Elisa insisted on leaving, and Mrs. White didn’t insist on keeping her. Everything should be moderate, and rushing won’t help.
Moreover, she could tell that Elisa’s concern for Louis was more than just that of an ordinary friend, and that was good enough.
“I’ll call a car to take you back.”
“No need, Aunt Burns. I’ve already called for a car. The driver will be downstairs at the hospital soon. I’ll leave first.”
The changed costume was all packed in the bag, ready to go without needing to be tidied up.
“Well… alright then. Take care, and message Louis when you arrive.”
Elisa murmured an “okay” and turned to leave the ward.
Louis got up from the bed and watched Elisa leave. He stood at the door, unmoving, until she turned the corner and entered the elevator.
Looking at his injured right arm, if it weren’t for the injury, he could have driven Elisa back himself.
Mrs. White quietly walked up to him and asked softly, “Do you like her that much? She’s already gone downstairs, and you’re still watching.”
Louis’s ears twitched slightly, a tacit agreement.
“If you like her, tell her in person. What’s the point of hiding? You’ve made it very clear on Twitter, and so many people know I like her and want to be with her.”
“So many people know, but she doesn’t,” Mrs. White said.
Louis replied despondently, “How do you know she doesn’t know? Perhaps she’s just pretending not to notice, afraid of hurting me. If I tell her I like her to break this barrier, maybe we can’t even be friends.”
“Then how do you know she’s pretending not to know?” Mrs. White countered.
Louis was at a loss for words for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed, not knowing how to respond.
Mrs. White sighed, raised her hand, and patted Louis’s head. “Don’t worry, you’re still young.”
The discharge procedures were quickly completed, and Louis followed his parents back to the White family. On the way, he asked, “What about my car?”
“The front of the car was damaged. It’s been taken to the repair shop,” Mrs. White replied.
“What about the things inside?”
“They’re at home. When you get back, check to see if anything’s missing.”
With an injured bone and muscle, Louis would have to stay at home for at least a month. The White family had no shortage of money, arranging various medicines and meals. Bone broth was stewed every day.
Upon returning home, Louis went to check the things in the car. The keys, phone, driver’s license, ID, and wallet were all there, along with the photo he had retrieved from the orphanage.
The phone had run out of battery and was switched off. Louis plugged it in and turned it on, immediately noticing missed calls and messages.
He tapped into each message, most of them trivial. He replied to a few, including one to his agent, letting them know he was okay.
Lying on the bed, he held his phone with one hand and posted on social media, informing his fans that he was safe.
The hand injury meant he couldn’t do much, and being on his right hand made everything inconvenient. Louis could do nothing but lie bored in bed, aimlessly scrolling through his feed. When the phone suddenly rang, he initially thought it was Elisa calling, his eyes brightening. However, upon seeing the caller ID, his face fell immediately.
Hamish.
At this moment, Louis didn’t want to take his call, fearing it might worsen his condition.
He ended the call with a swipe, but not long after, the phone rang again, incessantly. Perhaps it was getting annoying, so Louis rolled over and sat at the edge of the bed.
“Why are you calling me?” This frequency of calls from Hamish couldn’t possibly be just to check on him.
“I heard you’ve been discharged.”
“Mr. Burns is well-informed. Since you know I’ve been discharged, you should also know that Elisa stayed with me at the hospital all night. Just her and me, alone in the same room. We even slept together. She helped me brush my teeth, wash my face, and bathe. When I needed to use the bathroom, she even helped me take off my pants.”
Mixing half-truths and exaggerations, Louis knew it would rile Hamish up. Hurting each other was their game, and neither was immune.
A light chuckle came through the phone. “I didn’t expect you to be in such good spirits.”
Nipping back at him, Louis said, “Naturally, I’m in good spirits. After all, I had someone taking care of me.”
“Elisa only took care of you because of your face. When I saw the locationof your accident yesterday, that road, you must have just come out of the orphanage.”
Hamish was adept at manipulating people’s emotions. He knew exactly what Louis feared the most at the moment; the human heart is a movable thing.
“Elisa is someone who has died once. She doesn’t like me, and she’s not going to like you either. It’s Autumn she’s after. She’ll spend time with you just because you look like Autumn, with a face so similar. I bet she often spaces out when she looks at you, right?”
Every word was like a blade. Louis listened to Hamish’s words, almost unable to sit still, his entire body feeling as if it had been unloaded off its bones.
He wanted to refute Hamish, even if it meant speaking nonsense, but when he was about to speak, it felt like someone was forcefully muffling his mouth and nose, making it hard to breathe.
And it wasn’t over. When a person is injured, both their body and mind become extremely fragile. This was the easiest time for psychological warfare to achieve its purpose.
Hamish admitted he wasn’t a gentleman, nor had he ever aspired to be one. He was a businessman, a cunning one. And to him, Elisa was the most precious treasure. He wouldn’t just give her up.
The only thing to be grateful for was that he understood Elisa better than anyone.
“Do you know why Elisa named the group ‘A. W.’? Autumn White is Autumn…”
The name “Autumn” was a double-edged sword, dealing Louis a blow while Hamish also felt uncomfortable.
