The morning after the storm, HanLi Tower gleamed again — restored, polished, and silent, as if the thunder had been nothing more than a rumor
Inside, the rhythm of the corporate machine resumed — phones ringing, shoes clicking, voices measured. But for Ayla, something felt different. The storm had left behind a hush inside her — not fear, not quite peace, but a quiet recognition that someone had seen her break, and hadn't turned away.
When she entered Jianhao's office that morning, he was already there — reading through financial reports, perfectly composed. No trace of the night before.
"Good morning, sir," she said softly.
He looked up briefly, eyes cool but unreadable. "You're late by three minutes."
Ayla blinked, startled. "I— the elevator—"
"Excuses," he said flatly, turning another page. "Be on time tomorrow."
The words were sharp, but his tone lacked its usual venom. It was almost as though he was forcing the coldness — like a man trying to reassert the distance he had accidentally broken.
Ayla bowed slightly and moved to her desk. The air between them was tight, cautious, threaded with something unsaid.
That afternoon, the elevator chimed — an unusual visitor stepping onto the top floor.
Every employee on that level straightened instantly. A presence like that didn't need introduction.
Madam Han, Jianhao's grandmother — the matriarch of the Han family and, in many ways, the quiet soul behind the empire. Her silver hair was gathered neatly, her expression serene but sharp with perception. She had built dynasties out of intuition and empathy long before her grandson learned to build with iron and logic.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Han," the staff greeted, bowing respectfully.
Her gaze, however, swept the floor and lingered — stopping on Ayla.
For a heartbeat, she simply looked. Then, with a slow, almost tender frown, she approached.
"You… must be new," she said kindly.
Ayla stood quickly. "Yes, ma'am. Ayla Rehman. I work under Mr. Li."
Madam Han studied her face — not rudely, but with the care of someone tracing a memory. Her eyes moved to Ayla's arm, where the faint outline of the flower mark rested beneath her sleeve.
Something flickered — confusion, disbelief, and a sudden ache of remembrance.
"You look so familiar, child…" she whispered, almost to herself.
Ayla smiled politely, unaware of the storm she had just stirred in the old woman's heart. "Perhaps we've met before, ma'am?"
"No," Madam Han murmured. "Not met. But… maybe crossed paths."
Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached out, then stopped. "Do you draw, my dear?"
The question startled Ayla. "Sometimes. Sketches, mostly."
Madam Han's breath caught — because years ago, there had been a little girl in her garden, sitting under the plum tree, drawing flowers on scrap paper. A child her son had taken pity on — just before the scandal, before everything shattered.
But that child was gone. Lost in an accident, the papers said.
Madam Han blinked back the sudden sting in her eyes and forced a smile. "You have gentle eyes. It's rare in this place."
Then she turned — calm, collected — and walked into Jianhao's office without waiting for permission.
Inside, Jianhao rose immediately.
"Grandmother? You should've called. I'd have—"
"You're too busy for calls," she said lightly, sitting down across from him. "I thought I'd visit before I forget your face."
He sighed — a familiar dance between affection and exasperation. "You see me often enough."
"Not really," she said. "Not the real you."
She glanced toward the glass partition where Ayla's desk stood just beyond.
"That young woman… Ayla, is it? She reminds me of someone."
Jianhao's gaze flicked briefly toward the glass — then back. "Coincidence."
"You didn't even ask who I meant."
"Because I know what you'll say."
She smiled knowingly. "You think you do. But tell me, Jianhao — have you ever seen that birthmark on her arm?"
He froze for half a second.
Then, deliberately, "I don't make a habit of noticing my employees' arms, Grandmother."
Her voice softened. "Noticed or not, some things find you again. Whether you want them to or not."
After she left, Jianhao stood by his window, watching her car disappear down the boulevard.
Something in his chest shifted uneasily.
He remembered — faintly — the image of a little girl in his grandmother's garden, years ago. Barefoot, drawing a flower in the dirt with a stick. He had been Eleven, sullen, lonely. She had smiled at him once — that pure, unguarded kind of smile that made the world seem less cruel.
And then one day, she was gone.
The memory flickered like lightning — brief, uninvited, and impossible to chase.
That night, Madam Han opened an old wooden chest in her study. Inside were ledgers, faded photographs, and a worn letter with a name written in childish scrawl:
Aya.
She unfolded an old orphanage record — Han family sponsorship, dated ten years prior.
Her hand trembled slightly as she whispered to the empty room,
"You can't be… but what if you are?"
