In the hospital.

Wendy let out a long sigh of relief when it was time to get off work. She picked up a pile of documents and went to her office with her shoulders drooped.

Wendy turned around to leave the office as soon as she packed up her belongings.

"Hey, Wendy!" An intern pointed at Wendy and said, "You... haven't changed your clothes yet."

Wendy subconsciously looked at herself-she was still wearing her white medical gown.

"damn! How could I get off work with this?" she thought to herself.

"My superior will ask me to work overtime as soon as I leave the office!"

"Thank you," Wendy said as she touched her forehead. She put down her bag, took off her white medical gown, and hung it up.

The intern looked at Wendy in bewilderment. "You did a double-take when Dr. Oliver asked you to make patient rounds with her this morning. I noticed that you were in a daze when having lunch. Just now, you almost left the office without taking off your uniform. Wendy, are you all right?"

Wendy hesitated for two seconds and shook her head. "I'm fine."

"... Good," the girl said, "go home and have a rest."

The girl didn't pry any further because she could tell that Wendy didn't want to confide in her.

Wendy knew that it was simply her self-deception.

The fact was that she had been missing Gavin all day, although she didn't want to admit it.

It had been two days since they left each other at the hotel. Gavin didn't contact her to explain.

"Will I lose contact with him like this?" she wondered.

The idea made optimistic Wendy feel upset. She could only console herself that it wasn't too bad like that. She thought that she needed a clean break.

However, it wouldn't take long for her to regret it.

In her eyes, Gavin's not contacting her meant that he had been flirting with her.

She didn't want to accept it as a fact. She would rather have Gavin continue flirting with her.

She shouldn't have degraded herself like that. However, she didn't want to lose contact with Gavin.

"Why was I so impetuous that day?"

Bothered by such thoughts throughout the day had made Wendy even more tired than doing research. She felt extremely exhausted as she returned to her office with the documents.

Therefore, she forgot to take off her white medical gown.

Wendy didn't take a bus home directly after leaving the hospital. She walked along the sidewalk outside the hospital and finally stopped at a crossroad.

After thinking for a while, she took a taxi to the hotel where Dolly stayed.

The clerk at the front desk recognized Wendy at once because she had often gone to the hotel those days. The clerk said to her with a smile, "Miss Moore, Mrs. Su is out."

Wendy asked in surprise, "Did she say where she was going?"

"No." The desk clerk smiled like a robot. "Mrs. didn't tell us that you would come here. May I give you the room card?"

Wendy pondered for a while and nodded. "Alright, thank you."

Why did she go out? Dolly had told her that she would suffer a lot if she insisted on staying with Gavin.

She wanted to know why Dolly was so sure of that.

She tried in vain to call Dolly after waiting in the hotel room for more than half an hour. To her surprise, Conor Moore called her from Australia.

Wendy had a better relationship with her father since childhood, so she was excited at Conor's call. "Dad!"

Conor smiled and said in a voice filled with fatherly concern, "Wendy, how's it going?"

"I'm doing well." After a pause, Wendy said with pride, "I was on my night shift a few days ago. I helped in some emergency surgeries! The patients were all rescued!"

Conor laughed. "Death won't take your patients away as long as you are with them!"

Conor had been supporting Wendy in her medical studies throughout. Wendy would have given up because of Dolly's opposition if it were not for her father.

Wendy smiled with her lips compressed. "Dad, I'll try my best to be a good doctor and to bring hope to the patients!"

Conor said, "You will. You're always great." After a pause, Conor suddenly said in a serious voice, "Wendy, I have something to tell you."

Conor was serious and old-fashioned in his company while easy-going and gentle at home. He had never spoken in a serious tone like that even when he stayed up all night talking with Wendy about her university major.

Wendy was shocked. "Dad, what's wrong?"

"Take it easy. You should have known about it long ago." After a pause, Conor said, "I remember that you often said 'if only you had an elder brother or sister' when you were a child."

"..."

"The fact is that you have an elder brother," Conor said.

