"Since you think I’m influenced by memories of the past, say the phrase that can unlock my memory, so I can regain the memories of the past. That way, we can see if it’s as you said!" he said, his eyes fixed intensely on her.

Mabel Quinn remained silent. His memories... all of those past events, she would rather he didn’t remember. There was no need to recall everything from the past.

"The past is already gone. If possible, I hope you can let me return to City G soon. I have a lot of work to complete, and I hope you won’t make me really start to dislike you," she said.

He pressed his thin lips together and finally said after a while, "Okay, I’ll let you return to City G. Just spend one night with me tonight."

Spend a night with him? She furrowed her delicate brows slightly.

He seemed to see through her concerns and said, "You can rest assured, I won’t do anything else."

Saying that, he took her hand, leading her to sit on the sofa, then crouched down, removing her slipper with one hand and cradling her foot.

"What are you doing?" She shifted, trying to move her foot away from his hand.

He simply said, "Don’t move." Then his slender fingers gently caressed her ankle, as if assessing the condition of her foot, "How is your foot? Is there any discomfort?"

"It’s fine, no issues. Actually, it’s mostly healed. It was just that the situation came on suddenly before, and I couldn’t run quickly," Mabel replied.

After feeling her ankle for a moment, Kyle Kinston seemed to ascertain that there was no problem with it, and his fingers finally moved away. Yet, one of his hands continued to cradle her foot, as if reluctant to let go.

Her foot was bare, pure and translucent, with cute round toes. In his large palm, it seemed even more delicate and exquisite. His fingertips gently rubbed her foot, from the instep, to the heel, and then to the toes...

She bit her lip, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Clearly, she kept telling herself she didn’t love him anymore, but this caress was making her foot begin to heat up. This warmth seemed to flow throughout her body with the movement of her blood.

"My foot is fine, let... let go..." Before she could finish her sentence, he had already raised his head, slightly tilting his chin, his dark phoenix eyes watching her as he said, "If I said that I would die if you didn’t return to me, would you still be unwilling to come back to me?"

She felt as if her heart suddenly skipped a beat. His expression was calm, as if speaking of life and death was merely a trivial matter.

But... "Don’t joke around. What does me returning to you have to do with you dying or not? Aren’t you living well now?"

"Is that so?" He gave a faint smile, the corners of his lips slightly upturned, yet there was an unspeakable self-mockery.

...

Mabel Quinn didn’t know how she got through that night. At one point, she thought about her daughter, wanting to return to her room to see how she was doing, but Uncle Cong came first, saying the little one had played for a while and was tired, already asleep.

When speaking of this, Uncle Cong seemed a bit apologetic to Kyle Kinston, saying he didn’t watch closely enough, and the little one got into the storage room and played wildly for quite a while.