Chapter 386: Chapter 386: I Should Be Thanking You
But it wasn’t his fault. At the critical moment, he chose to knock himself out rather than to harm her, and for that, Ann Vaughn was already very, very grateful to him.
"You..." Sutton Jennings was taken aback by Ann Vaughn’s apparent lack of awareness about the truth of the incident. His gaze froze for a moment, and his voice carried a trace of difficulty, "What if I’m not merely a victim?"
"What?" Just then, the elevator door opened with a "ding," and Ann Vaughn didn’t quite catch what he had just said.
Sutton Jennings watched as Ann Vaughn stepped out of the elevator, her figure half-bathed in the dusk’s glow, her profile adorned with a soft shimmer. Suddenly, a heavy lock attached itself to his heart.
He let out a soft laugh, his gentle gaze fleeting through the surrounding darkness, those delicate almond eyes still brimming with a smile, "It’s nothing."
He thought it better not to tarnish her goodness when one is tossed about in a muddy quagmire without respite.
...
After leaving the mall, Ann Vaughn turned around only to find that Sutton Jennings had disappeared without a trace.
Considering his frequent comings and goings like a fleeting shadow these days, she didn’t find it surprising.
Yet she couldn’t help but feel that Sutton Jennings seemed to have something to say to her but ultimately left it unsaid.
If it was something left unsaid, it probably wasn’t important, right?
With this thought, Ann Vaughn walked into the nearby old-established pastry shop, bought Kenny’s favorite chestnut cake and almond cake, and then went to the roadside to hail a cab.
"Please leave here immediately, or don’t blame us for using force!"
A commotion erupted from the upscale restaurant beside her, catching Ann Vaughn’s attention. She turned her head to see a disheveled woman being pushed out by the restaurant security.
The woman fell into the snow, coughing several times, her hand on the ground trembling slightly.
"Leave! Our boss isn’t someone someone like you can just want to meet and meet," one of the guards said coldly before going back into the restaurant.
The woman remained seated in the snow, coughing repeatedly, looking quite pitiful.
From afar, Ann Vaughn looked in that direction, her eyes flickering as fragmented images inevitably surfaced in her mind.
Back in M Country, what she found most unforgettable were those days in the heart of winter.
After saving some money from working several jobs in one day, she took on embroidery jobs, which inevitably led to encounters with some unreasonable clients.
On that snowy day, she waited for a client at the specified location as instructed, but after several hours, there was still no sign of them.
She might have forgotten how cold it was then, but she could still recall her desperate longing for a hot bowl of soup or to step into a warm room.
Later, she received a bowl of vegetable noodle soup and was allowed to wait in the shop by a kind stranger.
Funny enough, that simple bowl of noodles inexplicably provided her with the motivation to endure that harsh winter.
She was genuinely grateful.
"Are you okay?" Before she knew it, Ann Vaughn had walked over to the woman, helping her up and brushing the snow off her clothes, "It’s cold outside, you should go home early."
"Home? What home?" The woman replied blankly, her face obscured by her hair, yet Ann Vaughn sensed a hint of her despair.
Just like she had been back then.
"It might take a while, but it’ll come eventually," Ann Vaughn said softly, her voice gentle, "Don’t give up easily."
The woman’s expression softened a bit, and she looked up at Ann Vaughn.
Just that one glance, the woman’s previously numb eyes suddenly lit up with intense shock and joy.
Unfortunately, that joy didn’t last long before the anxiety took over once more.
"Wha-what’s wrong?" Ann Vaughn, sensitive to the woman’s trembling, moved her fingers from her arm to her wrist to examine her closely.
It only took a moment for Ann Vaughn to discern the problem from her pulse.
This was the first time she had detected so many hidden injuries and ailments in someone’s body!
Normally, with such a physical condition, a person would have perished long ago, yet the woman’s pulse indicated she was holding on by some means.
What exactly it was, Ann Vaughn couldn’t tell.
"It’s nothing." The woman softened her voice, as if afraid to startle Ann Vaughn, "You remind me of someone I know. I was just taken aback for a moment..."
"I see," Ann Vaughn nodded. "It’s cold, you’d better hurry home."
With that, Ann Vaughn handed a box of pastries to the woman before turning to leave.
After only a few steps, the hem of Ann Vaughn’s down jacket was tugged, causing her to turn and see the woman standing there, somewhat awkwardly rummaging through her clothes pocket.
"You don’t need to pay for them; they’re a gift," Ann Vaughn quickly said.
The next second, the woman carefully took out a gray cloth bag from her inner pocket, "I can’t just take your things for nothing; it’ll make me feel better if you take this."
Ann Vaughn wanted to refuse, but when she saw the hopeful look in the woman’s eyes beneath her hair, she found herself unable to say no.
"Thank you, then," she said.
"It’s nothing," the woman said, her gaze unwaveringly fixed on Ann Vaughn, "It’s I who should thank you."
Even after Ann Vaughn left, the woman remained standing there, watching her departing figure, as if wanting to follow but held back by something.
...
By the time Ann Vaughn returned to Unit 8, Kenny had already been picked up by Uncle Dexter and was quietly assembling something in the living room.
She glanced at the three-dimensional model Kenny was working on and curiously asked, "What’s this? A new toy?"
"The teacher assigned an origami homework today, but the young master found it too difficult, so he switched to robot design," Uncle Dexter explained from the side.
Ann Vaughn: ??
Wait, which one is supposed to be harder, origami or designing a robot?
After Kenny pressed the switch, the small robot stood up on the table, emitting a series of electronic sounds, "Robot No.1 at your service. You may choose observation service or labor service."
"Number 1, bring the water over," Kenny instructed with a childish voice, eying the little robot.
So Ann Vaughn watched as the tiny robot slowly moved over to the cup, its mechanical arms opened, and it directly carried the cup over to Kenny.
But just as it put the cup down, the little robot collapsed, its mouth still babbling, "Alert! Energy depleted, energy depleted..."