Chapter 4

He said I should kneel and apologize to Noah Vale before I died.

When I climbed up, I seemed to feel that my body had already reached its limit.

“Absolutely not,” I said, looking straight at him. “I never did anything wrong.”

When Marcus Hale heard me say that, he became even more furious.

“Never did anything wrong? How dare you say that?”

“When you were little and didn’t know better, you took the money I nearly killed myself earning and went out to waste it, then said you lost it. If Noah hadn’t brought over his own tuition money, we would have died that winter! Noah was nearly beaten to death by his foster parents because of that!”

“And what about you? You shamelessly told me you were the one who found the missing money and deceived me for so long. To keep your lie from being exposed, you even forced Noah away and caused him to disappear for so many years.”

“What’s worse is that when Adrian Sterling was attacked during the family power struggle and was stuffed into a ferry to be sent away and abandoned, the person who saved him was clearly Noah, but you said it was you. Yet at that time, you were clearly in the hospital receiving treatment!”

I looked at the red veins filling his eyes because of his rage, as if he wanted to eat me alive.

The feeling of not being trusted was not good at all.

Only now did I know why they had become like this.

They were not even willing to ask me a single question, nor were they willing to investigate at all.

Just like that, they declared me guilty.

“I didn’t.” I was exhausted in body and mind. “Back then, the money was stolen by Noah Vale, and I went out to chase him. I was also the one who saved Adrian Sterling. At that time, my condition worsened, and I had no choice but to leave after getting him settled.”

I did not force Noah Vale away; he was the one who could not endure his foster parents’ abuse and ran away.

I never expected Noah Vale to find the injured Adrian Sterling and take my place.

But Marcus Hale did not believe a single word I said.

He closed his eyes, and his voice sank. “You’re still slandering Noah even now. I’m so disappointed in you.”

“If you had left with Mom and Dad back then, you wouldn’t have become this vicious.”

After leaving those words behind, Marcus Hale walked away cleanly and coldly.

Blood soaked through the gauze and hospital gown, and that patch of red stung my eyes.

With the last bit of money I had, I went from place to place seeking medical help, but not a single hospital would take me in.

Marcus Hale and Adrian Sterling had been ruthless enough.

I no longer had enough money to take a cab back to my remote rented room.

The weather was too cold, and the chill seeped into my thin, cheap cotton coat.

My body was so cold it stiffened, and my wound became inflamed and filled with pus.

The high fever made me lose control of my limbs, and I fell onto a deserted road.

My stomach twisted in pain, and I felt as if I was being sliced apart alive.

Gradually, I lost consciousness.

When I woke up again, all the pain in my body had disappeared, and I felt unbelievably light.

II had just wanted to touch my wound, but my hand passed straight through my body.

When I looked up in panic, I saw myself lying by the roadside, already no longer breathing.

Oh, so I was dead.