An Xunuo turned back. Her bloodshot eyes met Ye Ningyuan’s shocked gaze.
As though he understood something, he forced a smile. An Xunuo clenched her fists and slowly walked over. She suddenly reached out and hugged him tightly as though it was their one and only hug in their lifetime.
He was slightly taken aback and did not understand what was on her mind.
An Xunuo backed off a few steps and looked at him before flatly saying, “Thank you.”
She pushed him away and left.
“Xunuo!” He called out. She stopped in her steps for a moment and gently said, “Please take care!”
Without saying a word, she quickly disappeared into the corridor. Ye Ningyuan, leaning against the wall, looked down and saw the well-polished floor. “This day sure arrived quickly,” he said softly.
There was a hint of unwillingness in his voice.
Afraid that Xunuo had nothing to do, he put down his work and wanted to join her for a while as she rarely left to watch a movie on her own. He was afraid that she was bored and had no idea that what she watched would stir her memories. If he had come a few minutes earlier, all these would not have happened.
It was fated that she ought to recover.
That was good too.
If they spent more time with each other, one was afraid…
He stood in the corridor for a while before returning to his study room to do his work as though nothing had affected him. Xunuo’s incident seemed as though it naturally resolved itself, and those days of accompanying her seemed like a dream where he could so lovingly dote on her. When he awoke from this dream, said dream left nary a trace and did not affect his life.
Ye Wei quickly knew about An Xunuo. When she saw Ye Ningyuan remain this calm and working as usual, she wrapped her arms around her chest and secretly wondered if she was beginning to not understand Ning Ning. How did he manage to freely reconcile with his emotions?
When he cared for and doted on a woman, he would make her so happy to the point she would become the happiest woman in the world. But when she disappeared, he treated her as though she were some other bubble that had just burst and did not seem to matter.
He was actually not the slightest affected.
How did he do it? Ye Wei was full of admiration. She was of the opinion that An Xunuo was significantly different to him. From this incident, it really seemed that the seven-year-old Xunuo was different.
To him, all the other girls in the world were identical. He could dote on them when he wanted to, but he would stop with no qualms if the other party called it a day. Like An Xunuo, Xu Xing…
They were no different.
Ye Wei saw his perfect side profile and shook her head. Matters of the heart were each to their own. If watching over Xunuo left him satisfied, nobody else had the right to tell him what to do.
It was just that such a Ningyuan was terrifyingly cold and distant.
To think about it, what was wrong with being cold toward people? He showered his family with so much care and concern, and that was sufficient for him. He could not be bothered about how others felt.
Su Man and Bai Ye had made a wasted trip. Ye Wei shrugged her hands as she did not know what happened. Since An Xunuo seemed to have suddenly recovered, Bai Ye smiled and said, “It’s all Su Man’s fault for planning such conservative experiments. If we were here a few days earlier, we would have been in time to munch on popcorn.”
Su Man coldly harrumphed. Since they were here, they had their own work to see. Su Man had just developed a new weapon that was easy to use and powerful. His presence allowed him to work with a group of weapon experts underground to further refine said design.
Ye Ningyuan, who was back to his normal self, was smiling and joking like before. As there was no longer an An Xunuo who petulantly called him ‘daddy’, Rosefinch and company felt a little dissonance.
Ye Wei and Mo Wushuang had to leave in another two days if they did not want Mo Jue to rush over to capture somebody. To prevent Mo Jue from going berserk, Ye Wei decisively dragged Mo Wushuang up the plane back to Rome.
Ye Hailan did not follow Ye Wei as she was like the wind. She said she wanted to look for Kaka and disappeared as she finished speaking before appearing in Kaka’s room a few moments later. Everybody mourned for Kaka.
Su Man passed the weapon blueprints to the experts and explained the operating principles of the weapon. He also gathered their suggestions and basically had the prototype for a new weapon ready. He and Bai Ye also left after some time.
The headquarters became as quiet and calm as before.
A storm, however, was starting to brew in London. An unknown videotape that made its appearance at major television stations in Great Britain contained a video of Michael’s final moments. The video contained conversations amongst several higher-ranking officials and showcased several massive corruption and smuggling incidents that implicated close to ten of Great Britain’s wealthiest and most influential politicians. Even the British royal family was somehow implicated.
The videotape was authentic and its contents were shocking to the point it set off a controversy unlike before.
As news of it spread like wildfire around the world, the prestige and image of Great Britain, its royal family included, was greatly compromised and reached new lows. What was even more shocking was how several officials mysteriously disappeared and how one of them even died mysteriously in the next few days. The disappearances and death made the news even more convincing, along with how bizarre the incident felt. Nobody knew who orchestrated the incident.
Official reports quickly described it as a ‘vicious smear campaign which contained allegations of corruption, trafficking, and elimination of key witnesses that were targeted at utterly destroying credibility. The official reports, however, seemed to lack credibility and were insufficient to win the crowd over.
Great Britain was facing a brutal crisis.
An Xunuo, with her legs crossed, coldly watched the images that flashed across the television. It was another disgusting official speech. An insidious gaze flashed across her eyes as she broke into a cold smile.
She would not spare anybody who harmed her daddy.
She would drive their reputation into the ground.
The telephone rang, and An Xunuo picked it up. “Ophelia, stop. Things are getting out of control.” A cold voice came over the phone.
“That’s none of your business!” She had a vicious look. “I’ve demonstrated very much restraint.”
The other party smiled bitterly. Shown much restraint? What kind of joke was that? If that was ‘restraint’, what was she like when she showed no restraint? Just how many people had to die for Michael? How willful of her!
Ah, An Xunuo had always been willful and haughty. Given that she was filled with hatred, having her stop in her tracks was even more difficult.
“Ophelia, the fallout of this incident is much more than you think. Enough is enough. You have what you exactly wanted. Go kill whomever you want to kill, but do not go overboard.”
“I am very surprised at you telling me this.” She coldly laughed with a hint of irony.
“Ophelia, I’m really thinking of…” The other person was about to speak but stopped. “Anyway, could you just stop? If the situation unfolds further, you will be disadvantaged. I’m sure you don’t want both sides of the law to come after you, right?”
“If they want to take me on, I’m game!”
“Dear auntie, I’m properly scared of you. Since you’ve created this mess, you tidy it up. Do not expect me to clean up after you.”