Chapter 1109 - 515: Returned from the Great Dream (5) (Second Update)

Chapter 1109: Chapter 515: Returned from the Great Dream (5) (Second Update)

Lawrence Winters suddenly saw stars and stood there dazed for a long time.

She hurriedly adjusted her breathing, forced herself to calm down, and continued asking, "...So who all knew about this?"

"Plenty of people, I suppose. It was in the papers back then. But twenty years have gone by; not many people remember. Once you bring it up, though, the older folks will recall it, like me." The old man shook his head as he spoke, even more sentimental now. "There are gods three feet above your head, you know!"

Lawrence thanked the old man and stepped aside, pulling out her phone to keep searching for news from more than twenty years ago.

Last time, she had found the announcement of Isaac York and Anna Wright’s marriage.

This time, she was searching for this kind of human-interest crime story.

Sure enough, in the local newspaper’s column from twenty years ago, she found this piece of news that had once moved countless people to tears.

The article didn’t give the parties’ names, only said that a single mother suddenly disappeared and, because no one was there to care for her, the infant daughter at home—less than a year old—starved to death.

This only came to light because the landlord, after the single mother failed to pay rent for a month, used his key to unlock the door and discovered the tragedy.

Standing there in the sunlight, Lawrence felt a chill spread over her entire body.

She looked up at the towering, imposing spire of the Gothic cathedral, then at the lush, flourishing garden in the back, and felt something clogging her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe.

She silently recited the Heart Clarity Spell several times before she managed to calm herself enough to keep thinking clearly.

From the old man’s account just now, it could be inferred that even if Isaac wanted to live like a prodigal tossing around money, it still depended on whether fate allowed it.

It was obvious that, before the crisis twenty years ago, the person truly calling the shots at York Bank was this uncle.

So her deduction couldn’t be wrong: this Jade hair coronet still belonged to Diana Thomas.

If her deduction was not wrong, what did that imply?

It implied that Mrs. Wright, Miss Thomas, and Isaac York were all lying.

And the strangest part among all this was Diana Thomas’s child.

The child clearly died long ago, so why did Miss Thomas still claim to be Diana’s daughter, and why did Mrs. Wright and Isaac not deny it?!

Was this the reason Mrs. Wright and Isaac had joined forces to seek help from the Celestial Path Sect?!

Was Miss Thomas truly something inhuman?!

But then, how did the DNA paternity test come into this?

If the DNA paternity report was genuine, there was only one way to explain it: Miss Thomas was also Diana Thomas’s daughter—Diana had more than one daughter.

The daughter Diana had with Isaac died of starvation before she turned one. Diana disappeared, but she did not die right away. Instead, she had another daughter, Emily Thomas, with someone else, and brought that daughter back to Arcadia City.

Then Isaac discovered that Diana had returned, so he went to see her again; the two got into a dispute that led to Diana’s sudden death?

This part matched the account that Mrs. Wright, Mr. York, and Miss Thomas had given.

Furthermore, if Mrs. Wright was lying, then the money Miss Thomas now relied on to live did not come from what Diana left, but from her father, or a close female friend of her mother’s.

If Miss Thomas was lying, then her mother, Diana Thomas, had not actually been in financial straits back then.

But judging from the photo album Mrs. Wright had shown, and from how Diana met Isaac, would a child from a wealthy family go work at a tennis court as a ball girl picking up balls?

Lawrence closed her eyes briefly, her thoughts in a tangle.

There were too many clues contradicting one another, each pointing toward a different conclusion.

She could now be certain that what Mrs. Wright, Miss Thomas, and Mr. York said was all a mix of truth and lies, each with parts that did not match reality.

Lawrence thought for a while, and her thoughts gradually converged on the "orphanage."

Perhaps starting with the orphanage would be the quickest way to use elimination.

Right now she could not directly prove anything, so all she had was the process of exclusion.

Once all impossibilities were ruled out, the sole remaining possibility would be the truth.

But to learn which orphanage Diana had been in, she could only ask Mrs. Wright or Miss Thomas.

Miss Thomas was a severe psychiatric patient; she could not provide reliable information.

But Mrs. Wright—did she really know that much?

Lawrence tightened her grip on the phone.

She had to at least try.

Whether Mrs. Wright knew or not was one thing; if Lawrence didn’t probe, that would mean she had given up on the most important lead herself.

Lawrence’s gaze swept across the backyard and she saw that people were gradually thinning out.

Mrs. Wright was no longer chatting with anyone; instead, she stood by the exit of the back garden, bidding everyone farewell and thanking them.

Taking advantage of a moment when no one was leaving, Lawrence stepped up to Mrs. Wright with a smile and said, "Mrs. Wright, do you recognize this item?"

As she spoke, she held out her phone, showing the page she’d found where the collector displayed the jewelry.

Mrs. Wright’s honey-sweet smile froze in an instant; even her pupils shrank.

But she quickly returned to normal and said with a smile, "I’m afraid I don’t. But it’s quite lovely. With Jade of such fine quality, it must be worth a fortune, right?"

Watching her closely, Lawrence could tell that Mrs. Wright did in fact know this Jade hair coronet.

Although her words were a denial, at the moment she saw the coronet her expression stiffened and her pupils contracted, which showed that she had at least seen it before and knew what this Jade coronet meant to York Bank.

That was why her reaction had been so strong.

Otherwise, she would merely have shown surprise—her pupils would have dilated, not contracted.

Because a stiff expression comes from suddenly seeing something unexpected.

Pupils contracting, on the other hand, signify vigilance and guardedness.

But of course she wouldn’t admit anything.

Lawrence thought for a moment, quickly reviewing all her past interactions with Mrs. Wright, trying to find evidence that this woman was lying.

If her memories were a book, it slowly opened, and she flipped through the pages again and again.

Suddenly, her memory stopped on a particular page.

The photo album.

That photo album.

The one Mrs. Wright had once shown them.

Inside were photos of Diana Thomas, photos of Isaac at his high school graduation ball, and also a photo of Diana wearing that small diamond-and-Jade hair coronet!

Mrs. Wright had definitely seen this coronet before.

Lawrence reached her conclusion and immediately said, in a very firm tone, "Mrs. Wright, you’ve seen this Jade hair coronet before, and you know that Isaac took it from Diana and had it auctioned off for cash. So tell me—do you know that Diana really did bear Isaac a child?"

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This is today’s second update.

Good night, everyone.

Kisses to the group!