Ian had no idea whom he could call. Luckily, he had a reliable assistant, who had already collected all the other students in his dorm’s phone numbers in case he couldn’t reach Daren when he needed to bring him over to Axton Headquarters.
When Amber called some of them, it turns out that there were no classes in the afternoon, which meant that … No! One! Had! Seen! Him!
There was no one in his room either.
All right, it seems that something really had happened.
Amber and Ian both rushed towards Daren’s university. He had to be there, as Ian’s people had dropped him off there themselves.
The three of them scoured the entire university and ultimately did find him, all thanks to Ruby’s sharp eyes. They had been about to climb to the tallest local building’s rooftop to get a better view when Ruby turned his head around and suddenly spotted Daren walking listlessly out of the art building, amidst a whole throng of other students.
He anxiously yelled out, “Daren Axton!”
The listless fellow raised his head, and then all three people noticed him.
Ruby was the first to rush over, ignoring the curious glances from the nearby bystanders as he pulled on Daren’s collar. “Where on earth were you?!”
Daren was shocked by their sudden appearance, and he immediately turned pale and stammered, “In … in class.”
“What class? Don’t you have no classes in the afternoon?”
“I-I’m auditing a class.”
For Daren, auditing classes was a standard, everyday thing; hadn’t he often gone to the medical university next door to attend Amber’s classes, through wind and rain?
And since he was even willing to go to a neighboring university, then taking a class in a different college of the same university was no big deal.
When Amber heard Daren’s bewildered reply, she didn’t know whether she should laugh or to cry, but at the very least, she did feel a sense of relief in her heart. As for Ian … from start to finish, he had been cool, calm, and collected.
Even when he was accompanying them and searching for Daren, she hadn’t seen him look anxious even once. Now, he wasn’t angry either, and he merely looked silently at his brother as if he were just another bystander.
Of the three of them, Ruby was the most agitated. When he saw Daren’s innocent bunny-like expression, an irresistible urge to smack it welled up, so, ignoring the fact that his brother was right there, Ruby grabbed Daren’s collar, dragged him to a nearby enclosed park, pushed him against a rock, and started spanking him.
The pitiful Daren didn’t even know what was going on.
After Daren was thoroughly beaten by Ruby, he became a lot less shy; he didn’t even hide when he saw Amber, although his face still turned red.
Ruby hit the back of his head. “Call her ‘Sister’!” And so, Daren obediently called out, “Sister.”
His voice was very soft, almost as if a mosquito had spoken. Ruby was having quite a bit of fun hitting him around, and was just about to smack Daren’s head again when he noticed that Amber was staring at him, retracted his half-raised hand, coughed, and parted his hair awkwardly instead.
Compared to Ruby, Ian was so calm that he was worse than the bystanders staring at the commotion.
When he noticed Daren, he lazily asked, “Why did you send that message?”
Daren stammered out, “It’s just ….”
He didn’t say anything more for what seemed like half the day. Impatient, Ian asked again, “You can’t handle what I asked of you?”
Daren’s body shuddered imperceptibly, and he softly replied, “No, I can.”
Ian nodded in satisfaction. Amber and Ruby waited by the side for quite a while, thinking that he was about to say something else, but in the end, he waved his hand and said, “Let’s go eat.” And that was it.
Amber siblings were both struck speechless by this vague exchange. As they went to get food, Ruby secretly whispered to his sister, “Daren and Ian aren’t actually brothers, are they?”
Amber elbowed him to get him to shut up. Actually, she somewhat understood Ian’s thought process-it didn’t matter how loudly one answered or whether or not one’s attitude was problematic. In either case, once the promise was made, all Ian had to do was wait for the results.
In summary, Ian was an entirely results-oriented person.
After Ruby got the message that Amber didn’t want him to talk about this anymore, he obediently didn’t bring it up. Succumbing to the mighty force of Amber’s elbow, Ruby fell backwards in a very exaggerated fashion. He actually landed on Daren’s body and took advantage of his position to land a hook on his neck.
Amber was preparing to slow down when she heard her brother say to Daren, “Don’t ever do this the future again. You really almost scared me to the point of crapping my pants.”
She turned around, saw Daren lower his head, smiling, and she also smiled herself. In her joy, she skipped a couple steps forwards to catch up with Ian, and then linked arms with him while the others weren’t paying attention.
Ian tilted his head to look at her curiously. “We’re in public,” he said seriously.
Amber nodded back, just as serious. “Yup.”
“We’re still fighting.’
“….”
She had completely forgotten that she had been pretending to be on bad terms with Ian in front of Ruby.
She quietly whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m the type of girlfriend that’ll keep harassing you.”
Ian raised his eyebrows and moved as if to remove his hand from hers, but Amber read his movements and grabbed onto his hand tightly. They ended up childishly pulling at each other for a while. In the end, Ian didn’t look at her again, but he couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from curling up.
Since Ian was too picky with his food, the four of them ultimately drove to Axton Hotel for dinner. Neither of the Axton siblings liked speaking very much, so the noble goal of keeping the conversation alive landed on Ruby.
Thankfully, he was used to such duties, and as he had been in business for so long, he wasn’t afraid of awkward silences either. With the heavy pressure of preserving his sister’s happiness on his shoulders, his primary task was to brainwash Daren into compliance.
While Ian was washing his hands and cleaning his cutlery with scalding hot water and Amber was taking a call, he tried his hardest to defame Amber in front of Daren. “I’m serious! She’s so particular at home that it’s about to drive me crazy. There was this one time, she came home and when she saw the socks that I’d just taken off lying on the sofa, my goodness, she immediately grabbed a stool and started beating me!”
His tone was so exaggerated and humorous that Daren couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He glanced at the door and softly asked, “Does she … hit people often?”