My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead-Chapter 128: Another Life

But that title would expose her true identity, so she kept it to herself.

Detective Hale saw that she was disguised from head to toe and her voice was deliberately muffled, so he tactfully avoided the topic. "Miss Lowell, with the few clues you’ve provided, this will be a very difficult search."

"I have a bluish birthmark on my left leg, about the size of a broad bean."

"That’s a very distinctive feature. Anything else?" Detective Hale prompted. "The more clues, the more efficient the search. If you’re in a hurry, Miss Lowell, I’ll need as much as you can give me."

After a long silence.

"I can also recall a few customs I have vague impressions of, possibly from my birth family." Summer Sutton’s knuckles turned white as she clutched her black hooded windbreaker. "The place had an old custom of ’curing pig bristle rash’ on infants. Every winter, it was popular to eat *lihao*. The wedding ceremony was strange, too. They had to carry the village’s large Buddha statue around in three circles..."

Detective Hale nodded, taking note.

"That’s all I can remember. I know this is difficult, but I hope you won’t publicize the search just to make it easier for yourself, Mr. Hale. It must be done in secret. And I want results in two or three days."

Detective Hale gave a wry smile. "Two or three days? I might not even finish searching Port Sovereign by then, to say nothing of the vast mainland..."

"Three million Hong Kong dollars," Summer Sutton said decisively, cutting straight to the chase. "A one-million-dollar deposit, with the remaining two million paid upon completion."

"And if you can’t do it?"

"The deposit is non-refundable. Consider it my treat for your time, Mr. Hale."

A million dollars for two or three days of work. Even Detective Hale, who was used to making quick money, was tempted. He sat up straight, his expression serious. "Rest assured, Miss Lowell. I’ll do everything in my power."

Summer Sutton looked down at her phone, tapped a few times, and entered the account number Detective Hale had provided. "One million has been sent. Please confirm."

"The transfer went through. I’ll prepare a contract for you now, Miss Lowell."

"We don’t need a contract." Summer Sutton placed a hair sample on the table, follicle still attached. She stood up, leaving behind an anonymous private email address. "Email me when you have the results."

"Of course, Miss Lowell. Take care." Detective Hale warmly saw her out. Only after she had disappeared around the corner did he look down to check the transaction record.

Account Holder: Anne Lowell.

「Two streets away from the detective agency, inside a luxury van.」

Summer Sutton opened the car door and got in. "Back to the villa."

"You’ve canceled several engagements in Port Sovereign these last few days. How long are you going to keep slacking?" Anne Lowell, who was at the wheel, asked, "And I just saw a one-million-dollar charge on that account you opened in my name. What was that for?"

"A business expense," Summer Sutton replied casually, ignoring Anne’s obvious dissatisfaction and her nagging about work. As the van drove on at a steady pace, her thoughts drifted back more than a decade, to that night on the cargo ship.

The memory was distant, but crystal clear.

She had woken in a daze, in a cargo hold piled high with shipping containers. The ship hadn’t yet left the shore. Under the starry sky, the damp sea breeze and the sound of the waves wove together into a scene that was both unfamiliar and breathtaking.

A group of medical personnel surrounded her. Behind them stood a regal-looking boy, only sixteen or seventeen but already impossibly handsome. He stood quietly, as if cloaked in starlight, listening as one of the medics gave a report:

"Young Master Sterling, Miss Sutton had a high fever for at least three days. It wasn’t treated promptly, and she’s sustained some neurological damage. We’ve run a series of tests and discovered that she is suffering from memory loss and confusion. We’re uncertain if her memories will ever return."

"It doesn’t matter." Kian Sterling’s voice was crisp and cold, his tone indifferent. "Get Miss Sutton changed."

In a daze, she was led to a lavish suite. Several female medics removed her damp, filthy, coarse-spun clothes, gently treated her rough and scar-covered skin, and dressed her in an exquisite gown. Then, she was brought before Kian Sterling once more.

The boy looked at the exquisite gown she was wearing, his gaze softening slightly. He reached out, smoothing back her messy, short hair. "You should grow it long and curly. It would look better."

"Who are you?" ’How could a boy this breathtakingly beautiful leave no trace in my memory?’ She was bewildered. "And... who am I?"

The boy didn’t answer her first question. He leaned in, his bewitchingly beautiful face close to hers, and said, enunciating every syllable, "You are Summer Sutton."

With that, he turned and left without another word.

And just like that, she was taken off the cargo ship, put on a private jet, and settled in Port Sovereign. Whenever Kian Sterling came to Port Sovereign, he would make it a point to see her. He was never affectionate; his attitude could even be described as distant and formal. Yet he granted her almost every wish. He sent her to study art, launched her career as an actress, bought her a villa, and provided her with servants, all tailored to her tastes. He sheltered her from every storm, paving a smooth and easy path for her through the entertainment industry...

Her first year in Port Sovereign was a difficult adjustment.

Endless gourmet dishes were set before her, yet they were all completely foreign. The only food that came to mind was sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes of a great stove, or a few strands of noodles in a thin, watery broth.

She attended glittering, high-society banquets, but her mind would conjure jarring images of a noisy mahjong table, of crowds of men and women in coarse clothes, sitting against a wall, sunning themselves and gossiping about their neighbors.

Even when she first started learning the piano, she had the absurd feeling that her hands were better suited for peeling potatoes, catching fish, and gathering wild vegetables...

But eventually, a life of prosperity and luxury buried those feelings. The rustic scenes that would pop into her head gradually faded with time, until they were gone without a trace.

As the days turned into years, her understanding of her identity as Summer Sutton, and of the name Kian Sterling, slowly sharpened. She learned that she was the abandoned daughter of the wealthy Sutton Family, and that her mother had been the heiress of a renowned family of perfumers. She learned that Kian Sterling had been entrusted by her mother to watch over her, and that he was temporarily managing a block of her shares.

But the one thing she didn’t know was whether or not he loved her.

She had secretly looked into the man he was in Metropia. He was the head of the Sterlings, a man who had fought and clawed his way to the top. He was notoriously cold, ruthless, and tyrannical. Known as the great unattainable prize of Metropia’s high society, he had caused countless heiresses to lose their hearts to him. But he loved no woman, nor did he accept any of the marriage alliances proposed by the great families.

He’d had no love from his parents, only a younger sister with whom he shared his life. His every effort, his every emotion, was tied to Miss Sterling. Rumor had it he had raised her with painstaking care.

Besides his sister, it seemed only she, Summer Sutton, was treated differently from any other woman in his life.

Unlike the other women, who could only admire him from a distance, he at least visited her regularly in Port Sovereign. He would solve any trouble she ran into. Before the recent scandal, his attitude toward her had actually been quite good. He gave her ample resources and would even occasionally let her get close, hold his arm, and make small talk about her life.

But after she came of age, she had hinted multiple times that he should stay the night, only to be flatly refused each time.

"Don’t get any ideas about me," he’d said, his voice cold and detached. "I’m not a good man."