When The Fire Went Out | chapter 4

Aves was furious, insisting Henry must’ve realized the jade cicada was missing and hidden himself somewhere to avoid “showing his true form”.

Honestly, I couldn’t help feeling unsettled too.

He was supposed to wait right outside the restaurant. We were only in the restroom for a moment—how did he vanish that quickly?

“Let’s go home first,” I said.

I drove us back.

The moment Aves stepped inside and saw his neatly folded clothes, she got even more irritated.

“You spend way too much money on him.”

“It’s just a few outfits. It’s not like I’m paying him a salary.”

I barely finished speaking when the lock clicked from outside.

My heart jumped.

I rushed to the door right as it opened.

Henry stood there, sweating, keys in hand.

Aves and I stared at him, equally stunned—but I snapped out of it first.

“Henry, where did you go? I told you to wait at the restaurant entrance. We came out and you were gone, and your phone wasn’t working!”

His sudden reappearance made Aves’s theory crumble instantly.

“I was waiting for you two, and an elderly man suddenly collapsed,” he said. “I carried him to the hospital. My phone probably didn’t go through because I was in the elevator.”

“An old man fainted?”

I rubbed my chin. The timing seemed almost… too perfect. We hadn’t been in the restroom that long.

Aves’s voice dropped sharp as a blade.

“Which hospital?”

“The Third Hospital.”

That was the nearest one. Ten minutes away on foot.

“Which department did you take him to?”

“ER.”

“What was the old man’s name?”

Her interrogation tone snapped something in me.

“Aves, seriously? What are you even asking that for?”

I understood she meant well, but she had a way of making life incredibly uncomfortable.

She interrogated every boyfriend I’d ever had like she was booking a suspect at a police station.

Four exes—two of them broke up with me directly because of her.

Both said the same thing—If you don’t cut her off, don’t even think about getting married.

That was why I didn’t tell her when Henry moved in.

I slipped up later, and she’s been hostile ever since.

But he never fought back.

Whenever she threw attitude at him, he just smiled quietly and let it pass.

“It’s late,” I told her. “Just stay here tonight.”

We didn’t sleep until two, maybe three in the morning.

I used the excuse of keeping her company and slept with her in the guest room.

The alarm woke me.

I got dressed and headed to the bathroom—

and saw Henry already in the kitchen making breakfast.

Just like always.

A wave of relief washed over me.

Aves had insisted that without the jade cicada he would rot into a corpse overnight…

Well, it was morning now, and he looked very much alive.

Clearly all that “ancestral knowledge” she got from her grandfather meant nothing.

Honestly, I was starting to think she was the one who needed a psychiatric check.

Always dramatic, always ominous, always saying things that sounded like horror movie taglines.