Book 2 : She Becomes Glamorous After the Engagement

Chapter 17 pt.1

Chapter 659: I’m Sorry, Ms. Yvette

Charles was stunned. Then, he said excitedly, “You know me? Young missy, how come you know me? How did you know my name is Charles? Haha, do you know? I was really lucky today. The bus overturned, and everyone in it was injured, but I didn’t suffer even a scratch. I must have saved the world in my previous life!”

For the fifty-year-old to say such things, Nora couldn’t help but find it rather odd. Many older people, even if they surfed the Internet a lot, rarely said such things in real life.

She frowned. “Do you know who I am?”

Charles didn’t seem surprised at all. “It doesn’t matter who you are. Isn’t what matters the fact that I dodged the bullet today? Do you know how dangerous it was? The bus’ brakes had suddenly failed and it was rushing straight toward a mountain in front of us, you know! The woman in front of me was screaming the whole time in fear, and even I thought that I was dead meat. But unexpectedly, even though the bus overturned, I turned out fine!”

Nora frowned upon hearing his description of what had happened. “How are you okay?”

Charles replied, “I don’t know. I was just very fortunate. The bus overturned and quite a few people died on the spot. Did you see? You don’t even have to try saving a few of those people who were pushed in just now… Sigh, do you know?”

His expression turned a little nostalgic. “I am actually not a good person. Of course, I am not a bad person either. I just did some bad things back in the day and helped some bad people in the past. Over the years, I have been devoting myself to God. And look! Results are showing! God must have been watching over me this time, that’s why I managed to escape.”

The more he talked, the more excited he became. He actually looked a little like he was going to cry bitterly. He said, “After I go back, I must be even more pious. I shall donate all my money to the church!”

None of the other nurses were paying attention to him. In addition, seemingly because he had met Nora, someone who was willing to listen, he was very excited.

Nora looked at him in silence.

No wonder Jessica had said he was a lunatic. There was indeed something wrong with his mental health, and he seemed crazy.

She lowered her eyes and slowly asked, “How much money do you have?”

The man suddenly lowered his voice, but it seemed like he couldn’t quite control his volume. Thus, even though he had lowered his voice, he was actually still very loud. He said, “Don’t be fooled by my ordinary clothes. I am no ordinary man! I have a lot of money! I used to work for a very impressive person. More than twenty years ago, she even paid me up to $15,000 a month!

“$15,000 a month, you know! Do you know how much $15,000 was worth over twenty years ago? It was worth even more than $150,000 today! I was really basking in the limelight back then!”

Charles seemed caught in his memories. He said, “After that, I earned a whole lotta money, but I didn’t dare to spend it. I would’ve felt guilty if I were to spend that money…”

He burst into tears and said, “I have five million dollars, but I hid the cash at home. I didn’t dare to spend it, you know? But after this accident, I’ve sorted out my thoughts. You know how a person would have epiphanies at near-death moments? Why didn’t I dare to spend that money? All that money belongs to me!”

Nora frowned.

Even if her mother had given him $15,000 a month, that would only amount to $180,000 a year. For him to have five million dollars, he would have had to work for thirty years! Yet! As far as she knew, after her mother passed away, she hadn’t given those three people any more money.

So, how would Charles possibly have five million dollars in cash?!

Also, why was he saying that he dared not spend the money? Where had that money… come from? Were they benefit that her mother had given these people, who had worked under her for years?

But if that was the case, why didn’t Old Maddy receive any?

She frowned and asked, “Who gave you the money?”

Charles glanced at her and then chuckled. “I can’t tell you that, young missy, I can’t. I went against my conscience for that money, so I can’t tell you… Sigh!”

He went against his conscience for that money…

Nora narrowed her eyes.

At this moment, the family members of the victims had all reached the hospital. Some rushed over to the operating rooms while some rushed over to the bodies of the people, who had been pronounced dead, and started to cry bitterly.

All of a sudden, the hospital became a mess again.

