Chapter 132 - Should I confront her about this?

After he got back in his own unit, Han Ye dropped his smile. He walked to the couch and sat there for a long time. 

"Xiao Lei... Lost her parents at 10 years old... Smart... Highly educated at a young age... Calls me Coward Ye..." 

He listed down everything that he could remember from his conversation with Xiao Lei. He was almost 70% sure that Xiao Xiao Lei was Fan Wushuang.

Yet his brain refused to accept it. Covering his face with his hands, he groaned, "F*ck... It can't really be her, right..." 

Han Ye suddenly jumped up and jogged to Lu Ziyan's room.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

A few seconds later, Lu Ziyan's voice could be heard coming from the other side of the door. "Come in! It's not locked!" 

"What's up?" Lu Ziyan asked while looking into his closet for his pajamas. Since he was about to take a shower, his shirt was off and laid discarded on the floor. 

Han Ye glanced at the scars on Lu Ziyan's abdomen, which was the physical memory of the accident that resulted in Lu Ziyan becoming an orphan.

After a while, he looked away from Lu Ziyan's abdomen and asked with an awkward tone, "I have something to ask you." 

"Yes?" Lu Ziyan asked while looking at Han Ye with a curious expression. He was holding a set of pajamas as he wheeled himself to the bathroom to hang them inside.

Han Ye thought for a moment before asking, "Do you have any software that I can use for facial recognition?"

Lu Ziyan wheeled out of the bathroom and looked at Han Ye with a curious expression. After a few seconds, he muttered, "I have a few that I used for tracking, but who are you tracking? Do you need my help?"

Han Ye shook his head. He then sat down on Lu Ziyan's king-sized bed before he said, "Erm... I don't need it for tracking. Let me rephrase..." I want something that I can use to age or turn someone's photo younger."

Yawning, Lu Ziyan thought for a moment before he wheeled himself to his computer. He switched it on and looked through a succession of folders hidden under a folder named "Stalker Mode On".

When Han Ye took a peek, he chuckled when he saw a folder named "Punishment for a Cheating Husband". 

Knowing that Han Ye saw that particular folder, Lu Ziyan merely grinned and said nothing else. 

Han Ye watched as Lu Ziyan typed something into his computer. A while later, a series of codes appeared on Lu Ziyan's computer. 

Han Ye wanted to ask what he was doing, but seeing the serious expression on Lu Ziyan's face, Han Ye decided to wait. 

After a while, Lu Ziyan took a USB and copied a folder containing a particular software into it. 

Handing it to Han Ye, Lu Ziyan said, "This is the best for what you want to do. I played with it previously out of boredom. I amended its code slightly based on what the FBI was using back then. Well... I mean back when I was playing with it. It should still be good enough if you just want to play around with aging photos and whatnot. Oh, I've password protected it. It's your birthday divide by three." 

Putting the USB into his pocket, Han Ye asked, "Three?"

Lu Ziyan rolled his eyes and answered, "You don't think that I'd put such a simple password like your birthday, do you?"

"No, but why three?"

"There's three of us in this house..." Lu Ziyan said nonchalantly. He then yawned and said, "Now off you go. I'm tired. I haven't slept much for the last few days." 

After thanking his housemate, Han Ye went back to his own room. He wanted to test out his theory immediately, but he felt slightly tired. In the end, he decided to take a quick shower to freshen up.

Once he was out of the bathroom, he quickly dried his hair before throwing the towel away. After that, he sat in front of his laptop while waiting for the file to be transferred from the USB into his laptop. 

"Do I want my assumption to be right or wrong?" he thought as he looked at the progress bar. 

Once he set up everything, he took out his phone and looked at a photo that Xiao Lei sent him before. He was out the whole day for meetings yesterday, and Xiao Lei was probably bored, so she sent a photo of her pouting with the caption: 

[ What kind of boss left his secretary back at the office? I thought my job as a secretary is to stick to you at all times. Are you cheating on me with another secretary? ]

Han Ye smiled when he recalled how he chuckled the first time he saw the photo. DX even frowned at him, and later on, the usually indifferent president asked if that was Han Ye's new girlfriend since he was, according to DX, behaving even dumber than usual. 

Han Ye denied it of course, and he told DX the truth. 

"That's a very mischievous secretary. If she's my secretary, I'd have fired her a long time ago," DX said on their way back from the meeting.  

Han Ye was driving, and at that time, he had laughed as he said, "She's kind of interesting."

"Based on how stupid your smile looked earlier, I bet people would think that you're talking to your girlfriend."

Han Ye gasped. "No way, President Du!" 

Looking at his personal assistant's expression through the rearview mirror, DX scoffed, "Whatever you say, Mr. Han." 

Han Ye groaned and shook his head as he focused on the laptop screen. He uploaded the photo onto his laptop and waited for the software to work its magic. 

A few minutes later, he was looking at the screen with a thunderous expression. 

"Fan Wushuang... How dare you lie to me..." He clenched his fists as he looked at the photo on the laptop screen. 

Using the software, he had regressed Xiao Lei's photo back to 25 years ago. There was a huge similarity. After that, he pulled out one of the rare photos that he took with Wu Yuexue and Fan Wushuang when they were kids. Using that photo, he aged the photo of 10-year-old Little Fan Wushuang and placed her at 35 years old. 

That aged version looked very much like Xiao Lei. Almost a 70% match.

Still not really willing to believe that Xiao Xiao Lei was Fan Wushuang, Han Ye did another experiment. He compared the current photo of Xiao Lei and the aged photo of Little Fan Wushuang. Putting those side by side on the screen, he then used a face recognition algorithm that the software provided, the answer was a 95% match. 

Han Ye closed his eyes and groaned as he banged his forehead against the desk. "How. The. Hell. Did. I. Miss. It..." 

"F*ck!" Han Ye cursed loudly as he stood up and paced around the room. Suddenly, he turned around and looked at the wall as he sneered, "Fan Wushuang, do you think that it's funny to play me around like this?" 

Han Ye's bedroom wall was linked to Xiao Lei's unit, and he hoped that she could hear him cursing her.

Han Ye then fell onto his bed and rolled around as he kept trying to think of any possible reasons why she did not tell him. 

"I'm sure she still thinks of everything as a joke!" he thought. Then he rolled to the other end of his bed and as he lay there with a serious expression, he murmured, "But she could have gotten a better life, even if she wants to joke around." 

Groaning, he rolled back to the other end. "She said someone was trying to harm her?" 

Sitting up, Han Ye frowned. "Was she talking about her uncles?" 

"But why didn't she tell me?!" Han Ye thought as he stared at the wall. "I could've helped her. Did she not trust me?"

He thought about the things that Xiao Xiao Lei told him before and his anger subsided a little. "She went through a lot, didn't she? Granted... If my real biological uncle tried to kill me when I was young, I'd be reluctant to trust people as well."

Laying down on his bed, Han Ye glanced at his laptop screen that was still turned on. He looked at the photo of Xiao Xiao Lei and Fan Wushuang. According to the aged photo of Fan Wushuang, if she were raised within the comfort of the Fan Family, she would look a lot healthier and with rosy cheeks. 

"Should I confront her about this?" he murmured as he continued to stare at Xiao Lei's photo.

....