Chapter 196



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The moon was shining and there were some stars in the sky. On the road to Ningpo, which was a small, remote fishing village, a white Land Rover was speeding away, with an aura wilder than the sea breeze.

According to the location sent by Kevin, it was somewhere here.

His car’s headlights illuminated a car standing on a far corner. He could see the four circles on the back of the car. It was an Audi logo that especially caught his eye.

Joseph’s heart pounded for an instant. He immediately stepped on the brake pedal.

He walked toward the car hurriedly to check if Hayden was inside the car, but there was no one inside the car. The hood of the car was open and the bumper was smashed in. Joseph looked around and suddenly saw a pool of blood on the ground.

In that instant, he was so frightened that his heart seemed to fall into an abyss.

He could hardly stand upright.

“Hayden!”

He shouted and roared, but he was only caressed by the cold mountain wind.

He could get no response.

The blood on the ground frightened him until he could no longer stand upright. He held the hood of the car by the side and slowly crouched down. His knees hit the concrete pavement. His expensive custom-made pants were stained with blood stains and dust on the floor.

The moonlight shone on the pool of blood reflecting off his grim face.

Although he tried to control himself to be calm, he couldn’t help but think the worst.

He regretted it so much that he clenched his fists and wanted to punch himself twice.

If he hadn’t gotten mad at her earlier and hurt her like that, how would she have gotten mad at him and quit her job to start her business? If she hadn’t left the ST Hotel, none of this would have happened.

“Why are you here?”

Joseph heard a cold voice like the echo of a ghost in his head. He was dumbfounded. When he looked up, he saw Hayden standing in front of him, unharmed, looking dumbfounded.

Hayden walked down the road to find a sign, but couldn’t find one after walking for half an hour. To make matters worse, his phone ran out of battery. He feared he would encounter a mishap, so he just walked back in a hurry, but he didn’t expect to see Joseph kneeling on the ground half-dead when he returned.

What was going on?

While she was still in a daze, Joseph rushed over to embrace her in the cold mountain breeze and she could smell the scent of his unique fragrance. She unconsciously struggled a little, but she couldn’t escape him with her little strength as Joseph hugged her tightly as if he wanted to embed her in his body. He didn’t even care if she allowed him to embrace her.

He was hugging her like someone hugging a long lost treasure.

“You’re okay.”

She didn’t hear the phrase clearly and didn’t know if his sentence was a statement or a question. She was puzzled and confused, but continued to say nothing for a moment of bewilderment.

The waves were crashing against the rocks and the evening breeze was blowing.

After a long moment, Joseph merely let go of her hands and said in a ruthless voice, “Hayden, do you know how dangerous it is to drive at night?”

Hayden pushed him away unhappily, as he was only telling her something so simple after hugging her for so long.

“Joseph, are you crazy?”

A few hours ago, he ran into a goat as he approached a curve. He was talking to Alayna at the time and wasn’t concentrating so hard on driving, so he quickly turned the steering wheel. As a result, his car hit an old van.

She did not panic too much after hitting the van, as she thought she could pay the van driver to repair it, as her car had insurance and could be claimed following the necessary procedure. However, the van driver was very afraid that Hayden would extort money from him.

The van driver got out of his van with a sour face, checking to see if his vehicles were okay.

“Your car is very expensive. I can’t afford the price of repairing your car, even if I sell mine.”

“Sir, it was me who hit your car, why am I going to ask you to pay for it?”.

The van driver kept apologizing to Hayden, and Hayden realized that the man did not know the traffic rules at all. After explaining it to him for a long time, the car driver just understood that it was not his fault and that Hayden had to pay him to repair his van.

“What was the end result?”

Joseph’s voice brought Hayden back to reality who was remembering the scene. He was holding in his hand a cup of hot tea that Joseph had poured himself from the thermos he kept in his car and a package of small cookies that he had just opened. He didn’t even know how he had so much food in the car.

“I then told him I would look for an insurance company to take over the cost of repairing the van, but he refused. Finally, after a long negotiation, I gave him $500. His van was still able to run and he drove off, leaving my car broken down on the road.”

Remembering this story, Hayden felt a little indignant. After all, the man’s long-lasting van was much cheaper than his car.

Joseph asked Hayden, “What car was the man driving?”.

“A Wuling Hongguang, a compact multi-purpose vehicle.”

When he finished drinking the tea, he felt warmer. In Ningpo, the weather was strange, as it was very hot during the day, but very cold at night. If Joseph hadn’t shown up, she might have died on the road.

“You still haven’t told me how come you’re here?”. Hayden looked at Joseph with confusion.

Joseph didn’t explain much. He just told him that it was Alayna who asked him to come save her, and that he was doing something nearby, that’s why he was able to get here so fast.

“Is that a coincidence?” Hayden snorted.

He looked as if he’d come down with a cold when he was looking for a sign.

“What else do you think it could be?”. Joseph looked at her, “Don’t tell me you think I’m stalking you.”

Hayden raised his eyebrows as if he had consented to her statement.

“Do you think I have nothing better to do than follow you to this remote location?”. Joseph huffed a little, “If I really did that, why didn’t I show up after I saw you have the accident? I was busy looking for you and only arrived after you had walked down the road for an hour or two.”

Seeing the furious look on Joseph’s face, Hayden suddenly felt that he wasn’t so obnoxious when he lost his temper, since it all depended on why he lost his temper.

“I didn’t hit the van on purpose either.”

Hayden muttered and drank his tea quietly.

Joseph felt like a fool who had just done something useless. He also felt suffocated as if a big rock was on top of him.

When he knew he might get into a car accident, he accelerated like lightning without disturbing the navigation system, which kept reminding him that he had exceeded the speed limit. His mind was blank, he just wanted to find her on the spot.

When he found his car, but saw the pool of blood on the ground, he felt his world collapse.

Hayden was now drinking tea beside him as if nothing had happened, leaving him, gritting his teeth angrily.

“Joseph.”

In the car, Hayden suddenly called out to him and at the time it was a little awkward.

Joseph feigned indifference and answered, “What’s up?”

“Can I borrow your phone? I want to call Alayna.”

Without hesitation, Joseph lent him his phone.

Hayden, who had just received his phone, suddenly pulled his index finger.

He could feel the warmth of his hand and was a little stunned. He looked down to see Hayden’s serious face. She was trying to move her finger to unlock his phone.

In the next second, her index finger was pressed into the fingerprint lock.

Ding Her phone successfully unlocked.

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