When Nora was about to ask Charles about something, a voice came over. “Charles, are you okay?”

She turned to see a fifty-year-old man approaching them. He was standing in front of Charles and looking him up and down. “You don’t have any family, so they called me instead!”

Charles replied, “What can happen to me? I’m fine, I’m totally fine! Bro, let me tell you, I was really very lucky today.” Charles then started to recount in detail again what had happened that day.

Nora: “…”

The man was seriously neurotic.

She rolled her eyes and walked up to the two of them. Just when she was about to ask something, Charles’s friend suddenly said, “Okay, okay, I get it. I know you went through life and death today, you are soooo lucky. But why are you suddenly so chatty?”

Nora paused and looked at the two men abruptly.

Charles was still babbling on and on neurotically. “Because I’m agitated and excited. I thought I could only be a stevedore for the rest of my life. Did you know? I thought that I didn’t deserve happiness anymore. I thought I could only be like you for the rest of my life, only be a laborer!”

His friend’s expression changed. “What do you mean by that? Who are you looking down on?”

Charles was still babbling. In fact, he had even started crying, as if the emotions that he had kept suppressed for a long time were finally erupting. He said, “Stevedores, of course! Not only is the work tiring, but the pay is also so low! You guys may be uncultured, but do you know who I am? I graduated from Hamlin School of Medicine, you know!”

The Hamlin School of Medicine?!

Nora narrowed her eyes.

His colleague, however, had never heard of the school. “What are you going crazy for? You must have hit your head, right? Why are you acting so weird today? Never mind being chatty, but you’re even suddenly talking about a medical school? If you were a high-achieving student, would you have been working as a laborer with us?”

Charles waved dismissively and said, “Yeah, I’m different from you people. So you see, God still cares for me. Even when I was in a traffic accident, I didn’t get hurt at all.”

Nora’s heart suddenly sank as she listened to their conversation.

She took a big step forward and suddenly asked, “Excuse me, is he usually very quiet?”

Charles’s colleague nodded. “Yeah. Ramsey talks very little. It’s rare for him to be this excited. It must have gone to his head!”

As soon as he said that, Nora grabbed Charles’s hand. She suddenly shouted at the doctor beside them, “Arrange a CT scan for him immediately!”

The doctor was stunned. “What?”

The man looked at Charles carefully. “But he doesn’t seem injured!”

Charles also said, “Yeah, I am not injured. I’m not doing a CT scan. Are you a doctor? You just want my money, right?!”

As soon as he said that, Nora looked at him seriously with an awful look on her face. She said, “You graduated from medical school, right? Then let me ask you this: What are the symptoms of intracerebral hemorrhage?”

Intracerebral hemorrhage…

Charles subconsciously answered, “Excessive secretion of adrenaline, causing people to become overly excited. After that, they will bleed from their seven orifices…”

At this point, he suddenly realized something.

Nora’s expression became even more serious.

Yes, that’s right!

If there was too great a change in Charles’s personality, then he must be suffering a hemorrhage in the brain!

Internal bleeding was a very serious condition. There was a high chance that it would block blood vessels and form congestions. By the time it was discovered, it would be too late for diagnosis and treatment!!

Nora hadn’t immediately discovered Charles’s abnormal behavior because she’d thought that he was a madman. After all, according to Jessica’s description, Charles was a madman. But through the chat with his colleague, one would know that he was usually not like this. It was only with his colleague’s description of him as a taciturn man that it fit the personality of the man who had called her. That was how she had suddenly realized Charles’s abnormal behavior.

The doctor next to them, however, frowned. “Who are you? Why should I arrange a brain CT for him? Don’t you know that people who undergo CT scans are exposed to radiation? It’s best that healthy people not do it.”

After he said that, Nora immediately said, “I am Anti!”

The doctor shut up at once and looked at Charles. Then, he suddenly picked up his cell phone and called the CT department upstairs to make arrangements for the man to jump the line.

Nora looked at Charles again.