The past, long buried under years of silence and corporate steel, was beginning to stir.
And for the first time in years, Madam Han prayed she wasn't seeing ghosts.
Night at HanLi Tower had its own silence — not peace, but pressure.
Ayla stayed late, as always, her lamp glowing softly against the glass. Down below, the city rippled in lights — a sea of motion that never truly slept.
Inside the office, paper rustled softly.
She was sorting through financial reports, annotating with her usual meticulous hand — cursive letters, fine and steady.
What she didn't know was that behind the closed doors of a quiet estate, another hand was tracing those same letters on an old orphanage form — trembling with disbelief.
Madam Han's study smelled of sandalwood and paper. Rain tapped faintly against the window as she sat surrounded by old files she hadn't touched in years.
A photograph lay before her — a faded picture of her garden, with two children in the corner.
One boy, serious-eyed, half-hidden by the shadows of the tree.
And beside him, a little girl with a sketchbook, smiling at the camera — her sleeve rolled up, the faint shape of a flower birthmark visible on her forearm.
Her heart was clenched.
She whispered, "Aya…"
The child had vanished after the fire at the orphanage ten years ago.
The officials had sent a letter: Missing, presumed dead.
But now, years later, a young woman with the same birthmark, the same eyes, and the same gentle stillness stood in her grandson's office — alive, unknowing.
Madam Han's breath trembled as she folded the photograph again.
There were no questions anymore.
Only proof to be found.
Two days later, she visited the Xinyi Orphanage Archives — a small, forgotten building on the city's outskirts. The clerk, a kindly woman with gray hair, looked startled when the elegant visitor stepped in unannounced.
"I'm looking for records from the Han sponsorship program," Madam Han said softly. "Year 2015 to 2017. Under the name Aya."
The clerk nodded slowly and vanished into the back room. After several minutes, she returned with a dust-covered file.
"This is all we have. The fire destroyed most of the old records."
Madam Han took the folder with trembling hands. Inside were a few charred papers — attendance slips, medical check-ups, a letter of transfer marked 'Relocation – Confidential.'
The signature at the bottom of the sponsorship letter caught her eye.
Han Zemin — her late son.
And beside it, in smaller letters, Aya Rehman.
Her throat tightened.
"Rehman," she whispered. "So she kept it. A trace of where she came from."
She thanked the clerk, concealing the storm inside her, and drove back in silence.
That evening, over dinner, she studied Jianhao across the table.
He was as precise as ever — every movement calculated, every thought sealed behind that immaculate calm. But lately, she had noticed something shift in him — a quiet distraction.
"You've been restless," she said finally.
He glanced up. "Work never stops."
"No, that's not it. You've been thinking. About her, perhaps?"
He frowned, irritated. "Her?"
"The young woman in your office."
He set his fork down. "Grandmother, she's an employee."
"You keep saying that," she replied softly. "As if you're trying to convince yourself."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Jianhao muttered, "She just reminds me of someone. That's all."
"And who is that?"
He looked away.
The image surfaced unbidden — a girl sketching in the dirt, sunlight caught in her hair, humming to herself. A drawing of a plum blossom she had shyly shown him.
And then — the fire, the panic, the missing reports.
"It doesn't matter," he said sharply. "It's coincidence."
Madam Han reached across the table, her voice low but steady.
"Coincidence doesn't write in the same hand, Jianhao."
He froze. "What?"
"Her handwriting," she said quietly. "I saw it when she signed the delivery forms. It's the same — the loops, the slant, the pauses. I'd recognize it anywhere."
He said nothing.
"Some stories," she murmured, "refuse to stay buried."
That night, Jianhao sat in his office long after everyone left.
The reports before him blurred.
He found himself glancing at Ayla's handwriting on the margin of a page — the same delicate curl at the end of her letters.
He compared it to the faint memory of a drawing from his childhood — that same shape, those same initials she had written under a plum blossom: A.R.
His jaw tightened. He shut the file abruptly.
"Coincidence," he said under his breath.
"Just coincidence."
But deep down, something in him no longer believed it.
The next morning, when Ayla entered the office, she found a new tension in the air. Jianhao looked at her differently — as if searching for something invisible.
That night, as the rain began again, Madam Han stood by her window, the orphanage file open beside her.
Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the words written in a child's shaky hand:
"Aya dreams of drawing gardens again."
She traced the line gently, her voice a whisper lost to the rain.
"Then maybe it's time, little one," she murmured. "Time for the garden to remember you."
Time for the garden to remember you.
To remember you