Seeing the piled up files on Freya's desk, Joanne assumed that she would be very busy the whole day. She sent Anthony to the handover and then went home.

On the way home, she tried to contact Chris, but only discovered that his phone had been turned off.

Afterward, she called in the CEO office of Everbridge Group. Chris's secretary answered the phone. "Boss Scott left for B city in the morning. He should be on the plane to the UK right now."

Confused, Joanne asked, "I had checked with Jack a few days ago and my brother did not have traveling to the UK on his agenda during this period."

"Boss Scott went alone." The secretary said, "he didn't tell us to prepare for anything, so it could be a personal matter. This is all I know."

A personal matter?

Joanne knew Chris very well. If not for a special situation, Chris would not be traveling to the UK for personal matter during a time like this.

After Brian got back from work, Joanne went after him and insinuated questions to find out the truth. Seeing straight through her intentions, Brian skillfully evaded the important questions for the trivial. All she found out was that Chris had gone to the UK for a very important matter.

In order to attend to this matter, he had completely handed over Scott Group's acquisition to Brian.

"Why is my brother suddenly going to the UK?!" Tired of beating around the bush, Joanne sat on Brian's legs and stared at him. "Is it for Freya?"

Brian lifted his eyebrows and declined to comment.

Joanne sensed a possibility and made a "small" hand gesture. "Just tell me this much!"

"..." Brian remained indifferent, unmoved by her actions.

Joanne decided to go all out and wrapped her hands around Brian's neck. "Hubby~" She called him with her honey-glazed voice.

Ever since she got used to calling Brian this way, it had become her usual tactic.

Brian always reacted as if it were the first time hearing Joanne calling him like this. His chest was softened by this word and he unconsciously sighed, "you are right, but your brother does not want Freya to find out."

"Understand!

Joanne's slightly curled up lips reminded Brian of the sunlight sifting through the branches in the morning.

Without a sign, Joanne smooched Brian on the lips then hopped off and sat down.

Then she let out a deep sigh.

Brian closed up the magazine. "What's wrong?"

"I thought Freya and my brother had finally come through, and that they would have the happy ending of prince and princess in fairy tales. Even if Uncle Norris does not approve right now, my brother will certainly have a solution."

"But now, with Freya's temper, unless Uncle and Auntie Norris wake up, anything my brother does for her would be futile."

Brian pulled Joanne over closer because she looked rather worried right now. "Trust in your brother once."

After a moment of silence, Joanne looked up at Brian. "Would we become like them one day?"

Almost subconsciously, the determined look of Rowdy swept across Brian's mind.

"No."

He replied decisively, concealing a wisp of subtle suspicion under his eyes.

Joanne had always trusted Brian and leaned on him carefreely. She believed that she and Brian would be together forever if he promised so.

Freya, on the other hand, had no time to care for romance.

She had unveiled and raged against President Bushes's activities during the company meeting, making the employees scruple against the young and inexperienced junior Director Norris. They even greeted her with a cautious voice.

Travis came to Freya's office at 3 pm as usual, and teased, "good for you for setting up your prestige so quickly."

Freya sighed, pressing her fingers against her temples. A familiar face swept across her mind, then she rapidly retracted her hands. "I don't think it's worth to be happy about. With fear comes expectation. If I can't seal the contract with the British company, then I would just be a paper tiger to them. This so-called 'prestige' would sink lower and lower until they completely distrust me..."

Travis was glad that Freya had such awareness, but there was nothing he could help with the contract with the British company.

"Forget it, I'll just take it slowly." Freya moved a stack of documents on the table. "There are a few terms I don't quite understand. Help me take a look at it."

With Travis's help, Freya handled these documents until she looked up and saw the sky had already turned dark. The outside world was full of lights, and the city put on a different kind of crazy from the daytime.

"Call it a day." Travis said, "First, go grab a bite with me. I will take you to the hospital afterward. I want to visit Uncle Norris and Auntie as well."

Travis drove a dazzling sports car and pulled up in front of a Thai restaurant. Freya's eyes dimmed. "Let's go to another restaurant, I don't like Thai food."

Once, she and Chris had often come to this restaurant. They always sat at the table with the best view and talked about trivial things. Now that she thought about it, those times were genuinely dull but sweet at the same time.

In her memory, this was the tastiest Thai restaurant in the city.

From now on, she no longer wished to set foot here again.

Travis silently turned around the car and drove Freya to a seafood restaurant near the hospital.

Halfway through the meal, Freya's phone suddenly rang. It was a special ringtone she had set for the hospital.