Charles was dumbfounded. He touched his head. At this point, he could faintly feel something warm trickling out of his nose.

He touched it and found that it was blood.

Only then did he realize something.

His eyes widened at once and he suddenly said, “I get it, I get it now. It’s them. They are here to silence me.”

Nora clutched his wrist tightly. “Tell me, who is trying to silence you? The mysterious organization?”

Upon hearing the words “mysterious organization”, at last, Charles focused and looked at Nora. In his state of excitement just now, after grabbing Nora, he had immediately started chatting with her. He hadn’t noticed Nora’s looks at all.

But in this very instant, he saw Nora’s face clearly.

Her face was 90% similar to Yvette’s back then!

His eyes widened suddenly. “Ms. Yvette?”

Nora’s eyes flickered faintly with a sharp glint. “I am Nora Smith.”

Nora Smith!

The name made Charles’s pupils shrink.

He subconsciously said, “You look so much like Ms. Yvette now that you’ve lost weight.”

After she lost weight…

This meant that Charles had definitely seen her a few years ago.

Was it when she was pregnant?

Had her mother gotten him to set up her pregnancy?

The thoughts flooded into her mind.

However, Nora found that Charles’s pupils were starting to dilate. There was no time for her to ask all the questions she wanted to ask. She could only ask one of them: “Tell me, did I have twins or triplets back then?!”

Charles’s eyes were starting to lose focus, as though he could no longer think straight.

He stared at Nora blankly.

Twins or triplets…

His eyes suddenly reddened and he said, “Ms. Nora, I’ve let you down. I betrayed you back then, and also betrayed Ms. Yvette. For so many years, I have felt guilty about this.”

But that was not what Nora wanted to hear.

She asked again, “Tell me, was I pregnant with twins or triplets?”

Charles’s eyes were red. He suddenly smiled and said, “Yeah, the mysterious organization threatened me and bribed me. They gave me five million dollars, but because I betrayed Ms. Yvette, I have never spent that money all these years. I’m sorry, I plotted against you. I am going to repay your kindness now! They wanted to silence me, but they didn’t expect that I would meet you before my death.”

However, what he said next made Nora’s eyes widen in disbelief, yet also with enlightenment.

Chapter 660: Her Numerous Secret Identities

Charles clutched her sleeves tightly. The world was already spinning in his vision.

Nevertheless, he tried his best to calm himself and tried hard to tell her something.

More than twenty years ago, Yvette had told him, Old Maddy, and the other man to go into hiding, and to make Nora give birth to a baby before she turned twenty.

Because this was the only way she could stay alive.

The three of them had fled in three different directions. Old Maddy had attracted and taken more of the mysterious organization’s attacks for the two of them. Because of that, and because he hadn’t received any news from him since, Charles suspected that he might already be dead.

Old Maddy’s name wasn’t actually Old Maddy. He was known as that because his way of doing things was simply too outrageous. Yvette also trusted him the most. He was also someone who could throw his life away for Yvette’s sake.

After Old Maddy attracted more firepower from the organization, Charles had left with the other person. He’d thought himself successful, but he didn’t expect that the mysterious organization would still catch him.

Charles had become scared at that time. He knew very well just how fearsome the mysterious organization was. At that time, the mysterious organization had threatened him with his family. In the end, he chose to give in and told them about Yvette’s plans.

After that, the mysterious organization had given him five million dollars. They only had one request for him, and that was—to tamper with Nora’s pregnancy and have her give birth to as many children as possible.

After he did all that, the mysterious organization knew that he was no longer of any use, so they began to hunt him down. During his escape, he met Jessica Stewart. In order to repay her for saving his life, he had given her the miraculous medicine that could help a woman give birth to triplets.

He knew very well what the mysterious organization wanted, so how could he possibly allow Nora to fall for their tricks?

With that thought in mind, Charles suddenly grinned. He looked at Nora and said firmly, “You gave birth to twins, not triplets.”

