Volume 10 – Chapter 26: Colluding Together (Part 1)
Earlier.
Carlo gave an excuse. He explained that it was an urgent moment when he had to send a contract to a client while it was too late. Because of that, he parked his car in a non-parking area. Later, the car was towed away by the traffic police. Hence, he could only take the bus.
Carlo talked about how unreasonable the traffic police was to Caroline and then moved on to how rudimentary the country’s justice was.
What should I say?
How expensive would the bus’ one-time fare be?
“Oh! Poor Nia! Forgive me for just knowing your situation! I should have arrived sooner!”
Caroline once thought that Nia’s tears should have drained up after being hospitalized.
But in the end, she was moved to tears by such disgusting words from such a man. Couldn’t Nia see that Carlo was just putting up an act? They hadn’t seen each other in a few years, or even more than ten years. How could this be true?
Caroline didn’t know if Nia was trying to remember this man’s face forever. However, she didn’t alert Nia in the end.
She closed the door and sat alone in a chair outside the ward, leaving Carlo a chance for Nia to perform. God, for the sake of this commission, I hope this man can be loving to the end.
“Why do I care about this kind of thing?” Caroline suddenly shook her head mockingly.
She sent a message to Livia, but she didn’t reply even after waiting for a while. So she made another call, and it turned out that Livia had turned off her phone.
Livia had mentioned that she would also leave and stayed outside the district for a while. I guess she should have left now?
Livia engaged in prostitution in the district. But, Caroline knew that Livia had a boyfriend outside the district without telling her. He seemed to be a college student.
Livia was quite a fool; she even quietly saved a portion of the money every month to subsidize the man’s tuition and living expenses.
Perhaps, she went to her boyfriend’s place.
In the dream, she was an angel. Her wings weren’t pure white like the angels in the Bible, but grey.
Her wings folded, wrapped around her body, and unable to fly as she fell from the sky.
But she would never be able to touch the earth, just keep falling, seemingly endless.
She couldn’t speak. She could only maintain this falling motion. Her body was like a stone statue, and she felt like a soul imprisoned in the statue.
The other self was also falling at the same speed as her. Their line of sight was at the same altitude as if she was looking in a mirror.
The two of them fell to the ground with their heads down, but they were still staring at each other with their eyes open. Caroline still couldn’t speak. She had never been so anxious before.
But the other self moved. There was a slight smile on her face. Caroline glanced at it, and horrors crept upon her heart.
The other self opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound. Her lips were moving, seemingly trying to say something.
“I took it away.”
Caroline felt immense pain overwhelming her.
…
The cause of the pain was that the hospital bed being pushed by the doctors and nurses quickly passed through this narrow corridor while the wheels ran across Caroline’s feet.
Caroline sighed and rubbed the soles of her feet slowly. At this moment, the ward door suddenly opened. Carlo walked out blankly, frowning when he saw Caroline, who was still sitting here.
“Have you finished discussing your business? Where’s Nia?” Caroline had to ask.
Carlo said calmly, “She finally fell asleep. You shouldn’t wake her up. By the way, do you have time? I want to talk to you about something.”
Caroline’s intuition told her that it wouldn’t be good, but she still endured the pain in her feet, put on her shoes, and followed the man to a reasonably quiet place. The open floor of the hospital’s inpatient department, where the patient could breathe.
Caroline said impatiently, “Just say it. If there’s nothing, I’m leaving. It’s quite late.”
It was her working time at night, so naturally, it was her excuse. She just didn’t like being with this middle-aged man. It reminded her of Nia.
The face with a stark contrast to despair, glowing with spirit as if seeing hope.
“You’re a prostitute too, right?” Carlo breathed out a puff of cigarette smoke slowly, “Nia told me about you.”
