My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead-Chapter 138: Deep Night

A faint sense of helplessness washed over Theo Chambers.

He had even given him a pointed reminder that morning, right before they went to get the marriage license.

Avoiding the stares of everyone in the conference room, he stepped into the hallway and lowered his voice. "Boss, about the eight o’clock strategic planning meeting tonight, are you..."

"I can’t make it." Silas Norwood sounded busy on the other end, clearly not in the mood to chat. "Have the most senior board members co-chair it."

The line went dead.

Theo Chambers thought of the roomful of senior executives eagerly awaiting in the conference room, and standing in the hallway, he took a deep breath.

「Inside Jade Orchid Manor.」

After hanging up, Silas Norwood immediately turned off his phone.

Clothes were strewn across the bedroom floor. Silas Norwood pinned Celia Sterling against the vanity. The lights were off, but the glow from the villa’s garden lamps filtered through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, faintly outlining their deeply entwined silhouettes.

Trapping her between the vanity and his arms, Silas expertly tore open a third foil packet with one hand, his kisses trailing a dense path down her neck...

The scene was a blur of decadent chaos, a clear loss of control.

Celia Sterling was adrift, and for what felt like the tenth time, fireworks exploded in her mind.

In the pitch-black room, Silas Norwood leaned down to embrace the woman who was lost to the world, his own breathing a ragged mess.

In the villa’s great hall, the dinner had been kept warm, then grown cold, and reheated three times over. Finally, the butler gave a quiet order. "Clear it away."

"But the master and madam still haven’t eaten..." the maid hesitated.

"A man as particular as Chairman Norwood won’t touch food that’s been sitting out for over three hours." The butler glanced at the closed bedroom door upstairs, then added after a moment of thought, "Go prepare some restorative broth. Let it simmer for a few hours. If the Chairman and Madam get hungry in the middle of the night, you can bring it up to them."

"Yes, sir."

「Port Sovereign.」

Dressed head to toe in black, Summer Sutton arrived at the detective agency.

Detective Hale was waiting with hot tea already prepared. "I sent you that email so late, Miss Lowell. I didn’t expect to hear back from you until tomorrow at the earliest."

Summer Sutton was in no mood for tea or pleasantries. "Let’s skip to it. What did you find?"

"The DNA sample you provided didn’t yield any matches in the database, Miss Lowell. That instantly made the investigation much more difficult. We had to mobilize nearly all our contacts, from Port Sovereign to the mainland, and worked nonstop for two days." After his routine spiel about the difficulty of the job, Detective Hale got to the point. "Following the other clues you gave us, we eventually pinpointed a place in Oakhaven: Lambert Village, in the town of Whisperfall."

Summer Sutton’s hands, wrapped around her teacup, tightened slightly. She waited for him to continue.

"Most babies born in that village undergo a ritual to remove ’pig bristles.’ The wedding customs also matched your description. And by the way, the stir-fried artemisia with cured meat is a famous local dish in Oakhaven. Tastes pretty good."

Summer Sutton made a soft sound of assent. "I still haven’t heard what I came for."

"We made some discreet inquiries. Over the years, three children have gone missing from the village: two boys and one girl. The girl was named Daisy York. About ten years ago, she went to the city with her father, but he returned alone. The story is that she was abducted by human traffickers."

Detective Hale looked at the woman, whose face was completely obscured by large sunglasses and a black mask. "But that might not be the truth. From what we’ve gathered, Daisy York’s father is a real piece of work—a drunk, a gambler, you name it. He apparently sold Daisy as a child bride to an alcoholic in the next village to cover his gambling debts. Daisy ran away, and when he couldn’t catch her, he cooked up the human trafficker story to tell the police when they came investigating."

Summer Sutton’s palms began to sweat. "Are you sure that Daisy York is..."

"We’re certain the DNA sample you provided belongs to Daisy York, Miss Lowell." Detective Hale produced a formal report. "We discreetly obtained DNA from her father, Sean York, and her mother, Laura Morgan. We ran the tests here in Port Sovereign, and the results came in this evening. The parental match is confirmed, without a doubt."

He then produced another document. "This is the specific address for the Lambert family. You can go and verify it for yourself, Miss Lowell. We were short on time, so this is all we could find. But since the parental link is confirmed..."

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Summer Sutton understood what he was implying. She looked down at her phone and transferred another million to him. "You’ll get the final balance within three days."

A smile spread across Detective Hale’s face. "I’ll see you out, Miss Lowell."

Summer Sutton got into an inconspicuous black sedan and disappeared around the corner.

After taking a winding route for nearly an hour, she returned to Wyvern Bay Villa. She started rummaging through a large pile of scripts that Anne Lowell had rejected.

Hearing the commotion, Anne Lowell came downstairs. "What are you looking for?"

Summer Sutton tossed the script she’d found in front of her. "I’m taking this role."

"A rural romance, a period piece... It would certainly be a good way to hone your craft." Anne Lowell glanced at it. "But the filming conditions for these shows are brutal. I thought you always looked down on them?"

"People have to change sometime." Summer Sutton opened a booking app and bought a flight to Oakhaven for that very night. "I’m free for the next couple of days anyway. You keep an eye on things here in Port Sovereign. I’m going to go get some inspiration for the role."

"Where are you going?" Anne Lowell asked, concerned.

"Just some ordinary village. If the Ninth Master asks..." Summer Sutton paused, her tone turning a few degrees colder. "Never mind. He won’t ask."

She quickly packed a small suitcase and headed for the airport under the cover of darkness. Anne Lowell watched her hasty departure, her brow furrowed in deep concern. She had half a mind to follow, but in the blink of an eye, Summer was gone.

All she could do was send a text: "Make sure your phone is on so I can reach you. And since you don’t know the area, remember to hire some bodyguards."

As dawn was breaking, the plane landed in Oakhaven.

Skyscrapers filled the skyline. She looked all around but saw nothing familiar from her memories. She found herself breathing an unexpected sigh of relief, then found a random breakfast spot and ordered something to eat.

But when she took a bite of the fragrant, slow-cooked soup and the local mixed noodles, the flavor awakened a memory deep within her. A wave of familiarity crashed over her, and her brief sense of relief plummeted.

The delicious breakfast suddenly tasted like ash in her mouth.

Summer Sutton had always been a cautious person. After quickly finishing her breakfast, she hired two female bodyguards from a reputable local agency, paying a premium. Then, without delay, she went to rent an SUV.

One of the bodyguards drove, following the GPS toward Whisperfall. The urban sprawl gradually gave way to remote countryside. After nearly two hours on narrow country roads, they finally arrived in Whisperfall. The town was mostly composed of low-slung houses, though there were also a number of self-built villas.

Summer Sutton got out of the car. The bodyguard was checking her phone. "The GPS can’t pinpoint the exact house, Miss Lowell. Should I go ask one of the locals?"

"No need." Summer Sutton closed her eyes. A kind of muscle memory, long dormant within her, began to stir. She followed the feeling, walking past homes that were at once strange and yet not-so-strange, finally stopping in front of a small farmhouse courtyard in what she assumed was Lambert Village.

The yard was in an uproar, with chickens scattering and dogs barking. A sharp-tongued old woman was screaming vicious curses in the local Oakhaven dialect:

"Laura Morgan, you ungrateful bitch! Sean just wants to buy a used car! He asks you to sell that gold bracelet and necklace of yours to help pay for it, and you refuse? What kind of heartless wife are you?!"