Almost as soon as he said that, his vision blacked out and he fainted.

In the last few moments before he passed out, he thought to himself:

‘Ms. Nora can only, and must only give birth to twins. The existence of an extra child would be a catastrophe for her!’

Besides, the triplets were clearly a trap that the mysterious organization had set for her. How could he possibly allow the mysterious organization to succeed? After he said that, as though he had completed his life mission, he closed his eyes and said what he thought would be the last few words he would ever utter in this lifetime: “Ms. Nora, you don’t have to save me.”

His life would probably come to an abrupt end at this moment, right?

Back then, for the sake of his family, he had betrayed Yvette. But later on, his family had contracted an illness and died anyway. Their illness was incurable, but he knew that Yvette’s medical skills had been the culmination of the industry back then. Had she still been around, perhaps she could have saved his family.

This was fate, he supposed.

And now, he could finally repay his debt to Yvette with his life.

Twins, not triplets?

Nora stood there dumbfounded and in disbelief.

After doing a DNA test and discovering that Xander’s genes were 80% similar to hers, she could basically confirm Xander’s identity.

Because complete strangers would never have such a high degree of similarity in their DNA.

That was why she had told Justin that there was a 90% chance that he was their son. To be honest, at that time, she had more or less become convinced that she had given birth to triplets.

Yet Charles was telling her that she didn’t have triplets?

How did this… How could this happen?!

Yet at the same time, she also felt a sudden sense of closure.

Indeed, triplets were originally just her and Justin’s conjecture. It was also the best possible result for Xander. Neither of them wanted the other to have to suffer from having someone else’s child stuck in their family.

Now it had been confirmed, what was she so sad about?

Nora lowered her gaze and stared fixedly at the man in front of her. For some reason, she suddenly found herself very unhappy with the answer.

She watched as doctors rushed up to them; she watched as everyone else rushed up to Charles; and she watched as he started to bleed from the nose, eyes, ears, and mouth.

People suffering from internal bleeding-and on top of that, those whose symptoms suddenly broke out in a short period of time were very difficult to save.

Charles also knew it himself.

However…

Nora suddenly stepped forward and followed the stretcher into the operating room.

While on the way there, she stared hard at Charles.

She wasn’t going to let him die-because she was not satisfied with his answer!

–

The next day.

When a tired Nora walked out of the operating room, she immediately spotted Old Maddy, who was outside the operating room and staring at the door. The moment the door opened, Old Maddy stood up. The man in the hospital gown asked nervously, “Ms. Nora, I just heard that Charles was in a traffic accident. How is he?”

Nora rubbed her temples and yawned sleepily. She looked at Old Maddy and suddenly replied, “He’ll be fine.”

Old Maddy breathed a sigh of relief.

But at the same time, he looked at her nervously and asked, “Then, have you asked him whether you gave birth to twins or triplets?”

“Yes, I have.”

Nora replied.

Old Maddy looked at her nervously. “Then you gave birth to…?”

Seeing the anxiety in Old Maddy’s eyes, Nora kept quiet for a moment before she finally replied lazily, “He said I gave birth to twins.”

“That’s great!”

Old Maddy heaved a huge sigh of relief when he heard that. However, she seemed to notice that his reaction was a little inappropriate.

Nora wanted to ask about it, but Old Maddy suddenly avoided the topic and said, “Ms. Nora, to be honest, you shouldn’t have saved Charles. I only just found out that he betrayed Ms. Yvette back then. What’s the point of saving a man like him?”

After saying that angrily, without waiting for Nora to ask any further, he turned around and walked back to his ward. He said, “Sigh, I’ve become old. I’ve only just recovered, I’m going back to rest.”

Nora stared at him from the back.

Old Maddy and Charles must be hiding something from her, and it had something to do with whether she had given birth to twins or triplets. For some reason, it seemed like Old Maddy was really hoping that she didn’t give birth to triplets?

She broke into a frown.

At this moment, Lily walked out.

