Chapter 689
Chapter 689
Chapter 689 Are You Checking Up on Me?
Instead of answering her, Louis simply turned his head and met her gaze. After a few seconds, he uttered, "Sure."
Daphne asked, "Did you… meet Theodore?"
Louis made a sound of affirmation at that. "I did."
"You went to him—"
"That—" Louis interrupted, "—is the second question."
As Daphne quietly looked at him in confusion, he stood up and walked away. "I'm borrowing your kitchen."
She finally came back to her senses after feeling dazed for a moment. Did he just brush me off? As expected of a top student. How quick-witted.
She watched his figure and raised her hand to scratch her eyebrow. Even though she had many things to say, she didn't know how she could approach the topic. NôvelDrama.Org holds this content.
The takeout she ordered arrived not long after.
After Daphne took it, she walked to the dining room while asking Louis, "What are you doing?"
He emerged from the kitchen. "I was planning to whip up a dish or two, but your fridge is empty. There were also some expired frozen foods. I threw those away."
Why does that feel insulting, Daphne thought to herself while forcing a cough.
"Let's… start eating."
Louis looked at the food on the table. "There's too much for the two of us. Put some in the fridge. You should pick what you feel like eating now."
Daphne glanced down and selected some food.
The rest were all placed by Louis in the kitchen to cool down before being put in the fridge.
As Daphne needed to watch her weight and she didn't have a big appetite, it didn't take much food to fill her up.
"Is there anything you want to eat?" she asked Louis.
"No. This is enough."
The portion was just enough for them to finish.
After Louis gathered the trash, he told her to rest early and that he would be leaving.
Daphne was standing by the side when she hesitated for a moment before asking, "Are you going straight home?"
Louis paused and quietly responded, "Yes."
She asked again, "You are going to take a cab?"
"The subway is still running."
"Okay." She glanced at the time. "There's a subway station five minutes away from here. Let's assume it takes you half an hour to get home, plus a ten-minute walk from the subway station. You should arrive at your home no later than forty-five minutes from now. If you need to stop by the supermarket to
buy some water or anything else, I'll give you an extra five minutes. So, share your location with me fifty minutes from now."
After a moment of quiet contemplation, Louis finally spoke. "My home is quite far from here."
"How far? Is it in the neighboring city?" Daphne repeated, "Fifty minutes from now, share your location with me, or else I'll contact your sister."
Louis paused for a few seconds before asking, "Are you checking up on me?"
Daphne was taken aback. "Check—"
She only realized that the words didn't sound quite right when they were about to leave her mouth.
With an unchanged expression, she insisted, "I'm responsible for your safety. How am I supposed to explain to your sister if you don't arrive home on time and end up getting into a fight or something?"
A barely noticeable smile tugged at the corner of Louis' lips. "Got it. I'm leaving."
Daphne walked him to the door. "Fifty minutes, okay?"
He took out his phone. "Let's start sharing locations now."
"Ah, there is no need for that—"
"You're concerned about my safety, right? If something happens to me on the way, you'll be the first to know."
Daphne was surprised by how reasonable his words were.
She then took out her phone and accepted Louis' location-sharing request.
He soon put his phone back into his pocket. "I'm off, then."
"Bye!" Daphne waved at him.
After he left, Daphne returned to the living room and collapsed onto the couch. She zoned out for a while and she took out her phone to check on Louis, who had already arrived at the subway station.
That's fast. Oh, the benefits of having long legs!
Not even two minutes passed and his location started changing rapidly. He must have boarded the subway.
The location kept changing incessantly. Daphne didn't know why, but she couldn't take her eyes off the screen.
The farther he got from her, the stranger she felt inside.
Twenty minutes later, Louis got off the subway.
Another ten minutes passed, and he entered a residential complex and sent Daphne a message. 'I'm home.'
He was fifteen minutes faster than she estimated.
Louis' home was indeed not on her way, but it wasn't too far either.
She looked at the message that popped up on WhatsApp and belatedly snapped out of her thoughts. She quickly returned to the chat.
'Good. You have work tomorrow, so rest early.'
'Alright,' he replied.
Daphne looked at her phone, paused for a moment, then exited the location sharing and went to take a shower.
On the other end, Louis put away his phone and left the house after he saw that the location sharing had ended.
…
In the evening, Joseph sent someone to deliver Zoe's phone.
When Zoe received it, she breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought I'd never get it back! I have so many photos here."
She then turned to Leanna. "Nana, you can take the books back. There is nothing about me that can be refined even if I tried. I shouldn't waste any more time. My phone is my spiritual sustenance."
Leanna chuckled at that. "Alright."
Seeing that it was getting late, Leanna said, "Okay, you should feed your spirit with food tomorrow. For now, get some rest."
Zoe plugged her phone in to charge and obediently lay down on the bed. "I'm going to sleep now. You can go back and sleep, Nana."
"It's fine. I'll sleep on the couch."
Seeing how firmly Leanna insisted, Zoe didn't say anything more. She whispered, "Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
Leanna turned off the lights, walked to the couch, and slowly closed her eyes.
Both of them slept soundly through the night.
…
Three days later, Zoe was discharged from the hospital.
After returning home, she nestled on the couch and sighed. "Home is the best. It was so boring at the hospital."
"Rest for a while I cook," Leanna urged.
When Zoe heard that, she grabbed onto her friend. "Hey, I'm already back home. You don't need to take care of me anymore. You should rest too."
"I've been resting with you in the hospital for the past few days, haven't I?"
Except for breakfast, which they had at the hospital, Leanna came back to cook lunch and dinner for Zoe. The back-and-forth trips were tiring.
Zoe thought for a moment before she came up with another idea. "You should go to work. We haven't been there for the past few days. Who knows what the studio has turned into?"
Leanna raised an eyebrow. "Guess what Aidan is doing."
Puzzled, Zoe met Leanna's eyes before a look of disbelief appeared on her face. "President Pearson… isn't at the studio, is he?"
"He is. He doesn't have much to do at home, anyway."
Zoe was speechless to hear that. I can't imagine President Pearson sitting in the office and dealing with that trivial stuff.
She also felt a bit sorry for the few young ladies in the studio. They were earning a few hundred while bearing the pressure of tens of billions worth of work.
Leanna smiled. "Alright, then. I'll go cook now."
With that, Zoe was left to sit on the couch, idly scrolling through her phone.
After a while, she walked into the kitchen and asked in a soft voice, "Nana, is there still no news about Charlotte?"
Leanna's hands paused briefly before she gently shook her head. "Not yet."
Over the past few days, Aidan's men had searched almost every corner of the city for Charlotte, but to no avail.
As for Joseph, he hadn't left the hotel at all