She hastily picked up the phone, and as she listened to the anxious voice of a nurse, she gradually became cold, until her whole body seemed to fall into an ice cell-

"Miss Freya, your mother is in critical condition and is in emergency treatment. Can you come to the hospital right away?"

Freya got up and rushed out of the restaurant without even carrying her purse. When she remembered the two kilometers distance from the hospital, she called out in panic, "Travis! Travis!"

Travis ran out with her purse and unlocked the car. "Get on!"

The emergency treatment was still in process when they arrived at the hospital. Freya looked at the closed operating room door and suddenly felt like collapsing.

If her parents just passed away like this, she would not want to live anymore.

She did not want to live so painfully...

"Freya," Travis grabbed on Freya's shoulder. "The best doctor is here, auntie will be alright."

Freya closed her eyes, and at this moment, she heard the operating room door open.

She nearly rushed to the doctor. "Doctor, how is my mother?"

"The patient is temporarily saved, but..." The doctor looked at Freya with sympathy and said with great difficulty, "I am afraid it will be difficult for the patient to make it past tonight..."

This was the longest night in Freya's life.

She told Travis to go back, then, she put on a sterilized isolation suit and stayed in the intensive care unit. Looking at her mother's skinny cheeks, she let her tears splatter on the back of her mother hand.

The phone in her purse vibrated, and the name "Chris" showing on the screen was especially glaring. She glanced at it and chose to ignore it. She just held on her mother's hand, as if the harder she held on, the more she could keep her mother here.

"Mom, please don't leave..." She pleaded, "otherwise, I will become an orphan. I don't know how to live on."

"I will always listen to you guys. Don't leave me behind, please?"

...

At this moment, Freya suddenly believed in God.

She silently prayed, willing to exchange the rest of her life for her mother's survival.

Either God had heard Freya's prayer, or her mother had heard Freya's pleading. Her mother's condition gradually stabilized as the sky in the east drew the first light.

The doctor came for inspection and happily informed Freya, "this is a miracle. Your mother's condition is getting better."

This was the most beautiful sentence Freya had ever heard.

As she smiled, tears poured out at the same time.

"Thank you, Doctor." It was the first time she genuinely said these words to another person; it was also the first time she deeply bowed to a person.

The attending doctor rapidly held on Freya. "Please don't, we did what we should. You haven't rested for a night, right? Go get some sleep, you can't risk having health issues at this moment."

Freya wiped away the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hands and smiled. "I am in good shape."

Freya briefly washed up in Mr. Norris's ward and went to the company early. After a sandwich and a large cup of coffee, she started working.

With Travis's teaching in the past few days and her having originally learned the relevant knowledge, Freya soon familiarized herself with the business. When the secretary and assistant came and saw the processed documents, they were secretly stunned.

At lunchtime, Freya left the office and asked the secretary to take her lunch to the pantry room.

Mr. Norris had always valued breaks greatly. He attentively designed the pantry room with green plants and elements which helped people to relax as soon as they walked in.

While waiting for lunch to be delivered, Freya unlocked her phone and suddenly froze upon seeing Chris's name on the missed call list.

Like Joanne, she once believed that she and Chris had finally come through. Chris would surely convince her father and they would live happily ever after.

But now, it all became a joke.

She decisively moved Chris to the blacklist and removed Chris from her world little by little.

"You can put his number on the blacklist, but can you do the same to your memory and mind?"

Within the whole company, Anthony was the only one who dared to speak to Freya in such a tone.

Freya flipped her phone upside down on the table. "Why are you up here? It's lunchtime, shouldn't you be surrounded by the single girls in the company?"

"I got scared of being surrounded, so I decided to eat with you today." Anthony placed Freya's lunch in front of her, and naturally took the seat opposite of her.

Freya had no appetite, and she was about to throw the lunch box into the trash can after a few bites. Anthony took the lead and held on her lunch box. "How could you last until 7:00 pm with only a few bites? You have to eat more, especially during times like this. You need to have enough physical strength to cope with complicated issues."

Knowing what he said made sense, she pulled back the lunch box and finished all the food.

Anthony sighed in relief. When he returned to the office, he took out his phone and logged on a social app to find Chris. He sent a message: Task completed.

Chris replied two words: Thank you.

Anthony continued to type: I have a master's degree from a world-famous University. You actually sent me to persuade a little girl to eat. What's that saying again? What a god damn - chihuahua.

Chris: Did Chihuahua offend you?

"..."

Anthony's hit point just hit zero.