“What did the bodyguard tell you?”
Blanca grabbed Kelsey’s arm anxiously, “Has Marian’s fever gone down?”
Although the Folsom family hadn’t stormed into the hospital, they had asked the doctor about Paige’s condition. Blanca knew that Paige had a high fever.
Kelsey shook her head. “The bodyguard didn’t say.”
Blanca frowned.
Had the fever gone down? This small, under-equipped hospital was nothing compared to the Folsom family’s own doctors and facilities.
“What *did* he say to you? Why do you look so upset?” Beinice pressed, frustrated that Kelsey hadn’t mentioned the important details.
“My sister told me to think carefully,” Kelsey replied, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry, Auntie, I don’t want to use the red ribbon’s promise to pressure my sister. I don’t want to force her.”
Blanca’s gaze froze for a moment, her face paling slightly.
“What do you mean, *pressure*? How can you say that?” Kelsey’s parents approached from the crowd, and her mother angrily twisted her arm. “Your aunt has spoiled you since you were young, giving you everything you wanted, even buying you a car, and now you can’t do this one little thing to help her?”
“Exactly! Your aunt finally found her daughter, and it’s a happy reunion. Why are you causing trouble?” Her father scolded.
Kelsey, feeling cornered in front of everyone, snapped back, “Am I wrong? You all just want to pressure Paige! After what you did to her-locking her up in a private cell, treating her like a criminal, discussing how to ‘deal’ with her-now you want to claim her back? It’s not that easy!”
“Stop talking nonsense!” Kelsey’s father raised his hand in anger.
“I’m not wrong! You adults know you’ve disappointed her, and now that you have no other options, you’re using me to send messages inside. Why are you blaming me now?” Kelsey retorted, her eyes welling up with tears.
“You ungrateful child! Have you forgotten all that your aunt has done for you?”
“Kelsey’s right.” Blanca’s quiet voice interrupted her parents’ scolding. “I’ve already been heartless enough. If I need Kelsey’s help just to recognize my own daughter, then what kind of person am I?”
At her words, everyone fell silent. Kelsey looked at her with discomfort.
“Blanca, don’t say that. You didn’t know Paige was Marian before,” Beinice tried to comfort her, patting her on the shoulder. “I say, it’s just a hospital. We should go in there, meet her face-to-face, and clear everything up.”
“No.” Blanca immediately rejected the idea. She glanced at Beinice, her tone calm. “Beinice, it’s cold. You all should head back. I want to stay here alone.”
Beinice sighed helplessly at her words. He turned to look at the car where the old man sat and sighed again. “We’re not waiting for you.”
Ever since they discovered Paige was part of the Folsom family, the old man’s emotions had been volatile. At first, he was too shocked to move, even coughing up blood. Later, when he learned that Paige was alive, he fluctuated between laughter, sighing, and pacing around the house. No one knew what he was thinking.
Now, the old man was waiting outside the hospital, refusing to leave.
If the old man wouldn’t leave, could they?
Blanca didn’t say another word, her gaze fixed on the hospital doors, standing quietly in the snow.
Far away, a black sedan sat idling by the roadside.
Inside, the heat was on, making it comfortably warm.
In the backseat sat a gentle-looking middle-aged woman and a pale, sickly young girl. They were Beinice’s wife, Yemmy, and their daughter, Rachel.
Ever since the finance summit in Country A, Rachel’s life had been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. She thought Paige would ruin her, but she returned to the Folsom family and found her biological parents instead.
She had even imagined killing Paige herself, only to have her right hand tendon severed instead.
She thought Paige had died in the valley, but Paige returned alive, now Blanca’s daughter and her own cousin.
It was all too absurd.
Rachel stared at the large group of Folsom family members gathered outside the small hospital, her beautiful eyes filled with intense jealousy and hatred.
“Caroline, your health isn’t good. Why did you insist on coming?” Yemmy asked, draping a blanket over her daughter’s legs out of concern.
Yemmy didn’t understand her daughter well, having only recently reunited with her. Caroline, though weak and barely able to speak, had taken painkillers just to be here today.
“I just wanted to see how much the Folsom family values Paige, their granddaughter,” Rachel replied softly, looking out at the scene outside.
It was quite the spectacle.
When Rachel returned to the Folsom family, the old man merely nodded and smiled at her, barely saying a word. Now that they wanted to claim Paige, he personally came to wait for her.
“The Folsom family’s pain lies with you two children. I suppose it’s fate that you were both found, one after the other,” Yemmy said, not catching the resentment in Rachel’s tone, speaking to herself with a sigh.
Fate.
Was she destined to be Paige’s enemy?
Rachel blinked back tears and, with an expression of grief, turned to Yemmy. “Mother, has everyone forgotten what Paige did to me? She cut the tendons in my hand.”
Seeing her daughter like this, Yemmy was heartbroken. “Don’t cry, don’t cry. The doctors have reattached it. As long as you follow their instructions and rest, it will heal eventually.”
“And what about Paige? Isn’t the Folsom family going to punish her?” Rachel asked, her voice trembling as she forced a few more tears.
Rachel had expected Yemmy to take her side, but instead, Yemmy frowned and said, “Caroline, you don’t understand. Your aunt has been through so much. As the only son in the family, your father should have taken on many responsibilities, but your aunt traveled the world, enduring countless hardships to keep us all together.”
“She’s over forty now and still alone.”
Yemmy caressed Rachel’s face, wiping away her tears, and said earnestly, “You and Paige have had many misunderstandings, but in the end, you’re cousins. For the sake of your father and your aunt, you should make peace with her.”
“…”
Make peace?
Ridiculous. After what Paige had done to her, how could she ever make peace?
Suppressing her rage, Rachel looked at Yemmy and said, “Mother, aren’t you and Father being a bit too naive? My aunt didn’t travel the world to protect our family. Maybe it was all for the old man’s position.”
Yemmy looked at her in shock, “Caroline, how could you think that?”