Chapter 636

There was a tremendous pound on the door from someone being flung into it. Sylvia was frightened when she felt the tremors through the door. Odell, who was on the verge of losing his sanity, suddenly stopped his movements. He grabbed Sylvia and dragged her several steps back, then he looked toward the door with ominously red eyes and hissed icily. “What’s going on?” Ben, who was standing guard outside, answered him.

“Master Carter, the second master brought… a lot of people here. We’re no match for him. You have to go now!” he informed while struggling for breath.

It was him who was slammed against the door.

Asunken loop appeared in Odell’s eyes, then he peered at Sylvia who was bound in his arms Sylvia glared back at him. “Odell, let me go unless you want to get beat up!” Odell smiled grimly. She felt an inexplicable shiver run through her body. He suddenly raised his hand and turned on the lights. 1 Brightening rays of light washed over the entire space inside the box. Sylvia winced and closed her eyes involuntarily. When she opened them again, she realized he was carrying her toward the back.

As he passed by the table, he suddenly noticed something peculiar. He reached out and grabbed a sapphire ring set on the table which he shoved into his pocket. Then, he continued heading toward the back.

There was a hidden door behind the box that he could sneak out of.

Sylvia looked astonished. It was not the existence of a secret door that shocked her, but the sapphire ring she saw him stuff into his pocket.

Why did she find the ring so familiar?

Suddenly, she felt a surge of cold wind beating around her.

It was only then that she realized that they had left Lush Heaven and that they were now in a separate outdoor parking lot. “Odell, where are you taking me?” she asked him while struggling in his arms.

Odell ignored her. He held on tightly to her and close to his chest.

He shielded her from the cold wind with his body.

Sylvia frowned and stared at him guardedly.

Shortly after that, Odell carried her to a spacious car.

There was a driver in the car who got out of the car and opened the door immediately upon

seeing Odell arrive.

Odell flung her to the back. Then, he entered and sat next to her.

Before she could make an effort to get up, his large hand grabbed her by her waist and tugged her to sit right next to him, so she

could hardly move. 1

The car engine started. She knew that she could not possibly overpower him, but after a couple of meager slaps on his arm, she stopped struggling. She looked outside and asked again, “Odell, where are you taking me?” He glanced at her and answered, “We’re going to see Isabel and Liam.”

Sylvia’s expression transformed, and her restlessness immediately dissipated as well. Odell continued to stare at her shamelessly, making the least attempt to remove his gaze from her.

Sylvia stared at him uncomfortably and confronted him. “Could you stop looking at me?” “No.”

His tone was insistent and sharp. Sylvia turned her head away, feeling annoyed and leaving him with the view of the back of her head.

Just a second later, he grabbed her by her chin and made her turn back to face him.

Sylvia glared grumpily at him and met his dark eyes. It was like the bottom of the ocean, devoid of light, concealing the deepest, darkest feelings known to men. Sylvia immediately turned away again and said, “Odell, what’s the point of doing this? Instead of wasting your effort like this, you should be worrying about what you’re gonna do after Carter Corporation falls.”

Vil

Chapter 637

Odell looked at her profoundly, his lips held into a frown. Sylvia thought that all that stress from recent events must have gotten to his head which led to him acting this way.

She refrained from going on for fear that it might cause him to further lose his mind. Either way, she would find some way to get Isabel and Liam out of this place after she met them later. After it seemed like Odell had calmed down, she peered at his pocket. Odell caught her stealing looks at his pocket and asked, “What are you looking at?” “Didn’t you just put a ring in your pocket?” Sylvia asked. “Yeah.” Odell took it out of his pocket, assuming that Sylvia took interest in the ring. The street lamps along the side of the road cast beams of light down to where they were. Under such sufficient lighting, Sylvia could easily recognize the delicately polished, vintage sapphire ring that rested in the center of his palm. She immediately frowned. Odell was paying close attention to her reaction and upon noticing her change of expression, he blurted, “What’s wrong?” Sylvia looked up at him with puzzlement and asked, “Why is this ring with you?” Odell narrowed his eyes and asked suspiciously, “Do you know this ring?” Instead of answering him, Sylvia asked another question, “Did Tara give it to you?” Odell’s eyes gleamed with certain alertness. “How did you know that she gave it to me?” Sylvia eyed the ring again. She explained without paying attention to the perplexed look in Odell’s eyes, “Because this ring used to be mine. | gave it to her because she liked it.” Nothing but silence for several seconds. After the brief silence, the man suddenly roared, “Stop!” The driver braked.

