Aiden glanced at his phone again, frowning. He had an uneasy feeling about bringing Nick's parents here without telling Amelia directly. Guilt gnawed at him, but despite his attempts to call Amelia, she still hadn't answered. The silence weighed on him. Just a few days ago, he'd confirmed something unsettling—that Mr. Zhao wasn't suffering from memory loss, at least not the kind caused by dementia or Alzheimer's.
---
**Two days earlier**
In the quiet of the hospital office, Aiden looked across the desk at Mr. Zhao, whose face was marked by a faint, knowing smile. The results from the cognitive tests were on the table between them, pages of data confirming the truth.
"Mr. Zhao," Aiden began, carefully choosing his words, "based on my findings, you're not experiencing memory loss due to dementia or Alzheimer's. Why do you feel the need to go through with this… pretense?"
