When Paige came in holding a pair of lunch boxes, she happened to see all this. Trying not to laugh, she told Matthew, "Mr. Huo, Mrs. Huo, I've got your midnight snacks."
Erica's eyes lit up. She immediately sat up straight and said with a smile, "Paige, you wouldn't happen to have bought me seafood porridge?"
Paige glanced at the man next to her, who still had a long face, and shook her head at Erica. "Mr. Huo said you had a belly ache. I got millet porridge with yam. I hope that's okay, because Mr. Huo asked me to get something light and digestible for you." 'But I got seafood porridge for him, ' she thought.
With a grim face, Matthew snorted, "If you've got gastritis, seafood porridge should be the last thing you eat. Did you think I'd let your hurt yourself?"
"No, no. You don't get it. I wanted to make sure she got some for you." Erica didn't dare admit what she really thought.
To her surprise, the man said indifferently, "Well, she did get me some. And it's yummy, thank you very much."
Erica lapsed into stupefied silence.
A few minutes later, she looked at the man eating seafood porridge next to her and sighed in her heart. He made her watch him eat that on purpose. She couldn't eat so much as a single mouthful of his savory porridge, but she could only eat the bland and tasteless millet porridge.
The man seemed to know what she was thinking. He deliberately picked up a piece of sirloin, taking his time looking at it before finally popping it into his mouth. After chewing it at a leisurely pace, he said slowly, "Yes, I did it on purpose. I let you watch me eat, knowing you can't take a single bite." He figured this would teach her a lesson. See if she tried to eat anything without thinking about it next time. She was even more careless than her four three-year-old sons.
Erica was upset, but she held it in. She had to say, "No matter. It's good. Porridge and vegetables! I can lose some weight too!" What else could she say? Matthew was convinced he was right, and there was no use fighting over it.
"Well, then eat some more."
She pouted seeing his smug look. 'What a jerk! When I get better, I'll show him. I'll grab steaming bowls of hot and sour rice noodles, spicy hot pot, boiled fish with golden pepper… I'll eat them in front of him, too.'
That night, Matthew wore a long face the whole time, both when around her, and off to the side working on his laptop.
The ward was so quiet that Erica felt uneasy. After tolerating the dead silence for two hours, she finally couldn't stand it anymore. "Matthew."
The man looked up at her and remained silent.
"You just don't want to confess to me, do you? Otherwise, why are you mad at me all the time? So go ahead. Get pissed off. Can you take back what you said to me?" Before he could explain, she continued, "You can't go back in time. It's too late. I waited so long to hear your confession of love, so I recorded it and saved it to the cloud. I'll listen to it on my phone whenever I want!"
Matthew was confounded. He put down the documents in his hands and came to her. Hands in his pockets, he stood by the bed and looked at her indifferently. "Who told you I was angry because of that?"
'So that's not why?' Erica was confused. "Is it because I ate a bad piece of fruit?"
The man didn't say anything, which meant yes.
She was suddenly enlightened. "I told you that I won't eat it again. It's not worth staying mad over, right? My battery's dead, and you won't charge my phone for me. I'm so bored."
Matthew remained unmoved.
Erica became listless in an instant and muttered in a quiet voice, "I missed you day and night when I was in Tow Village. Now I finally can see you every day, but you're just being impossible. Ugh! I can hardly stand to be around you." Under the man's cold eyes, she boldly snorted, "Humph! You are always so cold. I'm your wife, not your enemy! It almost makes me want to run away again!"
"Didn't you say you would be a fool to run away again?" Matthew said flatly.
'Oh, did I say that? It doesn't matter. I'm a girl. I can change my mind whenever I want!' So, she nodded and said, "So, yeah, I guess I am a fool!"
'Now I can run away!'
The man was first stunned by her words, and then chuckled. He had never been angry, and now he couldn't pretend to be cold to her, either.
He really couldn't do anything about her behavior. He placed her hand gently under the quilt and said in a soft and loving tone, "It's late. Get some rest. I'll take you home later."
Seeing the smile on his face, Erica nodded proudly. "Okay, then you're not mad anymore?" She would have gone to bed if she hadn't considered his feelings.
He bent over and kissed her forehead. "No. Now go to sleep."
Hearing his promise, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
Erica asked Matthew not to tell anyone she'd been in the hospital. Especially her family, including her four kids. She was okay now, and she didn't want to worry anyone. She cared about them too much to do that.
Late at night, Matthew cautiously carried the sleeping woman to their bed. He laid her down gently, but she woke up. She opened one of her eyes and looked at the man in a daze. "We're home?"
"Yes. Go to sleep. I need a shower."
"Okay!"
When he came out of the bathroom after the shower, Erica was sleeping soundly. He tucked her in and then went to the study.
In the study
Matthew phoned Owen, and his assistant reported everything he'd learned to his boss. "Orange, a member of the FC group, suffered from heart disease. He died three years ago. His PR guy announced that he died of a heart attack at home, but in fact, he died in jail. Before this, he was a good friend of Mrs. Huo. He and his associates took good care of your wife in K Country when she was pregnant. Orange was closer to her than any of the others. To protect her, he let himself be framed and arrested. He never lived to serve his full sentence."
It began to drizzle outside. Matthew stood in front of the window listening to both the raindrops and the report. "The person who framed Mrs. Huo and Orange was Kirk Qin. You defeated him in Tow Village. His gang is quite powerful, and have a bad reputation. After that group of people were put behind bars, Mrs. Huo also sent someone to secretly investigate who Kirk's boss might be. He's a mysterious man, and even Kirk doesn't know who he is."
Owen paused, and then continued, "Oh, one more thing. In the past few years, Mrs. Chantel Li, Mrs. Huo and Tessie have been creating their own power base."
Matthew was stunned for a second and asked in a quiet voice, "Are you kidding me?"
"Never, sir. Their gang is called the Violet Eagles. At first, it was a small group led by a man named Latham Song. Later, Mrs. Chantel Li took over, and the three women began to increase the size and scope of the group. According to reports, the group is several thousand strong. Half of them came to Y City with Mrs. Huo, and the remaining half are spread out in K Country and A Country."
Owen's report on the Violet Eagles was quite detailed.
From the investigation, Matthew could see that Erica rooted out Kirk's group and continued to figure out the mastermind behind him in order to avenge Orange.
He remembered she went to the bar last night. After getting off the phone with Owen, he called Sheffield immediately afterwards.
Fortunately, Sheffield was quite busy with work of his own, so he hadn't gone to bed yet. It was already three in the morning. When he saw the caller ID, he answered it and said in a playful voice, "Hey, Matthew. It's pretty late. You miss me?"
Without further ado, Matthew go straight to the point. "Who did you see in the bar?"
After thinking for a bit, Sheffield got serious and answered truthfully, "Michel Wang, Noreen Xia, and three others I didn't know. What happened to Erica?"
"After doing some digging, I figured out the one she's looking for is probably Michel Wang…" Matthew didn't think Noreen had anything to do with it. She would never hang around with gangsters.
