Chapter 50: Julian Fletcher Was Happy After I Died?

Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Julian Fletcher Was Happy After I Died?

"Here... eat." Asher’s hands were injured, and it was obvious someone had hurt them on purpose.

He couldn’t use chopsticks. He could only eat by cupping the bowl in his palms.

He hesitated for a moment before putting the bowl down and retreating to a corner in silence.

I forced myself to look as gentle as possible and held out my hand to him. "Let me see your hands."

Asher was extremely wary, but after I held out my hand, he hesitated for a long time before finally offering his.

I seized the opportunity to inspect both sides of his hand carefully. It definitely didn’t have the red birthmark my killer had.

Clearly, he wasn’t the one who actually killed me, but he was absolutely connected to the murderer! He was either an accomplice or a partner-in-crime.

The serial killer case, the cause of my parents’ deaths, the memories I lost after the car accident.

So many truths... all of it was a tangled mess, yet it felt like the answers were just within reach.

’What was the real truth?’

"Does it hurt?" I looked up at Asher, trying to get on his good side.

He was very quiet. His large, beautiful eyes held a mix of innocence and intensity.

"Who did this to your fingers?" Seeing the deep wounds on each of his fingertips, the flesh peeled back, I couldn’t suppress a shudder.

’The Lancaster family must be full of psychos. No matter what, they shouldn’t have done this to him.’

"To prevent... me from escaping through here." Asher pointed to the window.

I glanced out the window. We were on the third floor.

’It was true. With his fingers mangled like this and the burns on his feet still unhealed, there was no way he could escape.’

Taking a deep breath, I felt a surge of anger. "Your wounds need to be treated, or they’ll get infected and start to rot!"

"Open the door! If you want him to father an heir, you should at least treat his injuries! Are you even human?" I shouted at the door, but no one answered.

Asher just watched me. As I pounded frantically on the door, he spoke up. "Cece... how did your parents die?"

"A car accident..." The words slipped out before I could stop them.

But the moment I said it, my entire body went rigid.

’As Cecilia Caldwell, my parents died in a car accident.’

’But as Silvia Lynch, my parents, terrible as they were, are still alive and well.’

"I was just saying... I wish they’d get in a car accident and die," I explained, the flimsy excuse only making me sound more suspicious.

Asher said nothing, then suddenly, he smiled.

"Cece..." he called my name again.

I turned to look at him.

"They won’t open the door," Asher said, getting up and slowly walking towards me.

I was still subconsciously terrified of him getting close, and I instinctively backed away.

He stopped in his tracks, likely afraid he had scared me.

After an awkward silence, he finally spoke. "Do you... want to get out?"

I nodded. ’Of course I want to get out. I can’t just be trapped in here forever as some kind of breeding machine.’

’Only by getting out can I figure out how to uncover the whole truth, rip off Erin Whittaker’s hypocritical mask, and let everyone know she was the one who killed me!’

"Once you have a child, they’ll let you out," Asher said, picking up a pregnancy test from the table and holding it out to me.

’I froze. I knew he was right, but... how could I? I couldn’t possibly have a baby with a murderer...’

After a long silence, I turned and carefully surveyed the room that held us captive. Then I started rummaging through the drawers, looking for anything useful.

When I opened the first drawer, I saw two marriage certificates. They were... no, they were for Silvia Lynch and Asher.

"Sebastian Lancaster? That name..." I muttered under my breath, finding it familiar.

I tossed the marriage certificates back into the drawer, then it hit me. ’A marriage certificate! My former self, Silvia Lynch, and this lunatic... were legally married!’

"Cece..." Seeing that I was in a daze, Asher called my name again.

I glanced back at him in a panic, forcing myself to remain calm and gentle. "Is... is there something you need?"

"Have a baby..." he said very carefully, as if not wanting to scare me.

"To help you get out," Asher said again.

’It seemed the only way he could think of to get me out of here was for me to get pregnant as soon as possible.’

