My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead-Chapter 129: Does This Count as Being Widowed?

Chapter 129: Chapter 129: Does This Count as Being Widowed?

He made his indifference all too clear, so she suppressed her desires for now, waiting for a better opportunity.

As she waited day after day, her presumptuous desires didn’t fade. Instead, they grew wild and unchecked.

He kept her like a canary in a gilded cage. He never gave her an official title, but he never mistreated her either. Over the years, he had only made a few "requests"—if you could even call them that—at certain times:

The first time she accepted an award on stage, she had her hair specially styled. When she saw him at the villa later, he looked at her long, straight black hair and said softly, "From now on, you should keep your hair long and curly. Chestnut-colored."

He didn’t say why, but she obediently agreed.

Later on, she started eating a simple, light diet to maintain her skin and figure. He looked at the boiled vegetables in front of her and suggested calmly, "You don’t have to limit yourself to such boring food. You can have barbecue or something spicy once in a while. If you really prefer lighter fare, Glazed Cup isn’t bad either."

Once, she injured her hand while filming. He happened to be visiting Port Sovereign at the time. With her injured hand, she haltingly played the piano for him, carefully watching his expression, terrified he would be displeased. But he listened more intently than ever before and said in all seriousness, "From now on, only play for me at this level."

Over the years, she had tried to probe his preferences, one step at a time. She felt she had come to understand a lot about him, yet it also felt like she understood nothing at all.

Beneath this life of luxury, blurry fragments from a long-lost past would occasionally resurface in her dreams.

In her dreams, there was a remote, superstitious village. There was a faceless country man lashing her with a thorny cane. There was a shrewish old woman shouting curses in a crude dialect. There were strange and bizarre rural customs...

But when she tried to recall the details, she couldn’t remember anything. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

She occasionally opened up to Kian Sterling about it. Kian, who had matured from a handsome youth into an even more captivating man, would say with a cool, indifferent voice, "It’s just a nightmare. What’s there to dwell on?"

For a while, she believed they were truly just nightmares.

Until she accidentally discovered the mismatched blood type.

It was as if a tear had been ripped in the fabric of the sky, revealing another bizarre and grotesque world.

’Thinking back now to the cargo ship where she first met Kian Sterling, to her ragged clothes, to the old scars beneath them, to how she couldn’t integrate into the world of the elite for at least a year...’

’Were they really just nightmares?’

「Metropia.」

Silas Norwood had been going to work properly for several days, sticking to the schedule Theo Chambers had arranged.

Theo Chambers pushed open the door and placed a large order of Mala Tang in front of him. "Boss, take a break—"

As he got closer, he saw that Silas Norwood was looking at his phone’s photo album—a colorfully-marked hidden album. It contained Miss Sterling’s latest photos, some of them selfies, and some of them couple photos.

’Looks like the boss has been taking a break for a while now.’

Theo Chambers set out the utensils for him, then paused. "Well, Boss, please eat first. There’s a card game at three this afternoon with the chairman of CloudVision Group. If you want to go, I’ll make the arrangements now."

"We’ll see," Silas Norwood said, his eyes still on the album. The pad of his finger traced over one of Celia Sterling’s photos as he asked nonchalantly, "Have you found the photos of Summer Sutton?"

"I was just about to report to you." Theo Chambers took out his phone and forwarded a few photos to Silas Norwood via WeChat. "The team we sent to Port Sovereign went to the Sutton Residence first to investigate. The current Mrs. Sutton seems nice on the surface, but she’s actually a very narrow-minded person. She burned everything that belonged to Summer Sutton and her mother long ago. Afterwards, our people staked out the Wyvern Bay Villa and the Lowell Family. The photos from Wyvern Bay are all of Summer Sutton from after she was ten, and she doesn’t look too different from how she does now. As for before she was ten, we couldn’t find anything."

Silas Norwood looked at the photos of the beautiful, vibrant teenage girl in his WeChat window but said nothing.

Theo Chambers could tell at a glance that Silas Norwood wasn’t satisfied with this result. He added, "I had the tech department do a search online, but it’s strange. It’s like this Summer Sutton person just appeared out of thin air. There’s no information on her before the age of ten. Even the period she spent with the Sterling Family left no trace."

"Any luck with the Lowell Family?"

"We weren’t getting anywhere and were about to pull out." Theo Chambers’s tone changed. "But at the last minute, we saw the Lowell family’s old matriarch taking out a photo to dry. It seemed to have gotten wet with tea. The old lady told the butler that it was the only photo of Sylvia Lowell and Summer Sutton at the Lowell Residence, and to be sure to dry it completely before taking it in for preservation. Our person at the photo lab took a picture of it while it was being restored."

Another photo was sent to Silas Norwood’s phone.

It had likely been photographed with a high-definition camera, but the original was old. The resolution from that era couldn’t compare to today’s, and the photo itself had yellowed, making the facial features less than perfectly clear. In the picture, a classic Port Sovereign beauty in a loose-fitting cheongsam with a flower in her pinned-up hair held a two- or three-year-old girl. The girl wore a princess dress and had big, round, almond-shaped eyes. Her face was chubby, but her nose and lips were exceptionally delicate and cute.

"The woman in the cheongsam is the eldest daughter of the Lowell Family, Kenneth Sutton’s previous wife, Sylvia Lowell."

Theo Chambers explained, but he couldn’t help glancing back and forth between the photos of the teenage Summer Sutton and the face of the chubby little girl in Sylvia Lowell’s arms. "They say a girl’s appearance changes a lot as she grows up, but Miss Summer Sutton at ten versus as a toddler... it’s like she’s a completely different person. There’s no resemblance at all."

Silas Norwood offered no comment. "All right. We’re done with this matter."

Theo Chambers volunteered, "Or I could investigate it myself. I feel like there’s something fishy about what happened back then. The gap in Summer Sutton’s records seems like someone is deliberately hiding something..."

"No need," Silas Norwood instructed in a low voice. "Erase all traces of our investigation from this recent period."

Theo Chambers didn’t understand why Silas Norwood was suddenly backing off; it wasn’t in his nature to leave a stone unturned. But he had always followed Silas’s orders without question. "Yes, Boss."

"You may go."

"I’ll be back in half an hour to clear the dishes, Boss."

Theo Chambers quickly withdrew.

But Silas Norwood had no appetite for the Mala Tang.

He lowered his gaze, his eyes returning to the photo on his phone. The little girl in Sylvia Lowell’s arms... that familiar face. He had just recently seen it in the photo album Celia Sterling had brought back from Port Sovereign. In that album, which Celia kept hidden, were photos of a girl at every stage from infancy to toddlerhood. One of them was even a picture of her with Kian Sterling.

Celia Sterling had said it was her as a child.

Silas Norwood looked at Sylvia Lowell’s face. A refined beauty. Her features also bore more than a passing resemblance to those of his fiancée.

Then he recalled the frail, tiny baby girl he had seen years ago at the Eldest Miss Sterling’s 100-day celebration.

He thought about the multiple ICU records Theo Chambers had found for the Eldest Miss Sterling when she was five or six. And June Coleman’s dismissive attitude toward Cece, the way she was always subtly cruel to her.

A certain truth was about to burst forth—

’The real Celia Sterling was perhaps... already dead?’

’His wife, it seemed, was the real Summer Sutton, who, by a bizarre twist of fate, had taken the place of the Eldest Miss Sterling.’

Wealthy families were known for their bizarre antics, and he currently had no interest in uncovering the motive behind this secret substitution. He was more concerned about something else:

’The person who signed the marriage certificate with him was named Celia Sterling. If the truth came out one day, would that make him... a widower?’