Elena left around seven o’clock the next morning, but even then, Michael had yet to return.
He had told Elena to wait for his return, but those words had become like a nightmare for her. She waited for him the whole night, from one to seven in the morning.
When she was done with her script, she sent it to her mailbox and then deleted the original file.
Then she powered off the laptop and decided to leave instead.
WhenMichael returned, the room was already deserted, and Elena was nowhere to be seen.
Levi walked beside him. He did not even notice that Eldest Young Master Williams had stood frozen at the doorway and so he continued with his reports.
“Eldest Young Master, regarding the emergency video conference last night, I will ask your assistant to compile a summary and then give it to you later.
“However, the situation at City LCity L is getting more serious. Are you sure that you don’t want to head over there for a look?”
Michael went to see Ava the night before, but he was only there for a few minutes.
When he left her room, he had unexpectedly received a call from the project manager in City L. There had been an accident that involved several of their workers.
Eldest Young Master Williams immediately held a video conference so that they could discuss the matter at hand. The call had only ended a few minutes ago.
Based on the eldest young master’s work tendencies, he would have flown to City L to assess the situation immediately after that.
However, he had hurried back to the room after the meeting had ended.
“Eldest Young Master…”
Levi finally realized that something was wrong with Michael. He stood at the doorway but did not enter the room. He did not know what he wanted to do?
Levi peeked into the room, but there was no one there. Elena had been there the night before that.
When Eldest Young Master Williams left to see Ava, he had told the young madam to wait for his return. He would not have expected that Young Madam would… just leave.
Was Eldest Young Master Williams disappointed that she had left?
Levi stepped away from Michael and made a discreet phone call to Butler Qin.
A few moments later, he returned to Michael. He stared at the eldest young master’s frozen figure by the door and whispered, “Young Madam had gone out.”
Michael had initially stood by the door; perhaps even he did not know what was on his mind.
When he heard Levi’s words, he walked into the room and adjusted the neckline of his shirt.
“Eldest Young Master, the incident… over at City L…”
“Book a flight, and we’ll leave immediately.”
…
Elena moved back to the school dormitory.
For six consecutive days, nothing unusual had happened.
Ever since that day, Michael had not looked for her again.
Friday came quickly, and it was the first leg of the final round for the competition. That morning was the scriptwriting round.
“The rules for the competition this time are too strict. No one knew who would be there, and there was no way to get in touch with them.”
Lois was a little frustrated. She could always get some information, however minuscule it was.
That time, however, she did not hear, nor did she obtain any news about the competition.
She did not even know which teacher would set the topic for that day.
The stricter rules showed the importance that the judges had placed on the competition.
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll just have to have faith in Elena. How could any of Elena’s script be bad?”
Layla had absolute faith in Elena. One could even call it blind faith.
“It’s okay. It’s only fair that no one knows about it.” Elena was busy as she tried to sort out her laptop bag.
“I’m just afraid that some people might have found out about it, and we were the only ones who couldn’t,” Caleb said.
“Impossible!” Lois was unconvinced, “If even I, Lois, couldn’t obtain any information, then you can expect that the others had heard nothing as well.”
“Alright, I believe in your skills, but I really don’t care about them.”
Elena massaged her own shoulders as she tried to calm herself down.
“The difference was nothing more than putting in a little more or a little less thought into the script. The final round is about to start. Don’t be nervous, just relax.”
She was the one who had to participate in the first round, yet she was also the one who had to comfort them instead.
That morning was the scriptwriting session for the final round. Then they would have the chief sketch session in the afternoon.
The inking and coloring rounds would only take place the next day.
As for the final day, the organizers had yet to announce the rules for that.
Elena looked at Aryan, who sat next to her. “How are you feeling? Do you feel any discomfort today?”
That day was the critical point of the competition. The score for the chief sketch was way too important for them to drop the chain there.
“I’m fine.” Aryan shook his head.
However, Caleb interjected, “A few days ago, you said you didn’t know. How dangerous was that?”
“What danger?” Elena looked back at him in a fury. Why had she not heard about that?
Aryan glared at Caleb before he turned toward Elena, “It’s okay; it was only a little accident.”
Caleb also knew he had misspoken, and so he shut his mouth pretty quickly.
Nevertheless, Elena was not someone easily appeased. It was blatantly obvious that those two hid something from her.
If those two did not want to tell her, there was still another person that she could ask.
“Luacs, tell me, what’s going on?” Apart from when he attended his own classes, Luacs was with Aryan most of the time.
He would know if something were to happen to Aryan.
Luacs had rarely held anything back from Elena.
He said, “A group of people came to look trouble, but another group drove them away.”
“Someone’s still causing trouble?”
Henry had promised to protect Aryan. So, how could anyone still cause them trouble?
“Were they big shots? How large was the group?”
“They seem to be quite organized. However, we also had someone to support us, so…”
Luacs did not care about that. He was not interested to know more about the person who supported them.
Elena was Eldest Young Master Williams’s fiancee, so he would not be surprised if Michael had sent people to protect them covertly.
Elena nodded and did not continue to question them.
She calculated the duration for the competition in her head and suddenly thought of something else. She looked at Aryan. “Those guys who protected us should be withdrawing today.”
Her agreement with Henry only lasted until competition day.
They had another less than an hour before the competition started, and they were at Jiang University’s compound.
They should be okay for as long as they were within the university’s area.
Nevertheless, it would always pay to be more careful.
“Luacs, I shall leave him to you.”
“Shouldn’t we protect you instead?”
Layla blinked at Elena, but she did not feel as if something was amiss.
Their days had been rather calm.
“What could happen to me?” Elena did not care about that at all.
Her hands were not as valuable as the information that she had stored in her mind.
After all, if her hands were injured, she could still dictate and get someone else to write it.
It was different for Aryan. His hands were a god-send ability; how could they not focus their protection on those hands?
“Forget it. Be quiet and let me rest for a while.” Elena laid her head on the desk.
They were in the lecture building at Jiang University.
During the competition, each competing group had a classroom as their lounge area in the lecture building of Jiang University.
There were ten teams in the finals. Eight out of ten groups would be selected to proceed to the afternoon round, and six out of the eight groups would then be chosen in the afternoon.
After that, they would choose five teams to proceed to the final round.
The final battle between those five teams would take place the day after tomorrow.
“Elena, I have some information regarding the judges.”
Lois hurriedly told everyone after she ended her phone call.
“In addition to the senior members of the Sharp family, Ning University and the directors of the animation department at Jiang University, there was a last-minute adjustment to the list of judges. It was someone from the Williams family.”