Volume 10 – Chapter 26: Colluding Together (Part 1)

Earlier.

Caroline finally contacted the Lawyer Carlo and went to the hospital with him to visit Nia.
Of course, they took the bus.

Carlo gave an excuse. He explained that it was an urgent moment when he had to send a contract to a client while it was too late. Because of that, he parked his car in a non-parking area. Later, the car was towed away by the traffic police. Hence, he could only take the bus.

Carlo talked about how unreasonable the traffic police was to Caroline and then moved on to how rudimentary the country’s justice was.

What should I say?

I don’t understand him? Caroline felt as if she saw a stingy middle-aged woman bargaining with a butcher at the market and failed in the end.
Carlo paid the fee after getting on the bus, but Caroline still didn’t feel that this guy was a gentleman. He should have paid the bill when they were in the cafe.

How expensive would the bus’ one-time fare be?

“Oh! Poor Nia! Forgive me for just knowing your situation! I should have arrived sooner!”

Carlo saw Nia lying on the hospital bed. He walked to Nia’s side and knelt before the hospital bed without hesitation. He held Nia’s dry hands with both hands against his forehead, weeping in a raspy voice, “You used to be so beautiful. Why did you become like this? God is so unfair! Oh…you should have let me know earlier. Why didn’t you let me know?”
Nia seemed to be moved by the man’s affection, and perhaps she also remembered the moments she had with this man. Her sunken eye sockets teared up.

Caroline once thought that Nia’s tears should have drained up after being hospitalized.

But in the end, she was moved to tears by such disgusting words from such a man. Couldn’t Nia see that Carlo was just putting up an act? They hadn’t seen each other in a few years, or even more than ten years. How could this be true?

Or is it that the illness has completely taken over Nia’s shrewdness and reasoning, making her even more ignorant than any other woman?
Caroline opened her mouth, even revealing her disdain for Carlo in her eyes. She hoped that Nia could see her actions, but Nia’s eyes never left Carlo.

Caroline didn’t know if Nia was trying to remember this man’s face forever. However, she didn’t alert Nia in the end.

She closed the door and sat alone in a chair outside the ward, leaving Carlo a chance for Nia to perform. God, for the sake of this commission, I hope this man can be loving to the end.

“Why do I care about this kind of thing?” Caroline suddenly shook her head mockingly.

She felt a little bored. She looked around the corridors of the inpatient department and found that there were quite a few people. They all had relatives of those hospitalized here.
Caroline’s thoughts went a little messy. She simply took out her phone and browsed WeChat moments and Twitter. She didn’t know what Nia and Carlo talked about in the ward.

She sent a message to Livia, but she didn’t reply even after waiting for a while. So she made another call, and it turned out that Livia had turned off her phone.

Livia had mentioned that she would also leave and stayed outside the district for a while. I guess she should have left now?

Livia engaged in prostitution in the district. But, Caroline knew that Livia had a boyfriend outside the district without telling her. He seemed to be a college student.

Livia was quite a fool; she even quietly saved a portion of the money every month to subsidize the man’s tuition and living expenses.

Perhaps, she went to her boyfriend’s place.

Caroline thought about it and fell asleep.
She had a dream.

In the dream, she was an angel. Her wings weren’t pure white like the angels in the Bible, but grey.

Her wings folded, wrapped around her body, and unable to fly as she fell from the sky.

But she would never be able to touch the earth, just keep falling, seemingly endless.

She couldn’t speak. She could only maintain this falling motion. Her body was like a stone statue, and she felt like a soul imprisoned in the statue.

Another self appeared in front of Caroline.
The other self had the same face, but she had no wings, just like a typical self.

The other self was also falling at the same speed as her. Their line of sight was at the same altitude as if she was looking in a mirror.

The two of them fell to the ground with their heads down, but they were still staring at each other with their eyes open. Caroline still couldn’t speak. She had never been so anxious before.

But the other self moved. There was a slight smile on her face. Caroline glanced at it, and horrors crept upon her heart.

She moved.
This fellow who looks exactly like me moved. While falling, the other self reached out her hand toward Caroline and finally put her palm on Caroline’s abdomen.

The other self opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound. Her lips were moving, seemingly trying to say something.

“I took it away.”

“What?”
The ground below was suddenly swallowed by darkness. The darkness was like ink dripping on a paper towel, soaring to the sky quickly and finally dyeing the bright sky black.

Caroline felt immense pain overwhelming her.

…

The cause of the pain was that the hospital bed being pushed by the doctors and nurses quickly passed through this narrow corridor while the wheels ran across Caroline’s feet.

Caroline woke up in pain, glanced bitterly at the distant hospital bed. She quickly took off her shoes. A red mark surfaced on her foot, and she didn’t know if her bones were hurt.
Why am I so unlucky today?

Caroline sighed and rubbed the soles of her feet slowly. At this moment, the ward door suddenly opened. Carlo walked out blankly, frowning when he saw Caroline, who was still sitting here.

“Have you finished discussing your business? Where’s Nia?” Caroline had to ask.

Carlo said calmly, “She finally fell asleep. You shouldn’t wake her up. By the way, do you have time? I want to talk to you about something.”

Caroline’s intuition told her that it wouldn’t be good, but she still endured the pain in her feet, put on her shoes, and followed the man to a reasonably quiet place. The open floor of the hospital’s inpatient department, where the patient could breathe.

Caroline hobbled, and Carlo didn’t intend to help her.
This handsome middle-aged man had a slight hint of youth on his face. He took out a crumpled, softly-packed cigarette from the pocket of his suit, picked one out, and started smoking.

Caroline said impatiently, “Just say it. If there’s nothing, I’m leaving. It’s quite late.”

It was her working time at night, so naturally, it was her excuse. She just didn’t like being with this middle-aged man. It reminded her of Nia.

The face with a stark contrast to despair, glowing with spirit as if seeing hope.

“You’re a prostitute too, right?” Carlo breathed out a puff of cigarette smoke slowly, “Nia told me about you.”