze. She really hated this, she was fed up with all the drama. And this thinking suddenly occurred to her, did Yixing also feel this way when he had to deal with her scandal?

Poor Yixing, if what Yixing felt was like this before, she felt very guilty now for making him feel this way.

"I know, Jisoo, I'll try my best. But we can't rule out the possibility that it's just indeed a bluff. I mean, Yixing has done everything all you mentioned before. He even hired some private detectives abroad to investigate Meng Jia's connection outside the country, but the only evidence we found was that USB. She might just want to get attention, I hope you don't think too much about it."

She sighed, couldn't help to think that he's right though. But to really not think too much about this was really impossible, especially if all the possibilities were still open. At least they agreed to investigate everyone who was related to Meng Jia, Jisoo asked Luhan to keep keeping her updated.

"And Luhan, please don't tell Yixing about this. He'd been suffering enough with his mother's condition, I don't want to burden him with this case. You tell all your people to report it to me, don't let Yixing know." she reminded him again.

"Sure thing. I'll call you when we have an update."

When they finished the call, Jisoo went back to the bedroom and slumped herself on the bed. She stared at the ceiling, trying to clear her mind. And because maybe because of the fatigue, it didn't take long for her to fall asleep. She spent the entire day chasing after her much lost sleep, and only woke up when Yixing came back five hours later.

Returning to Korea, they went back to each other's real world. Yixing got another flight on Monday evening to have a business trip to Taiwan, while Jisoo spent her days having meetings and whatnot. She's invited to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family as expert resource for the design of an ethic political amendment in the women's protection law. Jisoo had left early this morning to attend the meeting that only finished around ten o'clock at night, and that would be for a week ahead.

Yixing asked the maid to prepare a herbal juice and have Jisoo reminded to always drink it every morning before leaving for work, because she often forgot to do it if no one did so. Her grandparents also sent her two cartons of red ginseng to maintain her stamina knowing that she could be very frail when she was too busy at work, especially because Jisoo was starting to show flu symptoms at this time. And if she caught a cold, she would need a long time to recover.

Jisoo really had never felt this busy in his life. In retrospect, she had at least one or two days where she would have recess time despite having a lot of activities. At least she still had time to exercise for an hour or two, or could still go home before dinner time. But this month, she felt like she had even no time to have meals, and this was really bad, because her appetite just started to escalate instead, like big time. For the first time in her life, Jisoo put some snacks, which she could have while doing some works, into the shopping basket just because she felt unable to stop eating lately—she must be so stressed out that she even gained weight, God's sake. And for the first time in his life too, Jisoo thought that twenty-four hours was not enough for a one-day cycle. She needed at least thirty-two hours to be able to do all of her activities that then she could get a good night's rest.

She didn't even get to answer Yixing's call when she's at work. When the meeting was in progress they could only chat through online messages. And when she came home, she was too tired to even have a small chat and went to sleep right away after cleaning herself. To be honest, she really had to multitask because day after day her mind was increasingly disturbed by the absence of updates from Luhan. The man texted her several times, but none of the information was completely new. There was nothing to help them to understand what Meng Jia's message meant, all of his investigations ended in a dead-end because Yixing had done all that before. It's really impossible.

"Did you eat anything this evening?" Yixing asked when Jisoo climbed on the bed to get ready to sleep.

She shook her head. Today was her last meeting at the ministry, they supposed to have a group dinner as the closing session for the week, but Jisoo had to skip it because she had some appointments with Sehun and her autobiography writer in his office. The writer slash editor also wanted to speak with Sehun as an additional resource i