Without a word of reply, she turned, walked out the door, and stormed up the stairs. For the second time tonight, she entered the second-floor hallway.
She made a beeline for the last room at the end of the hall.
Hanrui and his companions had left in such a hurry that they hadn't even turned off the lights, and the bright white glow illuminated the accounting room clearly. On several long tables in the room were piles of half-finished mechanisms, a few rolls of blueprints, and various materials. At the far end of the room lay several thick, rattan-covered ledgers—Milady's heart skipped a beat, and she walked straight toward them.
Sure enough, they were the casino's ledgers, recording the flow of money, material procurement and losses, and personnel expenses. She flipped through them one by one, meticulously at first, afraid of missing a clue. But as she continued, her movements grew faster and faster, until she tossed the ledgers back onto the table in frustration.
The rattan-covered ledgers were undoubtedly important to the casino, but they were utterly meaningless to Milady, as not a single one showed any trace of the Tower Clan Leader's House.
'I have to keep looking.'
Milady quickly began to search the accounting room, though she wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for. 'A letter? A document bearing the Tower Clan emblem? Bank records?'
As she searched, she listened intently for the faint sounds outside. The commotion was significant. That group with her cousin wouldn't be able to solve the problem within a few minutes. As long as she left within ten minutes, she should, in theory, be safe.
She rationally understood the stakes, but as the ten-minute limit drew closer, Milady still felt a sharp, intense unwillingness to accept defeat.
She had hurriedly searched the entire room—the long tables, the desk in the corner, the cabinets—yet she had come up with nothing.
'On second thought, maybe I shouldn't be surprised.'
'Underground businesses are a serious matter. If I were the Clan Leader, I would never leave a paper trail. All profit transfers and arrangements could be handled entirely through proxies. Besides, an accounting room isn't exactly a private place. Why would crucial evidence be kept here?'
TICK. The hand of the clock clicked forward again.
She didn't know if it was just her imagination, but the clamor she could faintly hear through the brick walls moments ago seemed to have quieted down considerably. At the very least, it was no longer audible from the accounting room at the back of the casino.
'Are they on their way back?'
Milady's palms were slick with sweat. Torn between leaving and continuing her search, she stood frozen behind the desk, wasting several precious seconds.
She was only seventeen, after all. She had repeatedly forged paths out of seemingly impossible situations, yet now, despite all her scheming, she had run into a dead end. Her wits and tenacity seemed spent. The shadow of her failure to find evidence weighed on her heart, real and heavy, as if mocking her for her naivety, for underestimating the world of adults.
Milady slumped into the chair, staring blankly at a document on the desk. She had already read it; it had nothing to do with the Tower family. 'Other than the seal at the bottom revealing that Hanrui's full name is "Hanrui Flower," it's completely usele—'
'Wait.'
Milady shot upright.
'Hanrui Flower uses a seal.'
'I'm so stupid. How did I only realize that now?'
'His seal has to be somewhere nearby... They left in such a hurry, they wouldn't have had time to lock it up again.'
After a frantic, two-minute search, Milady found Hanrui Flower's seal in the drawer of a small cabinet beneath the desk.
The moment the seal was in her hand, she didn't want to linger for another second. She stuffed it into her bag and bolted from the room. It was as if her mother, too, was anxious for her, trying to push her out the door. For once, Milady's escape went smoothly, without any mishaps. When she finally slipped out from a corner of the casino hall and plunged into the cool night air, she realized her calves felt weak and she was covered in cold sweat.
She was now one step closer to the day she would see the Clan Leader fall from power.
When she finally got home, Milady felt completely drained of strength, surprised that she had managed to get through the night at all. She collapsed onto her bed and spent a long moment just catching her breath.
'I was such a fool. If I couldn't find any evidence, then I just had to create it myself.'