Chapter 388 - The visit

"You mentioned you had some leads the last time," Lei Zhao finally spoke. Always one to go straight for the solutions, he was already thinking of ways to help Edward come to a quicker resolution of his troubles.

Sadly, the men they were up against were some of the very best in the business. Lei Zhao hated to remember it, but he had suffered his biggest loss to date at their hands, when he thought his older brother was killed in an accident.

It was why he could relate to Edward's pain. They had both suffered extremely in the hands of these ruthless men and no matter how long it took, they were going to make certain they got justice for the ones they had lost.

"I did, in fact," Edward responded to Lei Zhao's inquiry. "Which is why I called you here today. I want to move in on them. See if I find out some more information. Because I have to find who gave the order.

These people we found are worthless to me except as bait. How soon can you arrange a smart and efficient team for this purpose?"

He looked at least ten years older than his age as he spoke to his friend. The toll that nightmare had taken on him seemed more intense than ever.

"Consider it done, brother," Lei Zhao assured Edward, moving over to where he was seated, to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Edward relaxed visibly from the brotherly gesture but the knots on his neck did not go away.

He nodded tiredly and shaking hands with Lei Zhao, he pushed the button that would let his friend back up into his outer study room.

He would turn off the light in the Other Room and just sit there in the darkness for some kind minutes, trying to regain some semblance of energy before reappearing back up to face his actual tasks for the day. 

*********

Amy woke up with a pounding headache tearing away at her head and with her eyes still closed, she wrapped her blanket over her head, groaning.

But in her opinion, they were both the same. She had even gone as far as googling the symptoms of a panic attack before she started to concede to Chynna's view. Being an overthinker had never been easy for her. From happy thoughts on the bus, she had gotten home and recreated the evening in her mind, analyzing Edward's every word until she fixated on the one thing he had said to ruin everything.

She had ended up crying about the fact that he did not like her even a little bit and he just used her to let off some steam. He had not really wanted her company in particular, he just needed not to look stupid sitting up there alone listening to music like a lonely person.

And that hurt worse than it was supposed to. The tears had flowed freely then, and once in that mood, she never really knew how to stop until she had used up all her energy and fallen into a tired sleep.

"Hey, Red, what's wrong, are you okay?" an a.d.u.l.t male's voice called out to her and she jumped up in fear, holding the rest of her blanket tightly to her c.h.e.s.t.

"What are you doing here, sir? Don't you know that this is breaking an entry? How did you even get in?!"

She asked him with a shaky voice, even more frightened that he was smiling at her. Her thoughts were completely disjointed at the moment. She felt like she was hallucinating.

"No, it's not. Gu Zhou let me in, right before he left for school. I mean, I assume he would have left by now. He did mention wanting to finish a game first," Edward said mischievously.

He had been unable to focus on anything back at home. He had called Amy's office and when no one answered, he phoned the front desk to inquire about her. He was informed that she had not clocked in for the day.

The voice on the other end shakily added that they had thought the Edward and her had probably gone off to some meeting elsewhere.

They were still apologizing profusely for the unintended slip up when he, against his better judgement, decided to bring himself over to Amy's house.

"Who are you?" Gu Zhou had asked when he got the door minutes back.

"Just tell your sister Edward is here to see her," he had responded. He tried to put on his superior air, but he was shaking like a leaf, in truth.

"Oh, you're the mean one who's always stressing my jiejie and keeping her till late at night, eh? Do you know the last time she made me dinner? I can't even remember," Gu Zhou said.

Edward just stood there, his mouth slightly agape. So that was what Amy had told everyone about him, he thought sadly. He could hardly blame her though.

"Come in and sit down. I think my sister is still sleeping but I'll tell her her boyfriend is here," Gu Zhou said, chuckling in the mischievous ways of an almost teenager as he ran off to find Amy.

Edward had walked into the living room and shown himself to a seat, he regarded the humble apartment with eyes of wonder. He was usually surrounded by so much affluence that he almost never remembered that people still lived simply like this.

He got up and walked over to the portrait of Amy's parents. He was still staring at it when after what felt like an eternity, Gu Zhou reappeared and announced that Amy would not wake up, but that Edward was free to go into her room to try and make her open her eyes.