Free Web NovelChapter 343: Chapter 341: A Happy Gathering of the Male Leads
Mia Grant’s heart jolted.
After a long moment, she covered her face, laughter spilling out from between her fingers.
Her shoulders shook with laughter.
As if she had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
Yates Donovan held her tighter. "I know I shouldn’t have used that word."
’My heart ached for you.’
’I shouldn’t have put it that way.’
"But you know I’m not good with words. You have to forgive me."
Mia Grant laughed until tears streamed down her face.
Or maybe they weren’t from laughter.
It was just that the smile made her seem a little less sad, a little less miserable.
"I know that story you told me from your dream was only a small part of it."
"I know you don’t want to say more, but I really do want to know everything."
"I’m not trying to investigate who you really are. I just... I just really want to understand the ’you’ from before."
This time, he steered clear of that word—pity.
His desire to investigate her, to understand her past, came from a simple motive. He just wanted to know what she had been through all this time...
...to have become the person she was now—so forged by fire, so cautious about everything, and so heart-wrenching to behold.
In truth, for him, this was nothing short of a cruel form of self-torture.
"I’m torn, too. If I can’t find anything, it tears me apart."
"But if I do find something, it’s like stabbing myself in the heart—the kind of pain where the knife is shoved in and out, churning up flesh and blood."
"..."
Mia Grant’s tear-soaked eyelashes suddenly trembled. "You know, that’s how I died in my dream."
"!"
The breathing beside her ear stopped.
"That person stabbed a knife into my stomach, I think it was right here..."
She raised a hand and pressed a spot on her abdomen, continuing, "He seemed to hate me to the bone."
"So, worried that one stab wouldn’t be fatal, he plunged the knife in, pulled it out, then stabbed me again, and finally shoved it in all the way to the hilt."
"He only stopped when my scream was muffled by the blood gushing from my throat."
"In the end, he didn’t pull the knife out. He just staggered and collapsed beside me."
"The last thing I saw..."
"I think I must have seen him."
She still wasn’t sure.
Yates Donovan’s breath hitched. Recalling the words he had just spoken, his heart thundered in his ears. "It wasn’t me."
The explanation sounded feeble and weak.
’How could there be such a coincidence?’
"I know," Mia Grant said with a nod. "What I said just now wasn’t me just placating you or trying to win you over."
"You know I don’t have the energy to put on a false front right now."
Mia Grant gave him a reassuring smile. Usually, he was the one comforting her, but today, their roles were reversed.
"Looks like I really scared you just now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have panicked like this over a single sentence from me."
’You’re so jumpy.’
"This isn’t like you, Yates Donovan."
"This *is* me." Yates Donovan let out a long breath, then changed his tune. "Okay, I get it."
"Help me make a doctor’s appointment. I don’t want anyone else to know."
Yates Donovan understood.
「The next morning」
Mia Grant was discharged from the hospital as scheduled.
She hadn’t slept well last night, and she was still groggy when she woke up this morning.
It was only after waking up that she realized the hospital room was full of people.
Seeing this "happy little gathering," Mia Grant froze, her hand halfway to rubbing her eyes.
Although she knew they had probably already reached some sort of consensus behind her back, seeing them all in the same frame... the scene was more than a little jarringly creepy.
Mia Grant subconsciously felt like she wasn’t fully awake, like she was still dreaming.
The atmosphere wasn’t lively, but it wasn’t particularly awkward either.
It was a harmony laced with a hint of strangeness.
No one said much, but their gazes all landed on her in unspoken agreement.
For some reason, being stared at by everyone at once... she felt that their concerned gazes also seemed to carry a trace of... condemnation? Or was it accusation?
Mia Grant fell even more silent.
’Fortunately, everyone’s blackening value is still stable. No risk of them breaking down.’
In the car on the way back, Mia Grant slowly realized that the male leads’ blackening values really hadn’t fluctuated much in a long time.
’It seems their tolerance and acceptance have grown.’
Mia Grant was quite relieved.
’Next, according to the system, as long as the female protagonist completes the original plot, everything will be over.’
’As long as I can get through the remaining eight months peacefully...’
Mia Grant’s gaze gradually cleared, and she glanced at the person beside her.
After leaving the hospital, she had been wondering how to choose whose car she should get into.
Luckily, she didn’t have to face that multiple-choice question.
As if they had planned it, Kian Keller said he had to go to the airport, Yates Donovan had to go back to the office, the two from the Sinclair Family had to go home and it wasn’t on the way, and Hayes Hughes was tied up with a surgery.
So, in the end, she naturally ended up in the car of Silas Grant, the man who was usually the busiest but was conspicuously free today.
At this moment, Silas Grant was holding her hand, silently staring at the scratches on the back of it.
Mia Grant shifted, trying to pull her hand back, but failed.
The movement startled the man. The sleeping lion awoke. His dark eyes behind his glasses swept away their fatigue as he turned to look at her.
His calm gaze swept over her face.
He had been holding her hand and looking at it ever since she got in the car, but he showed no sign of asking about it.
Because last night, he had already watched the surveillance footage sent over by the hospital.
Footage from every floor, every frame Mia Grant had appeared in.
Her slender body burst through the heavy fire escape door as she stumbled barefoot down the stairs.
She kept going until she burst through the fire escape door on the first floor, startling the "passersby" scattered around.
When those people saw her, their usually stoic faces showed varying degrees of shock.
No one thought she was in her right mind.
Who would try to run out of a hospital wearing a patient gown and no shoes?
The men reacted quickly, forming a solid wall at the entrance, while others went to block another exit.
The bodyguards from the various families, who, like their bosses, usually couldn’t stand the sight of each other, were surprisingly united in that moment.
But they were all rough men. None of them knew how to soothe a young woman’s emotions, nor could they contain their own overwhelming presence.
In fact, among those bodyguards was someone Mia Grant was familiar with: Kian Keller’s man, Zero.
Unfortunately, Zero was on his dinner break at the time and wasn’t there.
Otherwise, Mia Grant might not have been so scared that she fell to the ground.
Right after that, Yates Donovan rushed over.
The usually flippant, scheming young master’s hair was a mess from the wind. His expression was stripped of its usual lighthearted mockery. He shot a furious glare at the surrounding bodyguards, cursing as he strode over to Mia Grant and helped her up.
A ten-minute standoff followed.
Mia Grant looked incredibly fragile, as if a gust of wind could scatter her into the air.
She gripped her trembling hand tightly, trying to use the pressure to regulate her breathing and control her emotions while steadying her shaking fingers.
Just as Yates Donovan had said at the airport that one time, she was sick.
Silas Grant finally understood that kind of frantic anxiety.
Because in that moment, he too was seized by those same emotions, and his own breathing grew difficult.
