Outside the luxurious honeymoon suite that Zi Yan had prepared for the newlyweds, Chen Nan prepared himself for flying pillows and washboards with durian shells on top waiting for him. He took a deep breath and slowly pushed open the door. His palms clasped flat against each other as he lowered his head to apologize to Ariana only to find an untouched room.
The bed was still perfectly made with no signs of wrinkles on top. The bathroom door was open, and the lights were switched off. Their luggage was untouched and everything looked as if nobody had ever been here.
Fear filled his heart as he wandered around the grand suite and called out her name a few times. Finally, he took out his phone to call her and yelled out her name once again, "Ariana! Honey, where are you?"
"Stop fussing. I'm at the balcony." Hearing her voice, his whole body relaxed. His first reaction wasn't to start an argument or question about why she didn't respond to his previous shoutouts. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her slightly cold body from behind and whispered, "I'm sorry for leaving you all alone on our honeymoon."
"Just our honeymoon?" Her left brow curved up as she heard his words. She really wished that she didn't have a soft spot for his apologetic voice and for once throw a tantrum at him for leaving her for the nth time due to work related reasons.
"You don't know how much I always wish to stay by your side. Every second seemed like forever when you're not around me, but this is my job." He bent down and used her shoulders to support his forehead.
She sighed and ran her fingers through his hair with some tangles interrupting her finger's path, "Forget it, I'm not mad."
"Are you sure?"
"Do you want me to be mad?" she reversed the question back to him.
He shook his head and buried his head deeper into her shoulder.
"Who told me to choose Doctor Chen Nan as my husband? If it was anyone else, you would do the same because the Chen Nan that I fell in love with is someone who could never neglect his patients. Besides, if it weren't for Grandpa Xia, we wouldn't be together right now. We owe him big time."
Her words meant more than thousands of his apologies. Almost instantly, most of the heaviness in his chest had lifted.
"You're right because without him, we would have been starved to death. Even though things were so difficult back then, he was the one who provided us with food and shelter. He risked his life to save us and supported me all the way."
Ariana turned around and rested her head against his chest, "Therefore, it is our turn to repay what he has given to us. Geez, we've gone through this like a million times already. If I had to calculate the number of times that you've ditched me, cancelled or made last second changes to our dates, then it would be too tiring for me to handle."
She pinched his nose and held it for ten seconds before he started breathing through his mouth. "Hehehe, I haven't eaten anything the entire day because I was waiting for you to come back. Let's go eat." Her fingers separated from his nose as she dragged him across the huge room and towards the cafeteria.
'I'll definitely make this honeymoon up to you,' he thought to himself as he focused on his adorable wife who held a handful of menus. She was staring at the pictures on the menu with the tip of her tongue moistening her lips. He joined her and went through the menus in her possession.
- Somewhere in the city -
After travelling to various locations and visiting pharmacies that were ranged from least known to famous, Karen received countless responses. Due to the minimal information that Karen provided, pharmacists could not make any accurate assumptions about the pill. Even if the pill pictures looked very similar to the ones for cancer patients, they were not allowed to disclose information that would mislead customers.
Therefore, many of them would respond with a request for her to bring the pill to the pharmacy if she really wanted to test the functions of the pill. Karen walked out with deep creases on her forehead. As she walked absentmindedly around the neighborhood, she didn't pay attention to the lights and attempted to cross the street when it was red light for humans.
"Watch out!" A familiar voice called out as the girl pulled Karen back onto the street.
"Oh my goodness. Thank you!" Karen realized that she almost got ran over by cars if she stepped another step forward down the road. When she turned around to thank the girl, she realized that it was her old classmate who used to be ranked first in exams for every semester.
"Kitty! It's been a long time!" Karen pretended to be friendly with her when she recognized the logo on the nurse uniform that she was wearing.
"How have you been? Look at you! How could you cross the street without looking at the streetlights?" Kitty smiled and lectured Karen for her carelessness. Honestly, Kitty disliked Karen during the school days because Karen always made fun of her behind her back.