…
Louis didn’t know when Hamish hung up the phone. His mind was filled with Hamish’s words and the way Elisa had looked at him when they were together. From the moment he left the orphanage, he had known, but he had been deceiving himself.
What kind of person was Autumn to make Elisa never forget? His feelings for Autumn would never diminish, and the only thing he was losing was time.
Others could confront their rivals face to face, but what could he use to compete with a dead person?
He was so cautious with his affection that he didn’t dare even to probe. Hamish was right; he was a coward, and he shouldn’t have gone to the orphanage.
If he hadn’t gone, he wouldn’t have known the truth, and he could have continued to delude himself, believing that Elisa had liked him from the start.
He could have continued to believe that the name “A. W.” meant “Affinity White,” and that Elisa wanted a close relationship with him, wanted to marry him, not “Autumn White,” the translation of Autumn.
The phone dropped to the ground with a muffled thud. Louis hung his head, and something fell from his eyes. He wiped it away, tears mixing with blood. “So pathetic.” He didn’t want to be someone’s substitute. Elisa, do you really like that person named Autumn so much? If I didn’t have these two tiger teeth in my mouth, would you even spare me a glance?
He used to be confident that he could stand behind Elisa, satisfied just by watching her. But one phone call from Hamish had made him lose everything.
This was the taste of shattered expectations. Louis staggered to his feet, his brain still not fully recovered, throbbing painfully. He opened the bedroom door, oblivious to the maid’s greeting in the hallway, and went straight to the utility room, where he found a pair of pruning shears for trimming garden branches.
Returning to the room with the shears, he squatted in an inconspicuous corner, mouth agape, the shears approaching his left tiger tooth. His hand, like a venomous snake, clamped down on the small tooth. He slowly tightened his grip, then pressed and pulled. His left arm’s veins bulged, his fingers turned red, and with a “crack,” the tooth was forcibly pulled out, blood staining the floor.
Louis felt no pain, his mouth numb as blood dripped onto the ground. He dropped the shears and curled up in the corner, holding his head in his hand.
The taste of blood filled his mouth, tears and blood mixed, causing a wave of nausea. He struggled to hold back the urge to vomit.
There was a knock on the door from outside, but Louis didn’t respond. It was Mrs. White, who, upon hearing from the maid that Louis was acting strangely, had returned with the shears.
Mrs. White felt uneasy. Louis had been fine in the hospital, but he had changed upon returning and had locked himself in his room.
She took the spare key and opened the door. “Son,” she called out. As she stepped inside, she saw Louis huddled in the corner, with a pool of blood on the floor, bloodied pliers, and a tooth.
“Louis, what happened?” Mrs. White anxiously knelt down, her hands reaching to hold Louis’s face to examine his mouth.
His mouth was full of blood, and a small bloody hole appeared among the row of beautiful teeth, which was very distressing. Mrs. White’s eyes reddened. This was not the time to ask anything.
Cradling his jaw, she said, “I’ll take you to the hospital…”
“No, I just pulled out a tooth,” Louis said hoarsely, trembling.
Seeing Louis like this reminded her of when he had just woken up in the hospital, in a daze, unwilling to leave the corner.
Mrs. White looked at him with heartache. Louis was so casual about just pulling out a tooth. He didn’t know how painful it was for a mother to see this.
“Okay, I’ll go call the doctor,” Mrs. White said.
Not knowing what to do after a tooth was pulled out, she could only ask the dentist to come to the hospital to see Louis.
“This tooth won’t grow back once it’s pulled out, but you can get dentures,” the dentist explained.
Louis was slowly coming to his senses at this point. Looking at Mrs. White’s worried expression, he grabbed her hand. “Mom, don’t worry. I’ve been wanting to remove these two fangs to avoid affecting my acting. With dentures, everything will be fine.”
Louis’s two fangs were his trademark. At over thirty years old, when he smiled and those fangs were revealed, he looked like someone in their twenties. His fans loved to see him smile, saying it carried the taste of youthful sunshine. Now, with one missing, blood-filled tooth, it was jarring to look at.
Louis didn’t want to say anything. His gums were stitched, he was given medication by the dentist, and after being advised on the necessary precautions, the dentist left with his bag.
Mrs. White had been thinking of helping Louis regain his health, but now, with his tooth gone, he couldn’t eat certain things.
“Don’t do something silly. If you want to pull a tooth, go to the hospital.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Seeing Louis being so obedient only made Mrs. White worry more. She kept an eye on him whenever she had the chance, and she made sure the household staff did the same when she wasn’t around.
Now, even Louis holding a nail clipper made Mrs. White anxious.
Louis knew he had fallen for Hamish’s psychological tactics, but he also knew which parts of what Hamish had said were true and which were false.
To Elisa, “Autumn” was the existence of unrequited love, lingering in the most beautiful part of her memory. He couldn’t replace his position, and he was unwilling to be a substitute. So, he pulled out his own tooth, hoping that Elisa might not think of “Autumn” when she saw his mouth.
Elisa returned to the company headquarters, where her secretary personally came to greet her.
“Miss Powell.”
“How has it been lately?”
“The company has received a lot of malicious reports, especially today, but it hasn’t had much impact. Lorelei has been coming to the company for the past few days, requesting to see you.”
“Has she come today?”
“No.”
“She should be here soon then.”