’Silvia Lynch must have been planning this for a long time, so Asher probably thought she wanted a child too.’

"This... isn’t something we can rush!" I tried to calm myself down, to stall for time, and spoke in a gentle voice. "A child should be the fruit of their parents’ love. It would be so sad for a child to be born without it, and we don’t even know each other that well yet..."

Asher’s gaze deepened as he looked at me. Then he suddenly smiled, his expression completely serious. "We know each other!"

I stared at him, dumbfounded. For the first time, I felt like I was seeing the very definition of ’dangerously charismatic’ embodied in a man.

His eyes were shining, so incredibly clear, as if they held a thousand galaxies.

I think I finally understood why he was called Asher. Those eyes looked just like brilliant stars.

"Don’t worry," I said soothingly. "If I manage to escape, I’ll take you with me." ’This man held too many secrets,’ I thought. ’I have to keep him calm and earn his trust.’

’First, I have to find a way out of here. Then, I’ll go find Madeline Quinn.’

’As for Julian Fletcher and Erin Whittaker...’

The sudden thought of Julian Fletcher made my gaze turn cold.

’I finally died, just like he wanted! Julian must be free of all his worries now, living happily ever after with Erin Whittaker, right?’

’I won’t let him and the woman who killed me get their happy ending!’

’Since I’ve been given a second chance at life, I’ll make damn sure Julian Fletcher and Erin Whittaker suffer everything I went through!’

I went back to searching the drawers and found a first-aid kit in the second one.

I took out the iodine and some cotton swabs, then called Asher over to help him clean his wounds.

’This Asher was a complete mystery. I couldn’t figure him out at all. He was so mysterious and unhinged that it was terrifying.’

But he seemed to love staring into my eyes, and I had no idea what he was looking for.

’But I always had the feeling he was looking at someone else.’

"Cece..."

He loved repeating that name, his voice hoarse but gentle.

After I finished treating the wounds on his hands, I looked up and asked, "Does it hurt?"

’It must hurt terribly. Several of his fingers were already starting to fester.’

He looked at me, shook his head, then nodded again, as if feeling wronged. "It hurts."

I frowned and looked down. ’He was acting like a completely different person from the man who had tried to strangle me when I woke up. Does he really have a split personality?’ "Just bear with it. It’ll get better in a few days. Try not to get your hands wet."

He nodded obediently, like a well-behaved puppy. "Cece can wash me."

"..." My temples throbbed. I almost lost my ’gentle’ facade. "And why should I?"

"Wife." Asher pointed in the direction of the marriage certificates.

’I gasped. Is this guy really an idiot? Or is it all just an act?’

To test whether Asher was really an idiot, I took out a pen and paper and wrote down a simple math problem: 345 + 246 = ?

Asher looked at the problem and laughed out loud.

"You don’t know how?" I asked. ’Even though I was terrified of him deep down, whenever he smiled, he had this innate... magic. It made him seem so pure.’

"I’m not an idiot." He seemed to read my mind, scribbling down the answer without a moment’s hesitation.

I was a little surprised. "Just because you can do arithmetic doesn’t mean you’re smart."

After a moment’s thought, I wrote down an extremely difficult math olympiad problem. It was a problem that a senior classmate and I had studied for ages without being able to solve. We ended up asking our professor, and it took him an entire night to figure out the answer.

’Asher probably wouldn’t even be able to make sense of it.’

I pushed the paper toward Asher and tilted my chin up. "Can you solve it?"

Asher glanced at it and clumsily picked up the pen with his injured fingers.

I was afraid he’d get frustrated and fly into a rage, so I quickly tried to soothe him. "It’s okay if you don’t get it. I couldn’t solve it back then either."

’This was stuff I only learned after starting college.’

’Asher grew up in an orphanage. There’s no way he could...’

But before I could finish my thought, he was already writing, scrawling out the solution on the paper with a shaky hand.

From the moment he read the problem to the moment he finished writing the answer, the entire process took him less than five minutes...