"I've been well. It looks like you are quite successful now. Hmmm? Nurse Kitty?" Karen teased on purpose to gather more information from Kitty.
"Ah, yes! I've been working as a nurse at the hospital near by. It's managed by the Lin family, and the pay is much higher than other hospitals." Kitty didn't want to talk much with Karen, but she wanted to brag about her accomplishments since they were already on that topic. Therefore, she ended up having lunch with Karen.
During their lunch, Karen mentioned the drowning incident and purposely brought up the topic of the medical charts. "Right? I couldn't believe my step sister would be this evil! But still, Yin, Susu is still my step sister! Later on, I found out that she was diagnosed with cancer, and I've decided to be the one with a bigger heart. So, I forgave her."
"Wow...that's crazy! I wonder how crazy these chicks could be to plan a murder plan just because her man fell in love with you and she couldn't get his love. But Karma is a bitch. She got cancer at the end. I don't think I would ever be able to bring myself to forgive someone as vicious as her."
"Don't say that... I pity her. After that incident, I've tried contacting her to check up on her, but she moved and refused to answer me. My parents are really worried for her condition. Also, I have a picture of this pill that she was taking like almost a year ago when that incident happened. Here, I'll show you."
Karen showed the pictures of the pills to Kitty. "Oh! I recognize this pill! It's a pill that we prescribe to patients with early stages of cancer."
"Really?! But how are you so sure?"
"Of course! The head of our hospital is very strict when it comes to medicine. Every week, nurses are required to participate in medical sessions sponsored by the hospital that goes over the newest products launched in the markets and the ones that we are going to stock up in the inventory. This pill is a new product that no other hospitals would have in their inventory. Only we have it."
"Oh.. it's good that my step sister is receiving treatment then." Karen's hands clenched onto her thighs as she heard that Susu's life may be prolonged with this treatment.
"Yes, but from what I remember, we have very few of these pills. It is extremely expensive and limited in quantity, so we usually don't prescribe it to patients. I heard this pill was also very effective to some patients from overseas."
Kitty tried to impress Karen with her medical knowledge, but didn't realize that she was digging a deeper grave for herself to bury in. Karen listened attentively and asked related inquiries. When she was finally done with her questions, her face changed completely.
"So it's like that. You have such high seniority in the hospital and have access to the pills. Since Susu is still a patient at the hospital, would you be a sweetheart and do something for me?" Karen roamed through files on her cellphone and pulled up an old one. She tapped her finger against the table and Kitty's face ashen like a corpse when she saw the screen.
"Y..You..." Kitty stuttered as her hand failed to snatch Karen's phone.
"I have copies of this in another hard drive. Of course, if you would listen to my request and comply to it, I would erase this evidence of your plagiarized paper and bribery to the professor in the classroom. What do you say?" Karen smirked and felt smart for never cleaning out useless junk from her phone.
Back then, Karen caught Kitty combining multiple academic papers into one for her final paper. She was the one who reported Kitty's doings to her professor. Karen wanted to ruin Kitty's reputation by recording a video on how the professor confronts and expels her after school. Who knew that the professor would be a pervert and make such a disgusting deal with her?
Apparently, the professor had long fantasized a classroom play with her and wanted to take advantage of her mistake. Not only did he set conditions of having raw intercourse with her, he also threatened her for the whole year with her plagiarized paper.
Anyways, the video was filmed but never leaked because Karen thought that if she exposed them to the school, Kitty would be sympathized by everyone. That was the opposite effect of what she wished to see.
She kept the pictures and videos on her phone just to bribe the professor to give her an A for the class. Even though she clearly knew that Kitty was suffering, she could care less about her as long as she received some benefits out of it,
Being a mastermind by nature, how could Karen let such an opportunity go? After getting an A grade for the class, she faked to have deleted the file, but had already sent it to her email. She saved that file on her hard drives, flash drives, and in another hidden file on her cell phone.
She couldn't believe that she could make use of this material so many years later. Kitty's eyes reddened and her body was shivering from anxiety, "W..What do you want me to do...?"