Furious, Matthew denied in a low voice, "No way! How could you have gastric cancer? What kind of quack did examine you? Go and tell him that his career is over because I'm going to sue him! He will never be a doctor again in his life!"
He had been away for only two days on a business trip, and all of a sudden, he got the news that his wife had middle stage cancer. Before he left, she was just fine. How could he believe such nonsense?
"It's true. I've had a stomachache since yesterday. I went for a check-up today. Let me take a photo of the results for you."
Erica knew Matthew was having none of it, and to be honest, she was having a hard time believing the results herself! But what was the point of it? The fact that she had cancer wouldn't change just because they refused to believe it.
"Send it to me!" Matthew ordered and hung up the phone.
Next, Erica took a photo of the exam results and immediately sent it to Matthew.
The moment he got it, Matthew swiped his finger down the photo, ignoring the bunch of words on the top. Reaching the bottom row, he read the results, which confirmed that Erica had middle stage gastric mucus cancer.
The report was made at the Y City First General Hospital. The names of the gastroscopy operator and the attending doctor were also on it.
Putting his phone away, Matthew took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
As he stared at the view outside the window, he took a drag on the cigarette.
When Owen came over, he found his boss smoking. He then whispered to him, "Mr. Huo, Mr. Du is waiting for you."
Matthew didn't say anything. He simply took another drag on the cigarette.
Once it was about to burn out, he managed to suppress the panic he felt in his heart before he stubbed it out in the trash beside him. Finally, he said in a hoarse voice, "Put the contract with Mr. Du aside and book the earliest flight to Y City. We need to go back as soon as possible."
Caught off guard, Owen did not resist asking, "Mr. Huo, has something happened in Y City? The contract with Mr. Du will be signed soon…"
Matthew nodded. "I'll tell Mr. Du about it myself. You arrange a car for the airport right now. We can't wait any longer."
Noticing that something serious must have happened, Owen didn't dare to insist more. "Yes, Mr. Huo."
The moment he had everything settled, Matthew left the company and dialed Erica's number. He wanted to calm her down before she did anything stupid.
Absent-mindedly, Erica drove straight to a river nearby. The phone kept ringing, but only after several rings did she come back to her senses.
Pulling over, she got out of the car and answered the phone without giving Matthew a chance to say anything first. "Matthew, I've calmed down already. In fact, I'm grateful for the opportunity I got to be Wesley and Blair's daughter, your wife, and the mother of my four sons. I'll come into terms with my dying. Well, I guess there is a next life, right?"
Matthew was short of breath, so he tried to calm himself down before comforting her. "Rika, you don't know that because you don't often go to the hospital, but medicine is quite advanced nowadays. It's just middle stage cancer. I'm sure that if you get proper treatment, you'll get better. I've just checked. There are many patients at the advanced stage of gastric cancer who stabilized their condition after regular treatments. The first thing you need to worry about is your state of mind. Don't give yourself up…"
"My state of mind…" With her eyes fixed at the river in front of her, Erica sat on the lawn. She had been in a bad mood since she left the hospital. "Matthew, I think… I think I've lived my whole life in vain. Even though I'm dying, I still don't know whether you love me or not…" She was about to die and never even heard Matthew say that he loved her.
"Why did you say that? Rika, can't you feel my love for you?" Matthew asked. He thought he had already proved his love for her over and over.
"Yes, I can feel it. But you never said it, so how can I be sure if you really love me or not?" Erica couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice.
Sensing her frustration, Matthew got a little flustered. "Do I have to tell you out loud? Well, Rika, listen to me carefully!"
Regardless of how shocked Owen was from the driver's seat, Matthew swore firmly, "I, Matthew Huo, will only love one person from beginning to end, and this person is none other than you. I love you, for this life, for the next, and forever…" With a roar, he stated at last, "I only love you, Erica!"
Tears streamed down Erica's face. He finally told her that he loved her.
"Don't cry. I love you so much, even more than you love me. I've been feeling this way for a long time already. I can't tell when exactly I fell in love with you. Maybe you were thirteen or fourteen…" At that time, he was only eighteen or nineteen years old, but she was still too young for him. Even if he had all of these feelings for her, he had to suppress them.
Owen was astonished when he heard Matthew's love declaration to his wife. 'Oh my God! Mr. Huo is such a jerk. How could he have fallen in love with Mrs. Huo when she was only thirteen or fourteen years old?' Owen thought to himself.
"Matthew, I love you too," Erica confessed. Despite the strange looks she kept getting from the passersby, she burst into tears.
She was overwhelmed with joy!
"So from now on, don't cry anymore. I'll take you to the hospital for the most precise examination. If the diagnosis confirms you have middle stage gastric cancer, I'll take you to the best hospital, and you'll receive the best treatment there is. No matter how difficult it is, I'll be with you every step of the way. I won't let you face anything on your own, and in return, you mustn't leave me alone in this world, understood?" Matthew pleaded.
"Understood…" Erica nodded obediently.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Matthew closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. "Honey, I'm on my way back. Wait for me at home, okay?"
"Did I keep you from your work?" Erica asked, feeling a bit guilty.
"No." In fact, it was his work that kept him from being with his wife when she had to face that terrible news alone.
After a moment of silence, Erica suddenly remembered something she had been wanting to ask him. "Matthew."
"Hmm?"
"Why did you marry me in the first place?" she asked.
Prior to their engagement, Erica asked Matthew why he wanted to marry her. And he said it was to fulfill a request from his father.
Unconvinced, she asked him again after they got married, to which he answered, "I wanted to do everyone else a favor and prevent you from causing trouble to another person."
Now, five years later, she was asking him the same question once more.
This time, he replied, "Because I love you." With her arms around her legs, Erica buried her head into her knees as she cried and laughed like a fool.
After that, the two kept on the line until Matthew got on the plane and was forced to say goodbye. "Rika, wait for me."
However, before turning off his phone for the trip, he made one last call to Paige. "Find my wife. You'll keep track of her from now on." Even though Erica promised him she would wait for him, he still feared that the silly girl would suddenly take off to a remote place to die on her own.
"Yes, Mr. Huo," said Paige.
As the hours passed, Erica was still sitting by the river in a daze. Her phone rang several times, but she didn't seem to hear it.
She also didn't drink or eat anything from afternoon to dusk, and then from dusk to night…
"Rika!" a familiar male voice called from behind her.
At his call, Erica woke from her daze as she turned around.
Not so far away, stood a man in a dark suit and a long black overcoat. That man was none other than Matthew.
