Leonardo silently stood rooted to the spot before he walked back in the direction from which he came.
His staff realized that he wanted to go to the road that had been damaged by the mudslide earlier. He was walking in front and could not help but remind Leonardo, “That road’s badly damaged and isn’t safe. When we entered the village earlier, it was blocked.”
Summer had most likely taken that route when she went up the mountains not long ago. If that road was damaged earlier, then…
There had been no news from her since yesterday. She was either stranded on that road or worse…
Leonardo’s expression grew even graver. He picked up his pace when he thought of all the possibilities.
His staff sped up as well and barely kept up with him.
When Leonardo arrived at the other road and saw the broken section, he gritted his teeth, and his face collapsed. It was impassable.
Before he moved forward, a loud noise rang from the above. The next second, a huge rock fell nearby and smashed into yet another section of the road.
Yet, he was determined to go forward.
His staff immediately stopped him. “You can’t go there, Young Master!”
Initially, Tim had wanted to tag along, but Leonardo forbade him.
These events had taken place unexpectedly, and there was still a lot of incomplete work in the company. So, Leonardo left Tim to take care of business in Emerson Group.
When they departed, Tim had told his men to stop Leonardo from going further if the situation became too dangerous.
However, not everyone could stop Leonardo.
“Release your hand.”
Leonardo glanced back at his staff, his voice cold.
The man was fazed, too afraid to speak or stop him. Letting go of Leonardo’s hand, he watched as his boss advanced.
The entrance to the route was not far from the road on which they had driven before.
After Leonardo went ahead, several voices began to ring out behind.
His staff looked back and saw Carl as well as a group of men walking toward him. Their clothes were covered in mud, and there was no way of telling what they had originally worn.
The falling rubble had just buried Leonardo’s car on that road a while ago, and Carl as well as his men were coming from there. It would have been impossible for their car to pass, so they must have abandoned their vehicle and traveled over on foot. That would explain why they were in such a miserable state.
Carl saw Leonardo’s staff and hurriedly went up to him. “Where’s Leonardo?”
“The young master is adamant…” He pointed and indicated the direction Leonardo had left in.
Carl’s eyes followed his finger and saw the broken road, but Leonardo was nowhere to be seen.
Carl went ahead and tried to get past the broken section, but he ended up pacing back and forth, finding no way to pass.
He kicked the rock in front of him with his foot. “That madman’s a daredevil!” he snapped.
He was worried about Leonardo, but at the same time, he knew that Leonardo would behave recklessly.
Leonardo must have known what he was doing when he took the route.
Since there was nothing else he could do there, Carl decided to head into the village to check if Jessica was safe.
…
The mudslide had damaged many of the roads and washed away the foundation of certain sections of the roads.
There were instances where soil and rocks would crash down right after Leonardo passed a section.
He trudged forward but saw no evidence of any car.
Could it have possibly fallen off the cliff?
The road was built along the hillside with a cliff on one side. It was not very steep, but there was an uninhabited forest down there. If a car fell into the forest, it was hard to tell if its passengers could survive.
Leonardo looked down at the ravine and thought of the time when Summer knocked on his door before she left.
The feeling of regret suddenly hit him.
Had he opened the door for her and stopped her from leaving, she would not have gone missing.
Leonardo had lost track of the time. He called out for Summer and kept an eye out for any sign of her car as he stumped forward.
Before him was a stretch of mud-covered road. Not a soul was visible in his surroundings.
Leonardo took a deep breath and shouted her name down the cliff at the top of his lungs.
He had come so far and lost count of how many times he had called her name, yet he got no response.
He thought it would be the same this time with no response from Summer.
Just as he was about to turn around and search further, he heard a weak voice behind him.
“Over here…”
Leonardo stopped in his tracks, looking back in the direction of the voice.
“Is that you, Summer?”
“… It’s me.”
There was a response.
It sounded like the voice was coming from somewhere along the road.
He followed the voice and peered down over the cliff to take a closer look. There, he saw Summer, her clothes fully covered in mud.
She was holding on to a cedar tree the size of a human arm with one hand. Next to the cedar was a rock that looked like it was going to fall at any moment. The same went for another rock that she was resting her feet on.
Her body appeared frozen. God knows how long she had remained in that posture.
“Leonardo!”
The moment Summer saw Leonardo, she finally knew how it felt to have tears fill her eyes after so long.
She bit her lip and said nothing again after she called out to him.
She had so many things to tell him, but she did not know where to begin.
Leonardo stood on the edge of a rock and bent down to extend his hand to her. “Give me your hand.”
Almost immediately, Summer put her hand into his.
The next second, Leonardo pulled her up using his powerful arm.
Once Summer was finally lifted up, she lay motionless, almost paralyzed, on the ground.
Shutting her eyes and slowly taking her breath, she described what she had encountered, “I rented a car in the city and drove all the way here yesterday. While I passed through this stretch of the road, a mudslide cut off the pathway. Since the car couldn’t pass through, I got out and went on foot…”
The further she went, the worse the condition of the road. Just as she thought of turning back, another mudslide destroyed the road behind her and nearly washed her down the cliff.
She had been standing in that exact posture for the entire night.
Perhaps because she had experienced that explosion on the small island in the past, she was not scared even though she had to stand there the entire night with no sign of rescue.
However, those were just her previous thoughts.
When she heard Leonardo call her name, she suddenly realized that she was waiting for him.
She was not afraid because she knew…
Leonardo knitted his brows together as he held her up. “Can you still walk?”
Her body was as stiff as a rock. She even had a problem balancing herself when he pulled her up from the ground. Leonardo noticed and quickly pulled her toward him, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist so that she could stand upright.