When Nora was operating on Charles, Lily had been her assistant throughout the operation. Lily, who was very informed about Nora’s family affairs, asked, “Boss, should I still continue the DNA restoration?”

Nora was silent for a long while. After thinking for a while, in the end, she still said, “Yes, continue it.”

She knew that Charles—and also, Old Maddy —both seemed to care for her and want to protect her. Thus, they hadn’t told her some things.

But she was no longer the baby from back then who needed them to protect her.

She had grown up and was strong and powerful enough.

She could deal with everything herself.

With that in mind, she followed Old Maddy leisurely into his ward. Old Maddy could only look back at her helplessly. “Ms. Nora,” he said.

Nora sat on the sofa and rubbed her forehead, somewhat sleepy and extremely impatient due to not getting any rest. She slowly said, “I want the truth. Why do the two of you want me to have twins instead?”

Old Maddy sighed and replied, “Ms. Nora, it’s not that we’re hoping for it, but rather, you indeed gave birth to twins. Didn’t Charles already say so? I was not with you back then!”

Old Maddy really was unaware of the situation with the children.

However…

Nora suddenly changed the topic. “What exactly are you hiding from me?”

Her words made Old Maddy choke on his breath.

He started to muse again.

Nora was not in a hurry. She could sense that Old Maddy didn’t harbor any hostility towards her. He really was very loyal to her mother.

She slowly said, “I want to know the truth.”

Old Maddy’s jaw tensed up and he said, “Ms. Yvette left you a voice recording before she died. You must have listened to it over and over, right?”

Nora nodded.

Old Maddy then said earnestly, “Ms. Yvette said that before you become strong enough, there are some things that I can’t tell you.”

When Nora heard this, she put down the leg that she had crossed over the other.

She put her hands on the sofa’s armrest. Her cat-like eyes gleamed, and she was filled with self-confidence as she said, “I am already strong enough.”

Old Maddy sighed. “Ms. Nora, there are so many strong and powerful people in the world. I know that your medical skills are the best in the world. In fact, one can even say that you are already on par with Ms. Yvette. But even so, she still wasn’t the mysterious organization’s match-because she was too obsessed with medicine back then, and ended up not dabbling in anything else. However, a truly powerful person needs to be impressive in all aspects. For example, martial arts? I won’t compare you with your predecessors. I heard that the most powerful martial artists of today are the Big Brother of the Irvin School of Martial Arts and the Big Sister of the Quinn School of Martial Arts. Can you beat them in a fight?”

Nora: “??!”

“Another example would be the most popular and trendy things of today-computers. After I woke up, I found that society has undergone drastic changes over the past two decades. Computers were not common at that time, but there are hackers everywhere now. I heard that the most awesome hackers now are Q and Y? Can you beat them when it comes to computer skills?”

Nora: “???”

Seeing that Nora’s expression had frozen, Old Maddy thought that his words were taking effect, so he continued to painstakingly persuade her. He said, “Let’s not talk about such technical knowledge anymore, but just about fleeing. I recently learned that the most impressive international racer is Yanci. If you are in danger, can you drive as fast? Yanci can escape from the danger, but can you?”

Nora: “?????”

Old Maddy went on. “They are all experts in a single type of technical skill. There’s also one thing more absolute—in this world exists the most powerful organization, the Imperial League. Have you even heard of it? There are only a dozen or so people in the organization, and every single one of them is a big figure who can cause chaos with a flip of their hand! The global economic crisis in the 1970s was caused by none other than the Imperial League! It’s only when you join the Imperial League that you will truly be able to confront the mysterious organization, but Ms. Nora, can you do that?”

Nora: “…”

If one didn’t go into detail, she wouldn’t even realize that she had so many secret identities.

Old Maddy was still going on. “There will always be someone better. Ms. Yvette was too arrogant, which led to her fall in the end. If you can achieve those things I just mentioned, then I will admit that you are strong enough, in which case, I will then tell you the truth.”