Forget it... I should just stop speaking...
Turning around, he hastened his footsteps, intending to quickly leave the room to cool himself down.
But—
Standing in front of the door, Lin Jiage reached for the knob and tried to twist it, but the knob wouldn't budge.
Huh? What's going on? Why isn't the door opening?
Lin Jiage tried exerting more strength to twist the knob, but that only caused a series of banging sounds. Behind him, Shi Yao, who had just finished blow-drying her hair, turned around and asked, "What's wrong?"
"The door's stuck, I can't open it…" Lin Jiage said as he persistently fiddled with the knob, creating a relentless stream of clanging sounds.
"Why would the door get stuck all of a sudden?" Putting down the hair dryer, Shi Yao jogged up to the door and examined the lock closely.
After examining it for five seconds, she shot a strange look towards Lin Jiage and asked, "Isn't it reverse-locked? It should be fine once we unlock it with the key…"
Isn't this just common sense? How can he not know this?
After hearing Shi Yao's words, only then did Lin Jiage suddenly remember that he'd locked the door earlier in order to...
It was a good thing she reminded him, or else he would still be caught up with that issue concerning the erotic manga.
"You're right…" Lin Jiage replied calmly as he let go of the doorknob and fumbled through his pockets.
He emptied out everything in his pockets, but the key was nowhere in sight.
Perplexed, he mumbled under his breath, "Hm? This is weird. Where's the key? Did it slip out when I was sitting on the sofa?"
While talking contemplatively to himself, Lin Jiage walked over to the sofa.
"Hm? Why isn't it here either? I'm pretty sure that I took the key with me just now…" Since I'm going to act, I should make the performance perfect. With such thoughts in mind, Lin Jiage looked at Shi Yao with a baffled expression, "... Did I bring the key up earlier?"
Shi Yao, who hadn't paid attention to such details, shook her head and replied honestly, "I wasn't looking."
Lin Jiage mulled it over for a brief moment before asking once more, "Where did I go after I went into the bedroom?"
Completely convinced by Lin Jiage's acting, Shi Yao replied obediently, "You went to the changing room first, and after that, you walked over to the table to grab the hair dryer for me…"
Lin Jiage conducted a thorough search of the places that Shi Yao had listed, but the key was still nowhere to be seen. Eventually, he even looked earnestly at Shi Yao and asked, "Help me look around too. It might be somewhere unexpected."
"Ah, alright." Shi Yao nodded obediently at Lin Jiage's instructions and then began searching for the key.
Ten minutes passed, and the key still hadn't turned up yet.
"I might have left the key on the kitchen counter when I was preparing your hot cocoa…" As he spoke, Lin Jiage took out his phone. "... I'll call the housekeepers and get them to open the door for us."
"What? You went back to your hometown and can't return for now?"
"Ah? You went to the suburbs to view the flowers with your friends?"
"You want to resign? Are you serious?"
"Your husband cheated on you and you're trying to catch the vixen now?"
"..."
Lin Jiage looked as if he was going through the phone numbers of the housekeepers, but in truth, he hadn't dialed a single one of them at all. After 'hanging up' the call of the last housekeeper on the list, he turned to Shi Yao and said, "They're really getting less and less professional nowadays…"
"... It looks like I can only call Auntie Sun. Maybe she can find some time to return here…"
Lin Jiage flipped through his phone records and found Auntie Sun's number. With an exaggerated gesture, he forcefully tapped the screen, but in truth, his finger hadn't come into contact with the screen at all.