Chapter 10

Ryan's reaction was a lot more dramatic than I expected once he heard the word "die". He pursed his lips tightly. It was his first time being harsh to me. "Stop being delusional, Sebastian. You can still live a long life, so there's no need to impart your last words to me." I just smiled without saying anything. It began drizzling once again. Despite it not being a heavy shower, it still succeeded in trapping me and Ryan in the mountain for the time being. The priest patted me on the shoulder when he noticed the small frown gracing my features. "I think your loved one misses you a lot. Maybe this is a sign for you to spend the night here." Oh. It was a sign from Eve. Then, it was fine to stay here. … In the end, I never returned to the manor. Instead, I followed Ryan back to his apartment. After putting my extremely light luggage in the guest room, Ryan scratched his head awkwardly. "I didn't get to prepare a lot of things for you. Once I'm back, I can take you to go shopping for them." I nodded in response, not minding the lack of necessities. After that, I focused on arranging Eve's belongings. That night, Ryan came home and took me to a supermarket. That was when I finally found out about him tendering his resignation. Once he was done passing down his workload to his colleagues, he wouldn't return to Jakeman Group ever again. Regardless of what Wynnie was like as a boss, the fact that Ryan had decent employment benefits in Jakeman Group still stood. Resigning from his position as Wynnie's secretary was definitely a loss for him. But Ryan didn't care about that. He just smiled and said, "The reason why I remained as Wynnie's secretary was so that I could watch your love blossom and grow. Now that things between you two have soured, I don't want to work there anymore." Honestly speaking, I had no idea that Ryan was only willing to serve as Wynnie's secretary because of that reason. "I feel a little awkward now. After all, there's no more love between me and Wynnie." "Sebastian, Wynnie doesn't deserve your love." I didn't respond to Ryan. There was no such thing as one not deserving the other's love. In fact, I was sure that many people would think I was the one who was undeserving of Wynnie's love after finding out what I had done to her in the past. I looked at Ryan, albeit curiously. "What makes you think I was forced to ditch Wynnie back then?" Ryan told me that a jewelry expert visited our campus right after I broke up with Wynnie. He smiled and continued, "You were the genius of the design course. That led me to think that you might have played a part in convincing that expert to invest in Wynnie." I didn't know what to say at that moment. Should I tell Ryan that his guess was actually on point? Having noticed that I didn't want to continue talking about it, Ryan sighed before changing the topic. Dinner was simple. Ever since Wynnie cheated on me, no one else was willing to dine quietly with me during mealtimes. I looked at the warm yellow light hanging above the dinner table. My mind slipped into yet another trance. Back when I first moved out of the orphanage, Mdm. Foster had told me that I should be more understanding and tolerant toward Wynnie simply because she was a girl. At that time, I thought life would be relatively simple for us. I'd be the one in charge of household chores, whereas Wynnie would be the breadwinner. So, I agreed to follow Mdm. Foster's advice. None of us would've thought that things would fall apart to this point. Ryan still had work to do in his bar. I didn't want to disturb him any longer, so I returned to my room and continued sorting out Eve's belongings. Eve had slotted the leaf vein bookmark that I had bought for her in between the pages of a fairy tale storybook. The bookmark was a souvenir that came from Great Forest Park, a place that Wynnie, Eve, and I had visited when Eve was only five years old. If I remembered correctly, we also took some photos there. I began recalling the photos' exact location. I was sure that I had included them in my stamp album. Unfortunately, the album was still tucked away in the master bedroom of the manor. It seemed that I'd have to return to the manor tomorrow. The next morning, I stood outside the front door of the manor silently. Currently, the security alarm was blaring loudly because I had keyed in the wrong passcode. The residential area was spacious and silent, making the alarm noises very jarring. The security guard knew me, which explained why he was weirded out when he saw me standing at the front door rather awkwardly. "Mr. York?" I just flashed him an awkward smile. My explanation came out weak and unconfident. "It's been some time since I last came back to this place. I've forgotten what the passcode is." Anyone who forgot the front door's passcode would certainly call their family members for the passcode. Honestly, that excuse was so shoddy that I couldn't help but feel embarrassed right after I said it. The security guard pretended to not notice how flustered I was. He gave me a friendly reminder instead. "The automated 911 system installed on the front door will automatically call the police if you get the passcode wrong one more time." After filtering through the list of passcodes in my mind, I nodded in response. "Right. One more chance left." Truthfully speaking, Wynnie and I used a few passcodes in this lifetime. If none of those passcodes fit, then… there was only one possible passcode left. I punched in Richard's birthday via the keypad. After the electronic lock registered the code, it blinked in bright green. "Welcome home." I let out a relieved sigh. It was purely a coincidence that I found out when Richard's birthday was. I think it all happened last year. I was suffering from an intense stomach ache at home. I wanted Wynnie to come home so that we could go to the hospital together. Wynnie told me she was busy and that I should go to the hospital on my own. But before she hung up on me, I heard someone singing Richard a birthday song and wishing him happy birthday from her end of the line. At that time, I didn't know how to be an obedient and tolerant partner. I ended up getting into a huge fight with Wynnie while enduring the intense pain. But I didn't get to go to the hospital. Since then, my stomach began hurting more often. Now that I thought about it, that must be a symptom of my impending stomach cancer. I was such a fool. Had I gone to the hospital at that time, I might have found out about my stomach cancer sooner. Once I snapped out of my trance, I found myself making eye contact with Richard, who had just walked out of the bedroom. He seemed pretty surprised to see me back in the manor, but mockery soon painted his visage. "Oh? Sebastian, are you planning to yield to Wynnie and beg her to reconcile with you?" Since Richard was being mean to me, I knew right away that Wynnie wasn't home. Otherwise, he wouldn't have shed his façade. I just ignored him and headed up the stairs. It wasn't until I reached my room's door that Richard extended an arm to stop me. "What are you doing?" "I'm the actual owner of this place. Am I supposed to tell you what I plan to do?" I smiled at Richard. "If I wanted to be a pain in your ass, I could've called the cops on you and claimed that you were trespassing on my property." My name was the sole name on the manor's property deed back when this place was bought. Wynnie did it so that she could reassure me that she wouldn't leave me. Even if Wynnie were here today, I could still pin the same charges on her. Richard glared at me darkly, looking as though he wanted to rip me apart. But I knew that he didn't have the guts to do that. His stakes were way too high at this point. Not only was he a celebrity, but he also clearly knew that Wynnie might not take his side if anything were to happen to me. What could Richard do to me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Once I walked into the master bedroom, I realized that everything in my room had been changed. The room, which was previously decked out in red, transformed into Richard's favorite shade of light blue. There was a pair of coffee mugs sitting on the coffee table that was placed near the floor-to-ceiling window. The mugs looked brand new. It seemed that they weren't used at all. Perhaps Richard had just moved into the manor. I opened the drawer where the stamp album was in. After that, I could grab the album and leave the manor right away. But I didn't expect to see it missing from the drawer in just two days. Now, a photo album took its place.