Since being diagnosed with lung cancer, Hamish had been in poor spirits, his throat occasionally feeling dry and itchy.
He lifted his cup, took a big sip, and gazed unfocused at a certain spot with deep-set eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
Setting down the cup, Hamish’s voice was cold and heavy: “Keep an eye on Finn and report to me at any time.” He was waiting for an opportunity to short ChiwoodBurns Group.
“Got it.” Tobias stood by patiently, waiting for Hamish to sign. Suddenly, a jarring ringtone sounded from his pocket. Hamish glanced at him.
Tobias took out his phone and checked a new text. His expression soured, and he stole a glance at Hamish, who caught him in the act.
“Who sent you the text?”
Are you sure you want to know?
Seeing Tobias’s expression, Hamish knew the text he received was related to him. The more Tobias hesitated to speak, the greater the problem became.
“Let me see it.”
Tobias handed the phone to Hamish, who, after just two seconds, grabbed the phone forcefully.
Naturally, the text wasn’t pleasant. Tobias had stored many numbers in his phone, including Louis’s. The message was from Louis, just a screenshot with no text- a screenshot of a second-hand platform transaction, displaying the item Elisa had received today.
What made it worse was the text on the screenshot:
-“Girlfriend’s handbag, selling for $250, 000, absolutely genuine, serious buyers only.”
The $250, 000 was highlighted in a bold red, provocative, almost as if it was meant to insult someone.
What’s more, Louis had taken it upon himself to sell the item and then sent the screenshot to Tobias’s phone.
How audacious.
Hamish frowned, still staring at the phone and not letting go, making Tobias’s scalp tingle, fearing that Hamish might smash the phone in a fit of anger.
This kind of situation had happened before. Hamish was naturally short-tempered, and at least ten phones had met their demise in his hands.
After reading, Hamish placed the phone on the table and calmly continued to flip through the documents with a pen, as if nothing had happened.
Hamish had truly changed, or perhaps compromised on something.
Tobias, with a lump in his throat, nervously took the phone.
Hamish signed the papers quickly, put down his pen, and neatly organized the money into a folder: “I’m going out, Mr. Burns. If you need anything, call me.”
“Okay.”
As Tobias left, Hamish fell silent. After a while, he took out his phone, found the second-hand platform, searched for the name, and found that the bag had already been resold.
Feeling utterly exhausted, a sense of helplessness surged from his heart, leaving him too weary to even explain. Louis had only done this to show off to him. In the product photo, besides the bag, there was a shadow on the ground. He liked Elisa so much that he could even recognize her from a blurry shadow.
…………
Meanwhile, Louis’s groceries ordered online had arrived.
Elisa curiously leaned over to see what Louis had bought and, upon opening the box, she first saw several large hairy crabs.
“Why did you buy hairy crabs? It’s easier to eat out than to cook at home.” She reached out to poke them, but Louis grabbed her wrist before she could touch them.
“They are still alive. Be careful not to get pinched.”
“They are tied up. They can’t pinch me,” Elisa reminded him.
Louis was just too nervous about her, afraid that she might get hurt and wouldn’t let her do anything.
“I bought them for the crab roe and crab meat. You can have them for breakfast tomorrow morning when you wake up.” Louis swiftly carried the box back to the kitchen. “I’ll start making the dough.”
Hairy crabs steam quickly. For dinner, they had small dishes, and the dough, once made, was covered with cling film and put in the refrigerator to rise. The steamed hairy crabs had almost cooled, so Louis started to crack them open.
Elisa came over to help, but the crab shells were too hard, and Louis wouldn’t let her touch them.
“When it’s time, you can wrap the filling. How’s the script reading going?”
“It’s going okay.”
“Then let’s practice our lines.”
Elisa pulled a chair up behind him and asked, “I never see you looking at the script. How can we practice lines together?”
“I’ve read the script a long time ago, and I can remember it all. Don’t you believe me? Let’s try the first part.”
The two of them sat together, Louis multitasking, reciting lines with emotion to Elisa while skillfully peeling crabmeat. He was so quick and proficient that one would think he did it for a living, efficiently extracting the meat, leaving the crab shells clean and even assembling the shells neatly after removing the meat.
After half an hour of reciting lines, all the crab meat had been extracted.
Looking at the bowl of crab meat and roe, Elisa asked, “Do you eat crab often?”
“Not really.”
“Then how are you so fast and skilled at shelling the crabs?”
Louis didn’t know either. In his memory, he had never cooked, and the White family had plenty of servants and chefs, so he never had to do household chores. Yet, as soon as he touched these things, he could work with them, prepare dishes, and do household chores with great skill.
