Chapter 394: I Trust Him

Lyra gave a slow nod. Lucas didn’t rush his next question, keeping two fingers lightly against her wrist for a beat longer before withdrawing his hand and meeting her eyes again.

"Do you get nosebleeds every day right after lunch?"

Under the thin fabric of her blouse, her shoulders stiffened.

"And they sometimes happen while you’re taking a bath, don’t they?"

A faint spark of disbelief flickered in Lyra’s eyes. It happened every single afternoon without fail, and more than once while she was alone under hot water, watching blood run down her face as she tried to clean herself up without terrifying Paul. She had explained the pattern to countless doctors and specialists, only to be handed vague theories about genetic disorders, fragile blood vessels, and symptom management. None of them could ever pinpoint the cause, yet this man had taken her pulse once and named the exact timing.

’How could he possibly know that?’ she wondered, feeling the tight knot of her distrust loosen by a fraction. ’Maybe I judged him too quickly back at the office. Maybe this isn’t the same hollow charity I’ve grown to hate.’

[Lyra’s Favorability +5]

[Lyra’s Favorability +5]

[Lyra’s Favorability +5]

[Lyra’s Favorability +5]

[Lyra’s Favorability +5]

[Current Favorability: 20]

Catching the subtle shift in her expression, Lucas continued in the same measured tone. "Are there also times when the dizziness gets particularly severe?"

She remained silent, waiting.

"Bad enough that you suddenly black out and faint?" he pressed gently, pausing for a heartbeat. "And it almost always happens first thing in the morning?"

Lyra’s eyes widened. Just this month, she had collapsed three times before breakfast and not a single scan had ever explained why.

’A single pulse reading shouldn’t be able to pull all of that out of me,’ she thought, stunned. ’I’ve spent half a day locked inside full-body diagnostic machines that still left the specialists guessing.’

For the first time since Lucas had walked into the Switch office, she looked up at him without her old defensive shield raised.

[Lyra’s Favorability +10]

[Current Favorability: 30]

Seeing that guarded wall finally drop, Lucas knew it was enough. Holding her gaze, he asked carefully, "Will you let me help you with a treatment?"

Lyra’s first instinct was to glance toward her brother. Paul had been standing rigid beside the bed ever since she collapsed, and at Lucas’s words, a fierce, desperate hope cut straight through his fear.

"President Lucas, do you really have a way to cure my sister’s illness?" Paul asked, his voice tight.

Lucas gave a single nod. "I have a way." He let those words settle for a moment before adding, "However, my method is quite different from what you’re used to. It relies on rare, specialized techniques."

Enthusiasm lit up Paul’s face, though it quickly mixed with caution. Watching him, Lucas could already see a complication forming.

’Paul is far too sharp and observant,’ Lucas noted silently. ’If seven needles materialize out of thin air right in front of him, he’s going to ask questions I have no intention of answering in a hospital room with medical staff right outside. Lyra is too drained to dig that deep, but her brother won’t miss a thing.’

Before Paul’s caution could harden into an interrogation, Lucas spoke up again. "We can proceed in a moment," he said, looking between the two of them. "For this treatment, however, Lyra will need to unbutton her top and expose her back."

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. Paul’s jaw tightened, a flash of raw, older-brother fear showing plainly on his face. His sister was frail, striking, and completely vulnerable, and the thought of leaving her alone and half-undressed with a wealthy man went against every protective instinct he had. He had seen enough of creeps like Durnik to flinch at the shape of a request like that. Yet the pulse reading had been undeniably real, and the questions were far too precise to fake. Gratitude and suspicion pulled him violently in opposite directions.

Seeing the conflict in his eyes, Lyra fixed her brother with a tired, steady, and final look. "Paul, let President Lucas try."

Paul opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off before he could start.

"I’m already a sickly person," she said quietly. "There isn’t much left to protect anymore, so just treat this as a last resort." Her voice softened just a fraction. "Besides, I trust him."

A faint smile curved the corner of Lucas’s mouth. "You can just call me Lucas. We’re classmates, after all. There’s no need to be so distant."

Paul stared down at his sister for a long, heavy second. Whatever arguments were still burning behind his teeth, he kept them to himself. With a single nod, he stepped back to the door and pulled it shut behind him with a quiet click.

With only the two of them left inside, the small hospital room suddenly felt much quieter and far more intimate.

Biting her lower lip, Lyra shifted around on the mattress so her back faced him. With slightly unsteady fingers, she undid the buttons of her top one by one, easing the fabric down off her shoulders until her back was bare beneath the overhead light.

Her skin was snow-white, thin from illness yet remarkably smooth, with the delicate line of her spine clearly defined. Her bra band still crossed her back, and as she shifted slightly on the sheets, the soft curve of her chest was faintly visible from the side. Years of chronic sickness had stolen her physical strength, yet they had failed to touch her beauty. Even sitting weakened on a hospital mattress with her breath still catching, she looked like someone the disease had tried and failed to erase.

Lucas took the sight in for a brief moment, then cleanly set the thought aside.

Raising his hand, he willed the system to respond. Seven Soul Awakening Needles materialized silently against his palm as though woven from the air itself, slim, dark, and crafted with lethal precision to match her exact condition.

He laid them out carefully across the metal tray on the nightstand so she could see every single one. "It might hurt a little," he warned gently. "You’ll have to bear with it."

Lyra glanced over her shoulder at the gleaming tray, and a small, weary smile touched her lips. "Only seven?" She shook her head slightly, a note of dark humor in her voice. "Don’t worry. I’ve been through treatments far more painful than this."

Behind her, Lucas’s expression shifted. The mild, easy calm he had carried since leaving the office fell away completely. In its place settled a razor-sharp, unblinking focus, the kind of absolute seriousness that left no room for anything else in the world as his fingers closed around the first needle.