The sudden command frightened him. He promptly pulled the car to the side of the road. Since there was not much traffic along the road, the entire road was filled with an eerie silence after the car stopped.

Though it was quiet, there was not a sense of peacefulness one would expect. Odell grabbed Sylvia’s face with an ominous look fixed on her. “What did you just say?”

He suddenly became so agitated that it seemed like his eyes were bulging and were going to pop out.

Sylvia had never seen him lose his cool like this and was slightly taken aback. Still, she managed to explain with composure, “I said this ring used to be mine, back when Tara and | were still good friends. | ended up giving her the ring because she told me that she liked it.”

“Is this ring yours?” “Yes.” “Who gave it to you?”

“A boy gave me the ring, but | didn’t know him.” Odell’s hands suddenly shuddered. He sharpened the pointed look in his eyes and questioned,” Why did this boy give you this ring?” Sylvia sensed something wrong with his temperament but still answered him truthfully, “I believe it was as a gift of gratitude for saving him. Right, | believe it was his mother who left this ring to him.” “When was this? What do you mean by ‘saving’ him?” he continued interrogating, a bass-like tremor sounded in his voice.

“It was many years ago when | was only ten years old and lived with my grandparents in the old district. It was on a rainy night and | was heading out to buy some snacks. | passed by an alley and stumbled into a group of people beating up a boy no more than a few years older than | was. | remember being very scared at the time, but | was also worried that he would be beaten to death, so | cried out ‘Police! Police!’ to scare the group away. He already received a pretty bad beating by that point and | stayed with him for a long time. My grandparents ended up looking for me by the time the sun rose the next day. The boy gave me the ring before we separated.”

After Sylvia finished recounting the story, she looked into his reddening eyes. It seemed like he was experiencing a turmoil of emotions. Sylvia was startled by this behavior. “Odell, what’s wrong with you?” He said, “Your mother died shortly after you were born. Your father and stepmother were never fond of you so you ended up staying with your grandparents.” “Yeah, what are you trying to say?” Her circumstance growing up was pretty much public knowledge.

He pursed his lips, and a certain raspiness transformed his voice. “It was raining that night. The boy told you about how he was. abused by his stepmother, which was why you shared your story with him to show that he was not alone. Is that so?”

A baffled look appeared in her eyes. “You… How did you know?” Odell clenched his jaw.

He quietly looked at her tender and innocent expression and noted how adorable she looked. He felt a rush to his head and had to take a couple of seconds before he could utter these words, “Because | was that boy.”

Chapter 638

It was a stormy night filled with the ringing of thunderstorms. Ten-year-old Sylvia was still living in the old district with her grandparents at the time. That night, she wanted to eat snacks from a certain street vendor and snuck out of the house without her grandparents knowing. That was when she encountered the fateful scene of a boy surrounded by a group of people at the entrance of an alley. The poor boy was beaten up. 1 It was a rainy day and it was very dark. Not a soul passed by the alley.

She wanted to call someone for help but there was no one around and she did not have a phone either. She knew that she could not just watch as the poor boy continued to get brutalized. She grabbed a pocket journal from her pocket and put it to her ear to pretend that it was a phone. Then, she stood at the mouth of the alley and began calling for the police and informing the police of her current location. She put on a tremendous act to make it seem like she was truly calling the police. With how dark it was, the hooligans did not know that it was not a phone that she had in hand. So, they vanished in a puff of smoke.

That was when she ran to the boy. He twitched impulsively before she even touched him. He was in a terrible state. Sylvia could not help him up either. She ended up telling him to wait in the same spot while she went to get someone to call an ambulance. That was when the boy grabbed onto her wrist and pleaded meekly, “Don’t… don’t go.” They could not make out each other’s appearance in the dark, but Sylvia could clearly remember seeing the way he was trembling. She held an umbrella and stayed by his side for a very long time. Many years had passed since that fateful incident, and Sylvia’s memory of what they talked about then was very hazy by this point. All she could recall was how the boy refused to disclose what his name was or where he lived.

