Jessica opened her eyes and saw Liam sitting at her bedside, wearing an apologetic smile.
“Jessica! You’re finally awake,” he said, sounding both relieved and awkward.
He held out a bowl of soup, trying to sound gentle. “Jeje made this for you. She spent hours on it. Want to try a little? She said she was sorry, she didn’t mean it, she was just a little out of it. I’m apologizing on her behalf.”
“Liam,” Jessica said, sitting up and pushing his hand away. “What gives you the right to apologize for her?”
“I just thought, maybe I could use a make up voucher,” he said, eyes pretending guilt. “Let’s not fight, okay? Just this once.”
Jessica let out a bitter laugh. “Sure. Then call her over here and smash a wine glass over her head. That’s what an apology looks like.”
Liam's voice softened. “Jessica, don’t talk like that. I didn’t expect her to actually hit you. It wasn’t intentional. I’ve already punished her, she is confined to her room today.”
Jessica stared at him in disbelief, then threw the soup to the ground, her voice rising. “Get out!”
Liam let out a sigh, stood up and walked toward the door. “Jessica, you were never like this before. I’ve used the make up coupon again this time, so I won’t argue with you. Just calm down.”
Closing the door behind her, Jessica rubbed her temples and sent a message to Kevin, urging him to speed up the progress. She really couldn’t stay here any longer.
That evening, she dragged her tired body back to the Zelenka family’s house to pack up what little she had left. There wasn’t much, just a few essential documents and barely anything else.
As soon as she stepped inside, a soft, breathy gasp slipped through the crack of a door.
In the bedroom that hadn’t been fully closed, two bodies were tightly entangled. Jessica froze at the sight, her whole body turning cold. ‘Is this why he refused to send Jeje away?’
Jeje’s face was flushed like a real human’s. Her delicate, boneless hands clung to Liam’s sculpted frame, her moans broken up by the rhythm of their movements.
Through their shared link, Jeje suddenly sensed something; a thin thread of emotion connecting them.
Her eyes turned misty, her voice soft and fragile. “Liam, will you send me away?”
He drove into her harder, his voice rough with emotion. “No matter how many times you ask, my answer will always be no. She is her. You are you. You’re not anyone else.”
Jessica’s tears spilled without warning. She clamped a hand over her mouth, desperate to keep from sobbing aloud.
Liam had once said those exact words to her, back when she was still uncertain, still living in someone else’s shadow, before she had ever believed she was enough.
It was Liam who had led her out of the shadows, bit by bit. He broke the world’s shackles on her, gave her the courage to pursue her passion and helped her become the world’s leading expert in bionics today.
That one sentence had carried her through countless struggles, pushing her forward step by step. It was also what made her forgive Liam’s betrayals again and again.
But now, she realized… that sentence hadn’t been meant for her alone.
Inside the room, Jeje suddenly looked up and met Jessica’s eyes through the crack in the door. She smiled; an eerily human smile.
“Then… what should we do with Jessica?” she asked sweetly.
Liam let out a low scoff. “It doesn’t matter. With all those ridiculous, childish make-up coupons and so many second chances… she’ll forgive me no matter what I say.”
‘Really?’ Jessica turned away. Her face was blank, but her breaths came sharp and heavy.
She walked over to the fireplace, reached into her pocket and wordlessly tossed a make up coupon into the flames. Only three remained.
Still thinking about the look in Jeje’s eyes, she pulled out her phone and typed a message, [Check the chip core code of the bionic batch from back then.]
Just then, Liam stepped out and spotted her by the fire. “Jessica? What are you burning? Why are your eyes red?”
She turned to him, her expression calm. “Nothing. Just burning some trash.”
Liam was already dressed. On his left hand, he wore the ring Jessica had once bought him.
He slowly crouched in front of her, looking up, his warm palm gently pressing against the back of her hand, pretending nothing had happened.
Just half an hour ago, Liam, who once claimed she was the only one in his eyes, had been making love to another woman in the study.
Jessica calmly pulled her hand away and met his concerned gaze. “Nothing,” she said softly. “I just thought of something.”
Liam assumed she was still upset about the earlier incident, so he softened his tone, trying to coax her. “Jessica, I was wrong about the wedding. Don’t be mad, okay?”
“Liam,” she asked suddenly, “when are you going to send that bionic woman away?”
The abrupt question made panic flash across his face, but he quickly composed himself. “I’ll find time to handle it. But the company that built Jeje is a world leader in bionic tech. I’m a researcher in that field too and I need Jeje for experimental studies. Can we delay it a little longer?
“During this time, I know it might be inconvenient for you. But once I finish developing the core tech, everything will go back to the way it was, okay?”
Jessica simply hummed in response, her expression unreadable. Liam couldn’t see the look in her eyes.
Seeing her still so cold, he tried to shift the mood. “By the way, I prepared a surprise to celebrate your return. Jessica… do you know how much I missed you in those five years you were gone?”
He lowered his head and gently kissed her forehead.
Jessica sneered inwardly. ‘You missed me, huh? Missed me so much you ordered a stand-in… then fell in love with her behind my back and even handed over my status as your wife to that imitation.’
Before Liam could say anything, a phone call pulled him away. Jessica turned to continue packing her things, but at the corner of the hallway, she came face-to-face with Jeje.
She looked exactly like Jessica at eighteen, except for the ice-blue eyes that shimmered with a metallic, unsettling glow.
“Great, isn’t it?” Jeje smirked. “You were watching from the hallway earlier, looked like you were enjoying the view.”
A chill crept down Jessica’s back. No matter how she tried to make sense of it, she still couldn’t believe a bionic being could develop autonomous thought and emotion.
She wondered how Kevin’s investigation was going. Out of all the bionic units that went rogue three years ago, Jeje was the only one with signs of mutation. If they could decode her anomaly, it could change everything in their research.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Jeje said, her tone flat, her eyes like frozen glass. “He belongs to me.”
Jessica didn’t cry, didn’t yell. She just looked at her bionic replica and replied quietly, “He will be, soon enough.”