“It must be natural,” Louis joked. “Maybe I learned it in a dream. Sometimes I feel strange too. I’ve never done these things, but as soon as I touch them…”
Suddenly, Louis looked earnestly at Elisa. “Elisa, sometimes I wonder if we’ve met in a past life. The first time I saw you, I felt like I knew you, and I couldn’t help but want to be close to you.”
There was an impulse of love at first sight, a familiar feeling of intimacy growing over time.
“I look so much like Autumn. If I didn’t know that my mother only gave birth to me, I would have suspected that he and I were real brothers. Before, when I had a car accident, I had a dream where he was with you.”
Elisa casually asked, “What did you dream?”
“About you and him meeting at the orphanage.”
“So, when you had the car accident that day, were you going to the orphanage?”
Louis fell silent for a moment, eventually giving a quiet “yes.”
Seeing that photo, Elisa guessed the whole story, but she didn’t ask.
“I don’t doubt you,” Louis said hoarsely. “I just doubt myself.”
He hung his head like a guilty dog, fearing reprimand from its owner.
“I don’t like Hamish. If you want to ask anything, just ask me directly instead of keeping it inside. I’m your girlfriend, I’m yours, you don’t need to be afraid that I will leave you. I like you for who you are, not just your appearance. No matter what you look like, I will still like you, understand?”
What had been a mere ripple of emotion now felt like a giant boulder crashing down, stirring up waves, or like the tremor caused by a meteorite streaking through the dark night.
No one could guarantee how long feelings would last, but as long as Louis liked her, didn’t let her down, Elisa had made the decision to like him indefinitely.
Louis seemed to understand Elisa’s thoughts. It wasn’t just him who felt uneasy; this type of unease was contagious to Elisa as well.
Louis reached out and embraced Elisa.
Elisa grabbed his clothes, burying her head in his chest and muffledly said, “Louis, I’m also afraid that you’ll leave me.”
She feared Louis’s judgment of her past. She was afraid Louis would fear that she had once died, and now, she was nothing more than a lingering spirit inhabiting a body.
The day Finn took her away, she had been afraid Louis wouldn’t come looking for her, afraid she would never see Louis again.
Louis grasped Elisa’s slightly cold hand. No one had ever said a sentence of fear that could make him feel so disconcerted.
“Elisa, it hurts a lot, doesn’t it? Your past…”
Elisa returned Louis’s grip on her hand. Her eyes closed with a bitter tang, a pang of bitterness in her chest. Just because of Louis’s words, she couldn’t control her tears. She had always been strong, even though she had been deeply wounded in the past, she had gritted her teeth because she knew that the person she liked wouldn’t care for her or love her just because she said it hurt.
When she had stomach cancer, she told Micah it was nothing and even asked him to scatter her ashes into the sea after she passed away. When she suffered from depression in the hospital, the psychologist asked her if she felt uncomfortable, and she answered that she wasn’t uncomfortable.
In reality, she was truly in pain. She, as a person, was clearly afraid of pain, yet ultimately, she had become accustomed to enduring it.
During her stomach cancer flare-ups, she couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep due to the pain, occasionally vomited blood, and had no strength in her body.
When she miscarried and suffered from depression, it was also very painful, as if the organs in her abdomen had been displaced, and her spine had been twisted.
When she was tormented by Finn, and when she was burned to death, that kind of immense pain was something she couldn’t bear to recall- the sound of flesh tearing, her soul swaying.
The thought of these experiences made her feel as if she were in a nightmare. She couldn’t control the trembling in her body, nor could she control her emotions.
“It hurts, it really hurts…” But fortunately, she had made it through everything. She was grateful to the heavens for giving her a chance to come back, to not repeat her mistakes, not to taste the pain she had already endured again. The second time around, it would be cheap.
Louis held the person tightly in his arms, one hand gently rubbing Elisa’s head. “As long as I’m here in the future, I won’t let you suffer.”
He didn’t dare to think about how much abuse the person he liked had suffered before he met Elisa, how much the orphanage headmaster’s words had hurt her, how Elisa had burned to death in a big fire at the age of 27, becoming his permanent source of pain.
He didn’t ask about Elisa’s past, not because he was concerned about her past, but out of heartache. He was more afraid of inadvertently reopening Elisa’s scarred wounds.
In her life, Elisa had lost too much- children, friends, family, and true love.
How much suffering and pain she had endured along the way, Louis couldn’t imagine. All he could do was hold her tightly now and give her a sense of security.
Louis stood up, holding Elisa’s hand, his expression suddenly becoming solemn. “Elisa, may I kiss you?”
The man’s gentle eyes looked as if they were about to overflow, his ears turning red.
Elisa, leveraging the force in his hand, stood up. The two of them instantly drew close, and they could feel each other’s breath.
Their gazes locked, and Louis slowly bent down, while Elisa lightly rose on her tiptoes, hooking her arms around his neck…