Zoe Quinn wiped away her tears.
She bent down to pick up her painting supplies and textbooks from the ground, hugging them to her chest before giving him one last, deep look.
That single glance contained too many complex, indescribable emotions.
“Goodbye, you big delinquent,” she whispered.
Then, she turned around and walked toward the school gates with her head bowed.
Silas Sutton stood frozen in dejection, watching her white silhouette drift further and further away until it was finally swallowed by the bustling crowd.
“There is no need to ever meet again,” he thought.
Those words kept echoing in his mind.
He wanted to chase after her, to pull her back, and to tell her the whole truth, but his feet felt like lead, leaving him completely immobilized.
Sprout was an angel.
She deserved to live in the light.
It felt as though even giving him her phone number was a form of blasphemy.
He had been absent for three years.
He had failed to fulfill the promises he made, and another man had stepped up and done it instead.
The holy light Sprout had cast down upon him from the heavens had finally been retracted.
He had no right to demand that she stay in the same place, waiting for him forever.
He closed his eyes and took a ragged breath.
Even when he had been stabbed with a knife in the past, it hadn’t hurt this much.
Earlier, out of fear that Lena Cole would interrupt Silas and Sprout’s reunion, Ryan Rhodes had pulled her away the moment she tried to speak.
Now, seeing their future Mrs.
Sutton leave all by herself, the three men finally dared to approach, having no idea what had just been said between the two.
“Mr.
Sutton…” Sean Crane asked cautiously.
“What happened?”
Silas didn’t answer.
His desolate gaze remained fixed on the direction where Zoe had disappeared.
Sean and Ryan exchanged a glance, both of their hearts giving a heavy THUD.
From transitioning their underground businesses into the light, to the cherished notebook and the brown jacket he had specifically changed into today—they had seen just how much Mr.
Sutton cared for his future wife.
Now that she had left him behind, all of Mr.
Sutton’s preparations, expectations, and fantasies had dissolved into nothing.
They couldn’t begin to imagine how devastated he must be.
Even without Silas answering, they both came to two realizations: First, what Lena had said about the marriage was true.
Second, Mr.
Sutton had been ruthlessly dumped.
Lena also stood off to the side, looking at Silas with a complicated expression.
Although this man had a bit of a hooligan aura, he was handsome and mature.
It was only the torn left sleeve of his jacket that made him look sloppy and unkempt.
Looks-wise, he and Zoe were a perfect match.
However, since he had vanished for three years only to suddenly pop up in tattered clothes to pester her, Lena deduced he had to be a desperate scumbag who had run out of options.
That was her firm assessment of Silas Sutton.
In her judgment, she had completely forgotten how Ryan and the others had introduced him earlier—as Mr.
Sutton.
Silas had no idea how Zoe’s classmate and best friend was judging him.
He kept his eyes locked on the spot where she had faded from view.
After a long while, he finally pulled out the slip of paper that Director Lane from the orphanage had given him, carefully saving the copied phone number into his phone.
Then, he closed his stinging eyes and took a deep breath.
By the time he opened them again, nothing but a hollow emptiness remained in his gaze.
“Let’s go,” he said hoarsely, turning around to walk out of the school gates.
Sean and the other two men exchanged helpless looks before hurrying to catch up.
Ryan walked at the very back.
While Mr.
Sutton wasn’t paying attention, he still made sure to turn back and flash a cheeky grin at Lena, mimicking a phone call with his hand.
“Bye-bye, gorgeous!
Remember to keep in touch!”
Earlier, while Silas had been talking with Zoe, Ryan had dragged Lena into a rather lively conversation, and the two had even exchanged contact information.
Ryan had a jumpy, energetic personality.
He wasn’t as steady as Sean and always wore a cynical, playboy demeanor.
Because of this, he was the one in charge of the company’s remaining gray-area operations, while Sean managed the businesses that had already been brought to the surface.
When they reached the main entrance, they happened to see a white BMW parked by the curb.