"..." Wendy was lost in her thoughts. "Do I have an elder brother? Why haven't I seen him all these years?"

"..."

After a few seconds, Wendy managed to ask in a normal voice, "Dad, what happened?"

Conor sighed. "It's all about what happened before I met your mother. It's a little complicated. I don't know where to start."

Wendy realized that it was more serious than she could imagine. She held her breath and said, "Be brief and tell me what happened."

After a long silence, Conor said slowly, "Your mother was in love with a man before she met me 20 years ago. Later, the man died in the hospital because of a very strange incurable disease. A few months later, your mother gave birth to a boy and broke off with her family in Arlington."

"Your mother lived in America alone. She had to work hard to support her studies and to pay the debt accumulated after treating her boyfriend. She abandoned the boy by the roadside because she couldn't take good care of him. She thought that the boy wouldn't forgive her, so she didn't leave any message about herself, and she decided not to find the boy in the future."

"But recently, your mother has been looking for the child for some special reasons. I heard that she had found some clues in Arlington."

Dolly had never told Wendy about her past, and Wendy had rarely seen Dolly's photos that she had taken before she was 30 years old.

Wendy was curious about it, and she had once asked Conor about it.

Conor simply told her that her mother had lived a hard life when she was young, so she didn't want to recall those hard times.

Therefore, Wendy had never dared to ask Dolly about her past.

Only then did Wendy figure out her father's words. She realized that Dolly had suffered from not only poverty but also what she had experienced when she was in America.

Wendy suddenly felt strange.

"Mom abandoned my brother in America. How come she found the clues in Arlington?"

Conor said, "Your mother said that the child returned from abroad with his superior and worked in Arlington after he grew up."

"No wonder Mom stayed here for so long after cousin's wedding." Wendy pressed her lips. "She stayed in Arlington just for... my brother, right?"

Wendy felt a bit awkward as she called out the word "brother".

She had always thought that she was the only child, without expecting that she would have an elder brother. The point was that she had never been told about the fact...

She didn't know how to face it at that moment. After all, there would be another human being who she didn't know much about other than a pet in her family.

"Yes, your mother stayed in Arlington for that. She told me that she had found the child. So I thought it was time to tell you about it." Conor sighed. "Wendy, I'm sorry that I've kept it from you for so many years. I once thought there was no need to tell you about it because your mother didn't intend to find the child."

Wendy took a deep breath. "Dad, I know how you feel."

Conor asked with hesitation, "What do you..."

Wendy knew her father well. She said firmly with a smile, "Dad, don't worry! I'll get along well with my brother if mom takes him home! In fact, I'm glad to have a brother."

Wendy would have never expected that she would regret saying those words a few minutes later.

Conor breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm happy to hear you say so, and so will your mother be."

Wendy said, "Uh-huh. I'll go to visit you in Australia when I'm free."

"Okay." After a pause, Conor said, "I miss you."

Wendy had been away from home for a year. Her nose twitched as she heard Conor's words.

Wendy said goodbye to Conor in a hurry and hung up before she could cry on the phone.

Wendy laid down her cellphone and walked into the study of the suite. She wanted to find Dolly's tablet computer to see if she could find out anything about Dolly's past in America.

However, there was nothing except a packet that she was familiar with on her desk in the study.

After thinking for a while, Wendy recognized the packet. The other day, Dolly had stopped her when she was about to open the packet that was placed on the bed.

Back then, she thought that the documents in the packet were about some trade secrets of the company.

She wondered, "But I'm Dolly's daughter, the prime heir of the company. She wouldn't mind me seeing it even if it was confidential, right? She always asked me to learn about their businesses, didn't she?"

Wendy felt that something was wrong as she thought about it. She had an intuition that the documents in the packet were about her brother.

Wendy emptied the packet with curiosity as if she had lost control of her hands, and then she saw a stack of documents.

When Wendy recalled this moment a long time later, she would say to Joanne with a bitter smile,

"I would have never looked at those documents if I had known that it would change my fate."