Chapter 526
Just as rence reached the garden, he heard someone calling out to him from his rear, “re.”
He turned around and saw Justin, who was wheelchair-bound, sitting not too far from him quietly.
rence walked towards him and asked softly, “You heard everything just now?”
Justin nodded in response before adding, “I did. You’re not at fault here. I would’ve done the same if I
were you.”
rence replied, “You could’ve chosen to steer clear of this mess.”
Justin gave out a helpless smile, “All I can say is that it can’t be helped.”
He belonged to the Conrad family, after all, his mother had done horrible things to Ste, he could not
just look away and pretend that nothing happened.
Since he knew that it had gotten out of control, the least he could do was dy the inevitable.
rence sat on a bench, looked at the sun and said, “If you could be asked, I’ll find you a ce that’s
more suitable for living after everything is concluded.”
“What about my mother?”
rence replied in a deeper tone, “She had done horrible things, she must pay for them.”
Justin sighed and said, “re, I know that after what she’s done, she’s irredeemable. I am also terribly
sorry for what happened to you and Ste. But what can I do? She’s my mother after all, everything
she’s done is for my good. I can constantly feel her desperation and pain in the past twenty or so years,
but look at me, I can’t even be a good son for her.”
rence shifted his gaze and said, “I won’t do anything to her, all I want is just her to get the
punishment that she deserves.”
“If possible, I hope that I can at least lighten her punishment myself.”
rence did not say anything in response to that.
Justin thought to himself for some time, before saying, “re, just do whatever you want, don’t worry
about me, I’ll be alright. If you really seed in taking them down, I’ll be free at the very least.”
He finished hisst sentence in a relieved tone.
It was as if he had been waiting to say that for a very long time.
rence looked towards him as his eyebrows furrowed.
Twenty years ago, when he was just brought back to the Conrad family, Dempsey and Joanna had a
fierce argument. Joanna acted as if she had nuclear bombs for breakfast that day, spitting out vulgar
words including but not limited to “bastard”, “disgusting”, and “lowly” left right and centre.
Dempsey’s words had a willy-nilly tone to them, since if it was not for that ident, and the fact that
someone must be able to inherit the Conrad family’s assets, or else he would not had batted an eye
even if that illegitimate child died on the streets.
rence stood at the doorway, looking at his parents fighting each other.
It was Justin who went towards him in his wheelchair, held his hand, and said in a warm tone, “You
name is rence, right? My name is Justin, and I am your elder brother.”
rence turned and looked at him, his young face still showing hostility towards him.
Back then, Justin had been discharged from the hospital recently, he was still not used to moving
around in a wheelchair, and for that he constantly smashed his face onto the floor.
With his face full of bruises and wounds, he smiled at rence, “Come on now, don’t just stand there.
I’ll bring you to your room.”
Since then, every time Joanna picked at rence, Justin had always shielded him from her. When
Joanna instructed the maids not to give rence food, Justin had sneakily gave him supper at night.
When rence was old enough to leave for further studies, Justin was afraid that the pitiful amount of
allowance was insufficient for rence to survive off of, so he hid a bank card in his bag.
When rence started managing the Conrad Group and revealed his outstanding talent, only then did
Joanna stop picking on him.
In the whole family, only Justin treated him as a human, a family member, a younger brother.
Sadly, his mother was Joanna.
Justin could not find a bnce between both sides of the coin as he struggled to find relief.
The same applied to rence.
After some time, Justin said out of the blue, “Is Ste alright? I figure that she must’ve been quite
terrified at what happened that night.”
“She’s alright, she isn’t that big of a scaredy-cat.”
Justin smiled, “I see that she’s been looking bettertely, you must’ve been treating her well, then. You
should’ve done this earlier.”
rence lifted his brows and said, “I’ve already told you, I love her.”
“In this kind of situations, usually the bystanders can see the whole thing more clearly than the ones in
it.”
rence looked at him and replied, “It’s true, people in the thick of it often find it hard to get out of it.
But there are millions of ways to solve problems, so we don’t necessarily had to get on the path of no
return.”
Justin’s smiled stiffened, “re…”
“Death is not a relief, it’s merely avoiding the truth.”
He looked downwards, not saying a thing.
rence got up and said, “I’m leaving.”
Justin nodded in response, “Take care.”
Looking at rence leaving, Justin ced his hands on his senseless knees for a while before he
looked away at something else.
Yeah, death is not a relief.
It’s just an excuse that weak and useless people use for themselves.
…
Ste went for lunch with Sherry, she then worked on misceneous things around the workshop.
When she had settled everything, it was around three to four in the afternoon.
It was quite early, there was still much time.
Ste gave rence a call, but to her surprise, he did not answer the call.
That was weird.
Logically speaking, he went to the Conrad family in the morning, and there was no way that he was
going to stay there for lunch, so he should had left there already.
Ste made another call, but to no avail as well.
She had a bad feeling about this, which lead her to pack her stuff hurriedly and rushed out from the
workshop. When she saw the Rolls-Royce that was parked on the side of the road, her anxiousness
vanished in an instant.
She was so worried that something had happened to rence in the Conrad family.
Ste walked next to the Rolls-Royce, and stood there facing rence.
He was smoking a cigarette, and looked as if he was staring into nothingness and spacing out.
He did not even notice Ste, who had walked within earshot of him.
She had never seen rence this despondent before.
She waved her hand in front of him while saying, “Just broken up, handsome?”
rence did not say anything.
He turned and saw her, as he got rid of the cigarette and said with a raspy voice, “Everything’s done?”
Ste replied, “Mhmm, it was done a while ago. Why aren’t you picking up the phone?”
rence instinctively reached for his phone, checked it and said in a softer tone, “I’m sorry, my phone’s
on silent, I didn’t hear it.”
Ste leaned on the car window, looked at him with her attractive ck eyes and asked, “What’s
wrong? Are you feeling down?”
rence gave her a smile, “No.”
“You have ‘something’s wrong’ written all over your face, sir. Don’t even try to deny it,” said Ste as
she set eyes on the ashtray in the car, frowned and added, “Just how many did you smoke?”
rence replied, “Not that much.”
“Can you at least try to answer my questions sincerely? I’m not blind, you know.”
As she said that, she opened the driver seat’s door and said, “Get out of here and get in my car. Yours
smell like nothing but cigarette smoke.”
N?vel(D)rama.Org''s content.
rence obediently got out of his car. After he shut the car door, he reached out and hugged Ste.
Before Ste got to say anything, rence added with his raspy voice, “Stay still, let me hug you for a
while.”
She ced her hands on his waist, as she could probably tell why he would behave as he did.
She whispered, “Did you see your brother?”