“She’s looking for Noelle Jones through Jasmine?” Edward asked with a raised brow.In the evening, he received a report from Wade that Vivian had requested Jasmine to help her look for Noelle. Even though he knew that she would not give up so easily, he had not expected her to make such a foolish move. Wade nodded. Then, he continued, “According to Jasmine, it’s Vivian who invited her for lunch. It was a casual meeting, and she only brought the topic up when they were closing to finish their
“Okay, you go ahead then. You can even take my class with you. In any case, I'm not going to go there to serve people,” the colleague continued to grumble, “It’s fine if you are allocated to the hotel hall, which is the venue for the forum, but what if you’re unlucky and get assigned to the airport or the bus stop? It will be a disaster!” A faint smile shadowed Vivian’s lips as she replied simply, “Well, all we can do is pray to God.” Nevertheless, she was pretty lucky this time. Along with
Vivian nodded slowly. She took a sip from the glass in her hand and handed Noelle a glass of water. “Take it easy. Drink some water and tell me about it slowly.” Noelle took the glass from Vivian’s hand and sipped from the glass. “Please believe me, Miss Carraway. I didn’t know who Mr. Levin was until I came to Tipsy Tonight. I’ve been asking around about him, and I was shocked as well, but I didn’t dare to ask what was going on.” Vivian just listened to her blabber without saying anything.
“Nothing. I just took several pictures of you,” Vivian replied matter-of-factly. Then, she waved her phone and continued, “Don’t worry. As long as you listen to me, I'll delete the pictures.” Noelle had been working here for a while, so she regained her composure very quickly. She queried, “What do you want me to do? What are you going to do with me if I refuse to listen to you?” “Well, I can’t really do anything to you. All I can do is carry out my duty as your lecturer and send all the pic
She thought to herself, ‘Great, that’s just what I need!’. Despite Vivian being mentally prepared to bump into Edward, she could not stop her body from shuddering when she encountered him. Edward noticed her as well. He raised his brows and asked, “Miss Carraway? Are you here for pleasure as well?” Vivian refused to believe his encounter with her was just a coincidence, hence she loathed the way he was being so pretentious. She pursed her lips upon hearing his question, but she forced hersel
“Why are you inquiring so much? You’re not the one anyway,” the man with the cigarette in his mouth chimed in immediately. Edward refused to comment on that. He darted Vivian a look and gave her a mocking smirk. Then, he urged her, “Come over and help me check out the tiles.”Standing there and listening to their obscene remarks, Vivian clenched her teeth in rage so hard that she almost crushed her teeth. Finally, she managed to control her emotions with great effort. She walked over expressi
“Evil! That’s too evil!” the chubby man on the opposite end muttered to himself as well. He looked up to squint at Vivian, then he asked Edward, “Edward, where did you get this girl from?”Edward did not answer the question, but he looked at Vivian with narrowed eyes. She had a calm expression and appeared oblivious to the situation around her. She stared at her tiles with rapt attention. He could see the excitement hidden in her eyes, so he lowered his gaze to take a glance at the tiles in fro
While Noelle had no fear of Vivian, she was afraid of Jasmine. She could not help feeling nervous upon seeing Jasmine’s infuriated state. She asked frightfully, “What’s going on, Jasmine? I thought she’s just a useless lecturer. What can she do to me?”“Why don’t you think with your brain? Why did Mr. Levin come looking for you personally? Do you think that he did it for you? Who do you think you are?!” Jasmine became even more enraged upon seeing her foolish expression. She did not bother to s
Did you know, Vee?I’ve thought of this more than once. If only our beginning from that night wasn’t so unbearable, how wonderful would it be?… The light from the setting sun spilled towards her from the side, casting a glow on the piece of paper, illuminating the words on it, and giving them a slight shimmer. Just like last year, when she emerged from the ultrasound room in the maternity hospital, weak after a mere two steps, she had to lean against the corridor. She covered her mouth with
Vivian arrived home a little late. She parked the car at the side of the road first, then collected her subscribed newspapers and magazines from the mailbox at her gate. She flipped through the mail as she walked in. To her surprise, she found a letter. It was an envelope made from kraft paper with her name on it.It was a rare handwritten letter with the faint print of a bamboo tree, drawn with Chinese calligraphy ink. The bamboo was tall, straight, and fierce just like the script on the lette
“It’s been three months now, why isn’t the little one moving? When will the baby quicken?” he asked her, “Can it hear me? Will it remember my voice?”He even asked, “Who do you think it’ll look like, Vee? Will it be a girl or a boy?”She knew very well that he was harboring evil intentions, but she gave into him and crumbled anyway. She sobbed and screamed, “Kill me, Sean Jackson. Kill me. I will never give birth to this child even if I die! Never!”He soothed her, “Alright. Don’t give birth
His lower jaw tightened. The lines on his face stiffened icily like the cold edges of a knife. In reality, he had given up long ago. His heart was as dead as ash. However, refusing to accept this, he grasped at everything, hoping to find a straw that could save a life, not to save himself but to save his child’s life. That was how well he knew her. He knew that once she escaped, she would never spare his child. Did he hate her? Yes. He hated how he couldn’t shoot her dead. Love triumphed over ha
“Then, what should we do?” his aide asked.A hero’s end was, inevitably, death. He wasn’t afraid of death, but he was simply plagued with remaining grievances. After a bout of silence, Edward calmly said, “Do something for me. Once that’s done, just slip away. There are no lives in your hands and you aren’t in the cops’ database. No one will notice you.”This aide had received a great debt of gratitude from Edward once, so he was solely loyal to him. He became distressed when he heard this, so
“You deserve it for all of the crimes you’ve committed!” Vivian screamed, losing control. Her emotions felt strangely steady after that scream. She threw the gun away as her sparkling, dark eyes were filled with renewed determination. She stared at him and spoke, enunciating every word, “Sean Jackson and those brothers of yours, you’ve all got your justice. Beaten to death, right? Arrested, was it? But when you willfully hurt others and view their lives as nothing more than weeds, you should hav
She hadn’t slept the entire night, and she was extremely high-strung. However, she was feeling slightly fatigued. Perhaps because of the comforting glow from the brightening day outside, she lay down on the bed with her clothes on after a bout of hesitation. She had only intended on taking a nap but unexpectedly fell into a deep sleep.Vivian suddenly woke up, startled. She had lost track of how long she had been asleep. She found a figure standing in front of her bed when she awoke and was gre
Vivian was taken aback by his question. “You haven’t caught him?” she exclaimed in astonishment. She thought that they had already apprehended Edward based on the expression on Jake’s face.“Our men have surrounded the condominium,” he answered simply, “He and Wade seized a hostage and hid inside the study. Both sides were caught in a deadlock for a while, but when they burst the study door open, they only found Wade and that hostage inside.”Vivian trembled uncontrollably as she listened to h
The wedding day was drawing to a close. Vivian stayed at the condominium until the day before the wedding. Then, she moved to Edward’s villa by the lake to wait for the wedding ceremony. Edward drove her there himself, feeling reluctant before he left. He turned around and looked at her, then softly said, “Wait for me. I’ll come for you tomorrow, first thing in the morning.”Vivian didn’t respond and simply stood at the doorway, quietly watching him.For some reason, the sight of her like this