The one who opened the door is just Meng Chu; waiting for her to finish her work, Bian Jin has to deal with a Shen Ni in her lap, eventually grabbing on to her and telling her to stop moving around. Neither of them is unaffected by the extended proximity. When Meng Chu leaves, Bian Jin pulls Shen Ni into the breakroom, and there is some byplay around offering Shen Ni medicine for the marks on her neck before Shen Ni explains that she was bored at home and snuck out to check on Bian Jin, finding her in the archives apparently searching for something, before Bian Jin noticed her and grabbed for her throat. Bian Jin admits she was effectively blacked out for this whole episode, and asks what she had been looking for; Shen Ni says she was searching the shelves labelled '11th year of Wude'. We get some historical context via Bian Jin: that was the year of a major snowstorm, and also the year the 7-year-old then-princess Li Ruoyuan came down wiht a strange illness.

Bian Jin thinks her blackout could be related to the issues with her memory and asks Shen Ni to have a go at repairing her memory module. Shen Ni takes out the tool she recently installed in her arm and gets to work, but it's no good: the missing 3 years remain inaccessible even though Bian Jin insists she's taken down her firewalls. Shen Ni says someone with an even greater technical gift than hers must have locked the memories.

She coughs, Bian Jin goes to get her a cup of water but doesn't return, and when Shen Ni goes looking for her she hears a woman screaming at Bian Jin for being heartless.