For the past ten years, Zane Hawthorne had all but stopped using WhatsApp, but he always remained logged into his account on his phone.
On sleepless nights, he would open it up and read through their old chat logs.
But a certain someone had been heartless, both then and now.
Before she left, she had rarely ever chatted with him. After she left, she rarely ever appeared in his dreams.
Her ashes had been taken to Porten by Ethan Rhodes for burial, making it impossible for anyone else to visit and pay their respects.
So, for all these years, he couldn't even go to see her when he missed her.
As his finger pressed down, Zane Hawthorne realized his hand was trembling.
His palm was damp with a thin layer of sweat, and he swiped several times without managing to open the message.
He stood stubbornly on the steps, ignoring the pleas of the people beside him, trying again and again.
Finally, another message arrived. His hand slipped, and he successfully opened the chat.
My Dearest Zoe: [You there?]
[Zane Hawthorne?]
[Weird, aren't you online…?]
Meanwhile, in a corner of the banquet hall, Zoe Rhodes was furiously typing with a cookie dangling from her mouth, bombarding Zane Hawthorne with one message after another.
[Zane Hawthorne, it's me, your daddy, Zoe Rhodes.]
[I just came looking for you, but your secretary said you don't know me. Hmph! Stop putting on such airs!]
[Reply, quick! I need to talk to you about something urgent!]
[URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT—]
[Answer me when you see this, don't play dead!]
...
Zane Hawthorne felt like he was dreaming, until his phone vibrated in his palm with another new message.
This one was even more shocking.
It was a freshly taken selfie.
Zane Hawthorne's eyes were bloodshot as he stared so intensely it seemed he would burn a hole through the screen.
The photo on the screen was like a lit fuse, the heat rising until it reached its end and set off fireworks in his brain, shattering the last shred of his sanity.
All her messages were sent, but her efforts were met with complete silence.
Zoe Rhodes tried to see it from his perspective. 'This whole "coming back from the dead" thing really does look like a scam,' she thought.
So, she snapped a selfie and sent it over directly.
When the photo still got no reaction, she typed again: [It's me. Not dead. Account not hacked.]
Vance sensed that something was wrong with Zane Hawthorne. Just as he was about to step forward and support him, Zane suddenly turned around. His beautiful eyes, usually so charming, were now silently rimmed with red.
Both he and Lawson were stunned.
The man's Adam's apple bobbed convulsively, as if he were swallowing a thousand needles. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw and hoarse, as though laced with blood.
"Someone… was just looking for me."
It was phrased as a question, but his tone was utterly certain, as if he was convinced that person had truly been there.
"Yes, a young woman did come by," Lawson replied, unaware of the situation.
Zane Hawthorne laboriously turned his wrist to show him the photo. "Was it her?"
"Ah, yes, yes!" It had only been ten-odd minutes, so Lawson hadn't forgotten her face. "That's the one. She said she was a friend of yours. But…"
Vance naturally picked up the conversation. "That girl said her surname was Jiang. I know you don't have any friends with that surname. I figured it was just Hawthorne sending another imposter to impersonate *her*, so I sent her away."
"She has been gone for a long time."
Vance felt a pang of pity but reminded him anyway.
'Today is too important. Zane Hawthorne can't lose it at a critical moment like this.'
"Sigh, after all these years, how many times has Hawthorne tried to trick you with the same tactic? Please don't let these imposters derail what's important."
"She's not an imposter."
With that, Zane Hawthorne turned and hurried down the stairs. If one looked closely, his tall figure was unsteady, his steps rushed and weak.
"Mr. Hawthorne! Mr. Hawthorne, where are you going!"
Vance took two or three long strides to catch up. "The ceremony is about to start! If you leave now, the Old Master will be furious!"
"Mr. Hawthorne!"
Zane Hawthorne completely tuned out the voices behind him. He typed as he walked, deleting and rewriting his message over and over. Finally, after two sharp breaths, he simply pressed the video call button.
「」
Zoe Rhodes waited and waited, but still no reply came. Hearing someone mention the ceremony was about to start, she quickly put away her phone and joined the other guests in looking expectantly toward the entrance.
'I won't be able to reach Zane Hawthorne anytime soon,' she thought. 'I'll just have to wait for the ceremony to end and find another chance.'
She didn't want to cause trouble on someone's big day, after all.
She just figured that since they were practically childhood friends, there was a high probability Zane Hawthorne would know where Ethan Rhodes was.
'Even if he doesn't know, surely for old times' sake, he wouldn't let me end up homeless on the streets, right?'
'If he won't lend me money, he could at least help me get my ID sorted out.'
Then she could figure out how to get to Porten and find her brother on her own.
"Did you hear? The marriage between the Hawthorne family's heir and the Kingsley family's eldest daughter is purely for business. Apparently, they'd never even met before today."
"Someone said the heir was against the marriage at first. Why? Could it be he has a mistress on the side?"
"What kind of mistress would have enough pull to make the heir defy a strategic marriage?"
"Don't be ridiculous. The heir already has someone in his heart."
Zoe Rhodes perked up her ears, openly eavesdropping. At this, she couldn't help but ask, "Someone? What someone?"
One of the gossiping women glanced back at her and scoffed, "Who else could it be? The one that got away, of course."
"I heard the heir has been celibate for nearly ten years for that woman."
"No way!" Zoe Rhodes stopped chewing her cookie, her eyes wide with exaggerated shock as she played her part to encourage the gossiper. "For real?"
"Why would I lie? I heard that back when his long-lost love first passed, the heir cried his eyes out every day and drank so much he almost died from a stomach hemorrhage."
PLOP. The remaining half of her cookie fell to the floor.
This time, Zoe Rhodes's shock wasn't an act.
"So why did his one true love leave him? Was it like in the novels, where he was about to go bankrupt, so she went abroad?"
"It's been ten years, and Zane Hawthorne has taken over the company now. According to the plot, shouldn't his one true love be coming back to beg for a reconciliation?"
"Hey, who told you she went abroad?"
"Didn't you say she left?"
Zoe Rhodes was puzzled. "If she didn't go abroad, what, did she become a nun?"
"…" The gossiper gave her a look that was hard to put into words. "When I said left, I didn't mean *that* kind of left. I meant another kind."
"Ugh, I mean she died."
"Huh?!"
"Why are you so shocked? Haven't you heard? The only good 'one that got away' is a dead one."
That made sense. Zoe Rhodes nodded, only half-understanding, but she felt like something was still a bit strange…
Before she could think it through, a loud CRASH came from the entrance of the banquet hall. The heavy, arched doors were thrown open, and a disheveled figure stumbled into everyone's view.
Zoe Rhodes took a closer look. 'Oho, Zane Hawthorne!'
As if sensing her gaze, the man's head snapped around, his eyes locking onto the corner where she stood.