He only told her that it was his stepmother who put him in this state.

Upon this mention, Sylvia thought of her stepmother as well and told him how she had lost her mother when she was very young, and how his father had abandoned her. She figured that they had a sort of companionship in misery.

He seemed to open up upon hearing that and he asked her, “Does your stepmother pick on you too?” She told him, “i lived with my grandparents since | was a child, so there’s no way for her to get to me.” “My grandmother is very good to me too.” He shared.

So, they had a very long conversation. Suddenly, he asked, “What’s your name?”

Sylvia answered, “You tell me your name first, and I’ll tell you mine.”

This was not the first time she asked for his name that night.

He fell into a very guarded silence. She noticed that he was uncomfortable and quickly switched to another topic. He no longer spoke and only listened to what she said.

She stayed with him all night and even let him borrow her coat. He sheltered underneath the umbrella with her coat around his shoulders.

It was only nearly dawn when her grandparents began calling for her name frantically nearby when she rose. He grabbed her again.

She told him that she had to go.

He tucked a sapphire ring into her hands and said to her, “This is for you.” 1

Her first response was to refuse as she could not take it, He insisted that she take it and pressed it into her hands. He was very insistent. She took it and ran out of the alley to find her grandparents.

Her grandparents were very agitated and quickly took her home when they saw her.

It took a lot of effort for her to explain what happened and by the time they returned to the alley she mentioned, there was nobody there. Even now, she could recall how the day had brightened and how the sun had shone on specks of dried blood on the wall.

After that, she was taken home by her grandparents. Soon after, Tara came to play with her and that was when she fell in love with the sapphire ring Sylvia thought the world of Tara at the time, for she was her best friend. Seeing that Tara liked it so much, she decided to give it to her.

She recounted the story of the mysterious boy she met on that rainy night to Tara as well.

After that, she never met the boy again, and as time passed, she forgot the details of that night. Still, she would occasionally think of the boy and wonder if he managed to get away from his wretched stepmother.

Chapter 639

It was bizarre to think that the boy ended up becoming her husband in the future, the now twice-divorced ex-husband that had given her nothing but suffering…

Memories came flooding back.

Sylvia looked at the night sky through the car window. Her mind was blank. Odell sat next to her and stared thoughtfully at her.

It was as if his gaze would penetrate her skull.

Sylvia found it hard to believe that he was the boy she rescued that night. She suddenly felt an inexplicable heaviness in her heart and after a while, a thought suddenly occurred to her. She turned to him and asked, “Odell, you don’t think that Tara was the one who saved you that night, do you?” Odell made a look and stayed silent. The disturbed look in his eyes was all the answer she needed. She felt something stuck in her throat and did not know what to say She recalled how he always talked about how much Tara had done for him in the past, and how she was his single ray of hope in the dark days of his youth. Did Tara end up becoming this contorted idea of his muse by taking the sapphire ring? Could it be that Sylvia was his true muse all along? This was ridiculous!

If she had not given the ring to Tara, would Odell have even met Tara at all?

Perhaps they never would have gotten divorced? Perhaps he would never have her slapped sixty times to avenge Tara? Perhaps all the events that transpired would never have happened. Perhaps he would have never broken her leg!

Would he have chosen her over Tara without any hesitation back then?

However, there was no such thing as “if” in the harsh reality they lived in. Everything happened the way it did. She could still remember the sharp pain in her leg. They were never destined to be together!

Sylvia frowned icily, then turned her head to look out the car window again.

She felt his arm slowly draw away from her waist.

Perhaps he let go of her because he could not handle this sudden relegation.

She immediately shifted to the other side of the car to get as far away from him as she could. The car was still parked on the side of the road.

The street lamp shone through the car window and on her frail, tired face.

Meanwhile, Odell sat rooted to the same spot. He was completely motionless as if his soul had drifted out of his body. He was completely drained.

He stared at her, the veins in his eyes bulging with red.

This woman… This woman who he had hurt countless times was the girl who saved him that night?

Were the heavens messing with him?

How could this be?!

How could it be her?!

