Chapter 383: Sisters Have Their Own Fortunes

Chapter 383: Chapter 383: Sisters Have Their Own Fortunes

Gregory Sherwood keenly sensed the Donovan Family’s gazes turning increasingly sharp, and his scalp instantly tightened.

He hadn’t done anything outrageous, had he? Did they really need to look at him so sternly?

Gregory Sherwood’s expression remained unchanged, but in reality, his mind had been racing for the past few minutes. He wracked his brain, replaying his few encounters with Eloise Donovan. They had barely exchanged a handful of words, let alone gotten into any conflict.

The only real conflict had been during their first meeting. Arabella Donovan had immediately implied that his fiancée’s heart belonged to another, making him, at his young age, taste the bitterness of being cuckolded.

At the time, he couldn’t stand seeing the "sister" he had watched grow up being slandered like that, so his reply had been a bit sharp, but that was all.

If that was truly enough to offend this entire family, Gregory Sherwood felt he was being... rather wronged.

Arabella Donovan’s gaze darted between the two of them before she finally decided to just let it go.

’Forget it. Children will make their own... ah, no, sisters will have their own fortunes. Some things are better left unsaid. They probably don’t even remember it anyway, so I shouldn’t be the one to bring it up.’

Eloise Donovan: "..."

The rest of the Donovan Family: "..." Too late. We’ve all remembered now.

’But then again, even though our family has five kids, and the Lynch Family has two cousins, if you really think about it, Fourth Sister is the only child of the Lynch Family’s second branch, right? In a situation like this, wouldn’t the family elders usually prefer for her to take a husband who marries into the family, rather than marrying her off? You know... like our cousin-aunt?’

Eloise Donovan: "!!!"

The Donovan Family: "!!!" ’That’s right! How did we not think of that before?!’

The Donovan patriarch and his sons, who had been on high alert ever since their precious "cabbage" had grown up, terrified that some wild boar might come and root her up while they weren’t looking, suddenly felt as if a door to a new world had been thrown open. It was a moment of sudden enlightenment, a true epiphany!

As for the risk of recruiting a husband who turns out to be a "phoenix man" like Julian Croft, preying on a family with no heirs?

The Donovan Family felt that was no issue at all. Their family was nothing like their cousin-aunt’s.

The cousin-aunt was an only daughter with no immediate siblings, which gave that certain scumbag the false impression that preying on her family would be easy.

If the husband Eloise Donovan married into the family dared to act like Julian Croft—two-faced, keeping a mistress and an illegitimate child behind Eloise’s back while coveting her inheritance—then forget the Lynch Family, her brothers alone would be more than enough to make him suffer.

The more they considered it, the more feasible the idea seemed. The Donovan Family’s gaze toward Gregory Sherwood immediately did a 180-degree turn, becoming so intense it was as if they wanted to swallow him whole.

Gregory Sherwood couldn’t help but shiver under their stares. He had a feeling these people were now even more terrifying than before!

This harmless little interlude passed without any real incident.

About a month later, something Arabella Donovan had long predicted came to pass. The Solara River Bridge—the very one she had called Ron Cole about, telling him to prepare for an accident rescue—was the site of a major traffic accident about two weeks after she left Brynn.

"I heard about this firsthand from my mentor’s daughter and son-in-law, the couple we met at his house that day. The official information is limited; they basically just reported the casualties at the scene, along with the cause and a summary of the accident."

But as family members of someone involved in the incident, Pearl Lyons and her husband obviously knew far more about the inside story and what led up to it.

It turned out that on the day Arabella Donovan met Pearl Lyons’s family at Elder Lyons’s home, she had unexpectedly discovered that the adorable little girl was facing an impending calamity—one that could very well involve other innocent people.

Arabella had warned the Lyons Family right then and there, and before leaving, she gave the little girl a peace charm to ensure she would pass through the ordeal safely.

Although Pearl Lyons and her husband were skeptical of Arabella’s words, their child’s safety was at stake, so they didn’t dare to be the least bit careless. Adhering to the principle of "it’s better to believe it than not," they made sure to keep their child away from any place with bridges or water.

But they both had jobs and their child had to go to kindergarten; they couldn’t possibly be tied to her twenty-four hours a day.

To be on the safe side, Pearl had recently started checking her daughter’s small backpack and pockets carefully every time before taking her to school, making sure the child and the peace charm from Arabella were never separated.

And what happened next made Pearl Lyons incredibly thankful for her caution.

"According to Pearl, after you warned them that day, they kept the child away from water and bridges. But she was already in kindergarten, and you never know what might happen when she’s away from her parents. So, Pearl had her daughter always carry the brocade bag you gave her. As it turned out, her worries weren’t unfounded."

"Pomelo goes to an international kindergarten that emphasizes diverse development. They often encourage the children to get in touch with nature and explore its mysteries on their own. On the day of the accident, the kindergarten had organized a spring outing for the junior and middle classes. The route took them over the Solara River Bridge, and the bus for the outing was almost full."

A bus full of little kids and their teachers sat inside, happily singing children’s songs and discussing what they would do on their trip and what gifts they would bring back for their parents.

Little did they know, the Grim Reaper was already silently beckoning to them.

The school bus had an accident en route. The driver suffered a sudden medical episode and briefly lost control of the vehicle. By the time he suppressed his discomfort and fought to regain control, he could no longer stop the bus from careening wildly.

To avoid hitting more vehicles on the bridge, he almost instinctively wrenched the steering wheel, sending the bus—with all the children and teachers inside—plunging into the river below.

"After being rescued, Pomelo and the other children just kept crying, so they couldn’t explain what had happened inside the bus. Luckily, there were a few young teachers accompanying them. According to them, the bus filled with water quickly after it plunged into the river. Everyone inside, adults and children alike, was terrified by the sudden disaster, especially the little kids."

It makes sense. The children were from the kindergarten’s junior and middle classes, so the oldest were only six or seven. Even adults would panic and lose their composure in a situation like that, let alone these sheltered little ones.

According to the teachers’ descriptions, the moment the bus hit the water, their ears were filled with the children’s miserable cries.

Fortunately, all of the teachers on the bus knew how to swim. So after they hit the water, they instinctively held their breath and looked around, wanting to save the children.

But swimming in open water and swimming inside a submerged, water-filled bus are two completely different things. The teachers struggled just to save themselves, let alone rescue twenty or thirty children!