Free Web NovelChapter 62: Chapter 62: Whoever Loses Barks Like a Dog
"Auntie, it’s just for fun. It’s okay if you lose," Silas Rhodes said, pulling Yvonne Sutton to a seat.
"Okay," Yvonne Sutton nodded.
"Let’s see who loses the most. Whoever that is has to... uh, bark like a dog, and we’ll post it online!" Luke Summers suggested excitedly.
"Get lost. Don’t scare her," Jean Bell glanced at Luke Summers.
Luke Summers pouted. "What’s the big deal? Can’t you take a joke?"
"Shoo, shoo. If you want to bark, you can do it yourself. I guarantee I’ll make you go viral," Silas Rhodes yelled at Luke Summers.
Luke Summers clicked his tongue, not ready to give up. He jutted his chin at Yvonne Sutton. "Auntie, you dare to play?"
Yvonne Sutton shrugged. "Sure, I’m fine with anything."
"Hey, Auntie agreed! You two better not be party poopers!"
Silas Rhodes looked at Yvonne Sutton with some concern. She smiled at him. "I know how to play mahjong. I probably won’t lose too badly."
"Knowing how to play and *their* ’knowing how to play’ are two different things. They can count tiles."
"Oh, really? You can count them?" fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Silas Rhodes sighed, regretting having asked Yvonne Sutton to come over. ’But it’s no big deal. Worst case, I’ll just go easy on her.’
"Whoever goes easy is a coward!" Luke Summers added.
"You’re the coward! Your whole family are cowards!" Silas Rhodes kicked Luke Summers.
The mahjong game began. Yvonne Sutton lost the very first round, with someone winning off a declared Kong. In the second round, she discarded a winning tile for two players at once—her luck was truly one of a kind. Silas Rhodes wanted to go easy on her, but at the rate she was discarding winning tiles, he didn’t even have a chance.
But starting from the third round, Yvonne Sutton seemed to get the hang of it. First she stopped losing, then she began winning. She became the dealer and then won again and again, with all sorts of different hands.
She won so much that Luke Summers was dumbfounded. He kept sizing Yvonne Sutton up, convinced she was cheating.
"Auntie, who taught you how to play mahjong?" Silas Rhodes asked.
"The old ladies in the alley. Whenever they were short a player, they’d call me to fill in, and I slowly learned," Yvonne Sutton said.
Eventually, she started winning so often that the old ladies stopped asking her to play. They said if she had that kind of brain, she should use it to study hard and not bully the elderly.
By the end, Luke Summers, who was losing badly, was howling in frustration. Silas Rhodes was scratching his head, while Jean Bell remained as calm as ever, rarely speaking.
"Auntie, can I have a smoke?" Silas Rhodes asked.
"No, thank you," Yvonne Sutton said.
Seeing Silas Rhodes actually put his cigarettes down, Luke Summers pouted. "Since when did you, Mr. Rhodes, become such a gentleman?"
Silas Rhodes kicked Luke Summers lightly. "In our Rhodes family, my uncle is at the top of the pyramid. And since my auntie is the apple of my uncle’s eye, that makes her the very tip of the top of our family pyramid. Of course I have to listen to my auntie."
Luke Summers sized Yvonne Sutton up again. "I can’t believe your uncle would actually marry a..."
"One more word out of you and we’re done playing," Jean Bell said in a low voice.
Yvonne Sutton was slightly surprised. She hadn’t expected Jean Bell to defend her.
Luke Summers was clearly unfriendly toward her, so she decided she wouldn’t hold back with him either. After she beat him several rounds in a row, Luke became the one with the lowest score.
"It’s getting late. Let’s call it a night," Jean Bell said.
Luke Summers let out a miserable howl. "No way! I haven’t won back my losses yet!"
Silas Rhodes chuckled and pulled out his phone. "Come on, Mr. Summers. Make it loud."
Luke Summers wiped away a fake tear but still honored the bet, barking a few times at the phone screen.