He broke the silence, his voice was unbelievably hoarse. “Are you lying to me? | know that you were good friends with Tara when

you two were young. She must’ve told you about her saving me that night and shown you this ring in the past, hasn’t she?” Sylvia rolled her eyes at him. “Believe it or not, | don’t care.”

Odell formed his lips into a thin, compressed line.

He knew that Sylvia wanted nothing more than to be done with him, so there was no motivation for her to conjure such a ridiculous tale.

After he thought about it, he realized that Sylvia’s voice and entire demeanor were very similar to the girl who saved him on that rainy night.

The streetlights outside the car window could not reach his side of the backseat as he sat amid the darkness.

Perhaps all this was too much and too sudden for him to process. He slumped weakly against the backseat, his tired eyes slowly closed. After what seemed like forever, he suddenly informed, “Isabel and Liam should be at my grandmother’s now.” Sylvia was alerted by this and glanced at him.

She could only make out his bare silhouette amid the harrowing darkness that surrounded him. It was eerie in a certain way. She kept quiet. Then, she opened the door and stepped outside.

She called for a taxi on the side of the road. After about half an hour, the taxi drove across a junction near the Art Academy and she arrived at the place where she lived with Thomas.

Chapter 640

There was not a spot of light seen in her residence, while Odell’s was glittering with lights everywhere.

It was still as well furnished as it was in the past. There were even two bodyguards posted by the entrance. There was no sign of any depravity that came upon the property.

Perhaps this was the last remnant of his time in the spotlight before the Carter Corporation faced total collapse. The bodyguards recognized Sylvia and immediately opened the door for her when she approached.

Shortly after she entered, the housekeeper, Sebastian, greeted her enthusiastically. Sylvia exchanged several kind words of greeting with him before she went to Madam Carters’ room.

As expected, Isabel and Liam were inside the room with her.

Liam was sitting by the bed and had his attention squarely fixed on his book, while Isabel had fallen asleep next to her great- grandmother.

Sylvia slowly walked to Liam’s side. Liam turned up to look at her. His adorable, chubby cheeks seemed to puff up along with his large, round eyes.

Sylvia patted his head. Liam softly murmured, “Mommy, | want to stay here with Great-grandma.” Sylvia replied, “Okay.” She was not going to take the kids back home anyway even if he had not said that. The two of them missed their great-grandmother fervently. Besides, they had been staying at Thomas’ for a long time already.

Seeing as how Odell released her tonight, she figured that he was not going to try to impose his will on her anymore. If they could get along in the future, she no longer saw a reason to stay at Thomas’ place.

Suddenly, her phone rang.

It was Thomas calling.

Sylvia stepped out of the room to answer the call.

Thomas’ voice immediately sounded through with clarity from the speakers. “Where are you now?”

While on the way here, Sylvia had sent him a message and assured him that there was nothing to worry about. She answered him truthfully, “I’m at my place near the Art Academy with Isabel and Liam.

Don’t worry about me, just go home and get some rest.”

“What about him?”

Him, as in Odell.

Sylvia pondered for a brief moment and answered, “He dropped me off halfway here. | don’t think he’s going to do anything to me from here on.”

“Alright, you get some good rest as well.”

“um.”

After hanging up, she returned to the room and watched over Madam Carter with the children. As the night went on, Liam began dozing off as well. Sylvia had Sebastian help her carry the kids into her room which was directly adjacent. During her absence, her room was regularly cleaned every day, even the blankets were changed to new and clean ones.

There was no need for any further cleaning up, so she put the two kids on their beds. She looked around, still feeling perturbed by everything that was happening. Then, she lay in between the two children.

Every time she closed her eyes, the image of the sapphire ring surfaced in her mind, haunting her and preventing her from sleeping no matter how much she tossed and turned. It was only when the first light of dawn began flirting near the edge of the horizon that she finally gave in to sleep.

“Uncle!” Isabel’s cheerful cries rang through the morning air.

Sylvia was jolted awake and pried her eyes open. The sky outside the window was ablaze with light. It was already past nine in the morning.

She got up and walked out of the room.

Liam was standing by the door with his arms folded across his chest, his pearly eyes fixed toward the living room downstairs. It seemed like he was simultaneously watching over his sister in the living room while also keeping guard over his sleeping mother. He seemed every bit like a tiny adult.