“The place is probably a bit remote, so there’s no signal,” Charlotte said.
Leah Sterling had told her before that if she were just making something casually, it wouldn’t matter much.
But if she wanted to strive for perfection, she might even go to the mining area to select the clay herself.
Those kinds of places often didn’t have cell reception.
Charlotte had just seen Leah’s message and learned that she was going to participate in the upcoming pottery competition.
Leah planned to use her results from this competition as a way to make amends with Old Master Bell.
So, it wasn’t hard to understand why she would be so meticulous as to personally visit the mining area.
But Adrian obviously found it very hard to grasp.
He furrowed his brows.
“She has to personally go pick out dirt just to play in the mud?”
Charlotte bit her lip so hard it nearly bled.
Unable to hold back, she blurted out, “That’s her passion and career!”
Adrian gave her a somewhat strange look.
“Who said it wasn’t?
But does she really need to select it in person?
Is it safe for a woman to be all alone in a place with no signal?”
After saying that, Adrian took out his phone, turned around, and walked out of Charlotte’s office.
Watching his retreating figure, Charlotte blinked and muttered to herself, “Oh?
Is this a first?
Is The Overlord actually worried about Leah?”
***
“Oh, you should have said you were Old Master Bell’s apprentice sooner!
You didn’t even have to come all the way here in person.
I could have just shipped the clay to you and saved you the trouble.”
The old man’s face was deeply lined with wrinkles, making him look quite elderly, but his eyes were bright and vigorous.
Leah smiled.
“It’s alright.
It wasn’t too much trouble to make the trip.”
She dusted off her hands and stood up.
She had finished selecting the clay and arranged to have it shipped back to Corvin.
The old man was an old acquaintance of her master, Shawn Bell.
After learning that she was Old Master Bell’s apprentice, he became exceptionally warm and friendly toward her.
“You won’t be able to leave tonight.
The roads around here are already hard enough to navigate in the dark, but with this rain, it’s a total disaster.”
There were never any good roads leading to the mining area to begin with.
The dump trucks transporting clay had crushed the unpaved dirt roads into a muddy pulp, leaving potholes everywhere.
The rental car Leah drove had bumped along so violently she felt her brain rattling.
Thank goodness she was the one driving; if she had been a passenger, she would have undoubtedly thrown up from motion sickness!
Moreover, the dust on the road was astonishing.
Her rental car was so covered in it that its original color was almost unrecognizable!
And now that it was raining, the situation was completely hopeless.
The rain mixed with the thick dust on the road, turning the potholes left by the dump trucks into mud traps.
Under these conditions, the car’s wheels were virtually guaranteed to get stuck.
“Just stay at my place for the night,” the old man offered.
“My granddaughter went off to college, so her room is perfectly empty.
Wait until the rain stops tomorrow before you leave.
Better safe than sorry.”
One should always heed the advice of an elder.
Leah respectfully agreed.
“Thank you so much.”
“You’re staying in town, right?” the old man asked.
“Yes.”
“That works out well.
There’s some sort of porcelain expo going on in town over the next few days.
You can go check it out tomorrow if you’re interested, though there probably isn’t anything particularly good there…”
Because this was a kaolin mining area, the local economy naturally depended on it, and there were many porcelain factories in the surrounding towns.
An expo held in a town like this was more like a wholesale market than a true exhibition.
Most of the booths belonged to the local factories.
For a regular person who didn’t need to stock up on goods, there was no point in going.
But for an industry professional, taking a look could provide insight into current market trends.
“I’ll definitely go take a look,” Leah said.
That night, she stayed at the old man’s house.
His daughter-in-law’s cooking was absolutely top-notch.
The rain stopped in the middle of the night.
The next morning, the sun shone brightly.
After thanking the old man’s family, Leah drove back to town.
She was staying at the biggest hotel there, though “biggest” only meant it was comparable to a three-star hotel in Corvin.
Because it was an older establishment, the decor and facilities were a bit dated, but fortunately, it was clean enough.
When Leah went to the front desk to re-activate her room key, the front desk supervisor cast a few extra glances her way.
“Is something wrong?” Leah asked, noticing the woman’s gaze.
“Miss Sterling.”
“Yes?”
“You’re Mrs.
Hawthorne, aren’t you?”
“Huh?!” Leah froze in surprise.
Even though her previous clash with Wendy Scott had made it onto the trending search lists, her face was never shown.
There was no way she could be recognized from that.
“How did you…” she trailed off, looking at the supervisor warily.
Seeing her caution, the supervisor hurriedly waved her hands.
“Please don’t misunderstand.
It’s just that your husband came looking for you, which is how we found out about your identity.”
Hearing this was infinitely more shocking than if the supervisor had actually recognized her from the trending searches.
“My…
husband?” Leah pointed a finger at herself, her eyes dazed.
“Yes, his room is right next to yours.
However, he had some business to attend to and went out this morning.” As the supervisor renewed Leah’s own room key, she handed her an additional card.
Undoubtedly, it belonged to the room next door.
Leah was still in a daze as she stepped into the elevator.
Why would Adrian come here?
She didn’t even return to her own room first, instead heading straight next door to take a look.
The adjacent room was completely empty, without so much as a single piece of luggage.
It was truly hard to believe that the man would actually stay here.
Given Adrian’s nature as a fastidious perfectionist, how could he possibly lower himself to stay in an old town hotel like this?
It had to be a joke.
That was until Leah turned around and spotted the custom-tailored suit jacket resting on the clothes rack nearby.
The cost of that single piece of clothing was enough to cover a year’s stay at this hotel, and even then, money alone might not be enough to buy it.
Only then did Leah finally believe it.
She quickly returned to her own room, plugged her phone into the charger, and turned it on.
Her phone immediately buzzed with numerous missed call notification texts.
Leah tapped open a WhatsApp message from Charlotte.
[The Overlord couldn’t reach you.
He came to my company to ask about you and then left in a hurry.
I feel like he might be going to find you?]
Leah quickly replied: [Got it.
I’m going to contact him now.]
She then hastily opened the missed call notifications.
Almost all of them were from Adrian, with a few from Robert Rhodes.
Leah dialed his number back, but no one answered.
She blinked and was just about to call Robert when her phone rang.
It was Charlotte calling.
Leah answered and immediately said, “Charlie, I can’t talk right now.
Adrian really did come here, so I need to give him a call first.”
But the next second, Charlotte’s heavy voice came through the speaker.
“Leah, have you seen the news?”
The abrupt question caught Leah off guard.
“What…
news?”
Her intuition told her that something was very wrong.
“I’ll send it to you right now,” Charlotte said.
“Just try to stay calm.”
Hearing Charlotte say that only made Leah feel even less capable of staying calm.
The agonizing wait for Charlotte’s message tore at her nerves, so she simply went ahead and checked the trending searches herself.
She immediately spotted a trending headline.
The words made Leah’s gaze freeze instantly.
[Hawthorne Group CEO involved in machinery accident while inspecting factory.
Suspected to have sustained critical injuries…]
Right at that moment, Charlotte’s message arrived.
She had cropped the news article and sent over a screenshot.
On the screenshot was a photo.
In the picture, a handsome man, covered in blood, was lying on a stretcher being wheeled into an ambulance…