Silas Rhodes was delighted and immediately posted it online.
"Auntie, make sure to check out the drama later. It’s guaranteed to be a trending topic," Silas Rhodes said cheerfully.
"Really?" ’It’s that easy to start trending?’
"He loves to flaunt his wealth and show his face all the time, so he has a lot of fans. He’s kind of a minor celebrity."
"What do you mean, ’minor’? I *am* a celebrity! Those so-called stars aren’t even as famous as me!"
Luke Summers dragged Silas Rhodes off to play video games, saying he was going to sleep over. That left Yvonne Sutton to see Jean Bell out.
"I drove here. Do you need a ride?" Jean Bell asked.
"I’m staying here tonight, but thank you," Yvonne Sutton said with a smile.
Jean Bell nodded. "I heard you’re a doctor?"
"Yes, but I’m not currently working at a hospital."
"So now you’re...?"
"Me? I guess you could say I’m an unemployed wanderer."
Jean Bell smiled. "If that’s the case, could you do me a favor?"
"What is it?"
"The first TV series I’ve written and produced is about to start filming. It has a lot of dangerous stunts, so I was hoping to have a doctor on set. Would you be interested?"
"I’m an OB-GYN, so..."
"Director Sherman is my mentor. He mentioned you to me, said you make a great cooling tea. Don’t worry, we’ve taken every safety precaution. There won’t be any major accidents, but minor bumps and scrapes are unavoidable. Having a doctor on set would give the cast and crew some peace of mind."
"Can I think about it?"
"Of course."
Yvonne Sutton saw Jean Bell to his car. As he was leaving, he added, "Tell Wyatt Shaw I said hello."
"Okay."
That night, Yvonne Sutton slept in Wyatt Shaw’s room.
Daisy Shaw brought over three large photo albums, all filled with pictures of Wyatt Shaw’s childhood.
"Ever since he was a baby, I’ve imagined this moment. He’d grow up, get married, and then I’d bring out these albums to look through with his wife, telling her all the funny stories from his childhood while we looked at the pictures."
Daisy Shaw was giddy with excitement, hurrying Yvonne Sutton to get onto the bed so they could look at the photos together.
The moment Yvonne Sutton sat down, Daisy Shaw eagerly opened an album.
"Here! This is a picture of him right after he was born. So ugly, right? Like a little wrinkly monkey."
Yvonne Sutton laughed. "All newborns look like that. It’s because after the vernix is cleaned off, their skin gets dry, peels, turns red, and wrinkles. But those things disappear as the baby develops and the body absorbs any hematomas."
"Right? See, he got better-looking later on."
Wyatt Shaw had perfectly inherited Daisy Shaw’s looks. His features were delicate and soft, which could have made him look a bit feminine, but combined with his aura, it instead made him appear noble and proud. And when he smiled, there was a hint of mischief.
"This is his third birthday photo. So chubby and cute." As she spoke, Daisy Shaw couldn’t resist kissing the picture.
"So Wyatt Shaw had a chubby phase too." ’He really is cute.’
Looking at later pictures, the baby fat was gone. He had shot up in height, growing into a refined and handsome young man, his pure and noble temperament becoming more apparent. Flipping to his middle school photos, there was one of him playing the violin.
Seeing this photo, Daisy Shaw sighed. "Around this time, his father made some plans for him without discussing them first. When he found out, he was furious and insisted on studying music—not because he liked it, but purely to defy his father. Ai, if we had just let him study it then, he wouldn’t have run away from home, and he wouldn’t have met that... AHEM..."
"Anyway, the boy may seem carefree and cheerful, but he’s incredibly stubborn."
Yvonne Sutton looked at the Wyatt Shaw from that time—so wonderful, so pure. It was hard to imagine he had gone through so much in that one year.
’And he met Hannah Abbott, too, right?’
’Perhaps it was a woman’s intuition, but she always felt that this Hannah Abbott was a special presence during those years of Wyatt’s life.’