A young man, looking about twenty-four or twenty-five and dressed in a light-colored casual suit, stepped out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for Zoe.
He gently took the painting supplies from her hands and helped her into the car, his movements considerate and completely natural.
Right before getting in, Zoe subconsciously cast a glance back toward the campus.
Her gaze met Silas’s in the distance, pausing for just a second before she quickly looked away and slid into the seat.
Sensing something, the young man followed her line of sight.
When he saw Silas’s group, he frowned slightly but didn’t say a word.
He simply turned and got back into the driver’s seat.
The car started up slowly, merging into the traffic before disappearing at the end of the street.
Silas stopped in his tracks, standing motionless for a long time.
The autumn wind blew past, sweeping up the fallen leaves and fluttering the torn fabric of his jacket.
The bean sprout pendant still rested against his chest, warmed by his body heat.
“Mr.
Sutton, let’s head back,” Kyle said softly.
“Yeah.
Back to the company.” Silas’s voice was terrifyingly calm.
The four men walked toward the Bentley parked on the street.
Before getting in, Silas took one last look at Silverport Normal University.
“Goodbye, Sprout,” he said in his heart.
“May you be happy, even if the one giving you happiness isn’t me.”
The car drove away from The Normal University.
It drove away from the only beautiful love that had ever moved his heart, speeding toward a future without her.
“Sprout, if time could start over, I would never let go of your hand,” he thought. The source of this chapter is g.com.
But time would not start over.
Some people, once missed, were gone for a lifetime.
As these thoughts filled his mind, tears finally slipped from the eyes of this man who had once reigned supreme in the underworld.
They fell silently, yet carried the crushing weight of a thousand pounds.
The atmosphere inside the car was as stifling as the muggy heat right before a rainstorm.
Kyle gripped the steering wheel tightly, his eyes constantly darting to the rearview mirror as he tried to read something—anything—from Silas’s expressionless, tear-stained face.
Sean sat in the passenger seat with his hands folded in his lap.
He appeared calm, but his slightly tense shoulders betrayed his inner anxiety.
Ryan, on the other hand, was sitting on pins and needles.
He kept shifting his posture in the spacious backseat of the Bentley, stealing sideways glances at Silas beside him.
Mr.
Sutton was clearly in a terrible mood.
None of them dared to speak, let alone bring up what had just happened.
Outside the window, the streets of Silverport rapidly retreated into the distance.
Silas leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, though everyone knew he wasn’t asleep.
Over his left chest, the faint warmth of the bean sprout pendant seeped through his shirt—like a wound next to his heart that would never heal.
Ryan held back for a long time until he simply couldn’t take it anymore.
In an incredibly low voice, he hesitantly asked, “Mr.
Sutton, are…
are you okay?”
Silas didn’t respond.
He didn’t even twitch an eyelid.
Through the rearview mirror, Sean shot Ryan a fierce glare, signaling him to shut up.
Ryan shrank his neck back and finally quieted down.
The only sound left in the car was the soft hum of the air conditioning vents.
Kyle carefully controlled the speed, doing his best to make the ride as smooth as possible.
They could all tell that Silas was in a very bad state.
Although he seemed calm on the surface, it was a dead, suffocating tranquility.
It was as if all of his emotions had been forcefully pushed into the depths of the ocean, leaving nothing but an icy facade.
A long time passed.
It wasn’t until the car drove into the city center and the sixteen-story glass facade of the Cosmos Group building was sparkling under the sunlight that Silas finally moved.
He slowly opened his eyes.
Those eyes, which had once struck terror into his underworld rivals, were now terrifyingly hollow.
He looked down at the tattered jacket he was wearing.
The tear on the left sleeve looked like a mocking mouth, silently proclaiming the reality that his Sprout was marrying someone else.
“Get me a change of clothes,” Silas said, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
“Oh, right, right!
Right away.” Now that Mr.
Sutton had finally spoken, Ryan felt a wave of relief.
He quickly turned around, reached toward the trunk access, and pulled out an exquisite paper bag.