Suddenly, the sound of footsteps interrupted Cecil's stream of thought.

She looked up and immediately met Cleo’s eyes.

When he noticed Cecil sitting all by herself at the dining table, he darted a glance at the clock mounted on the wall.

It was almost eleven o'clock.

He frowned faintly before heading upstairs without saying a word.

He never bothered to greet her the entire time. It was as if they were strangers.

Cecil felt bitter about it and could not hold back from calling out after him.

“Uncle Cleo, dinner…”

Cleo kept walking up the stairs while remarking in a cold voice.

“I’ll have dinner with Amelia. How many times do I have to tell you that you don’t have to wait for me?”

Then, it was followed by the sound of the door closing with a thud.

Cecil felt something stir inside her. The edges of her eyes welled with tears.

Cleo would never have spoken to her in such a dismissive tone in the past.

He was sympathetic to the fact that she was afraid of being alone after losing her parents and would never let her eat by herself.

Even if he was busy with classes or with work later on, he made a point of rushing back home to dine with her.

Whenever he went overseas, he would return as soon as he could because he was worried about Cecil losing her appetite and getting sick while he was away.

It had been that way for a decade, and he had made no exceptions.

Then, everything changed after the first time Cecil confessed her feelings.

He started to keep his distance from her and frequently worked overtime or went on business trips to minimize the time he spent with her.

Furthermore, he stopped surprising her with gifts and even withheld his affection.

Ever since Amelia had shown up, there was an increasingly sharp look in his eyes when he looked at Cecil. It was as if he had turned into a stranger.

Cecil understood the reason. There was nothing she could do about it.

She grabbed her spoon and finished the food that had gone cold. It felt like chewing on candle wax.

There was a large variety of dishes, but they all tasted bitter to her.

After the meal, she packed up everything and went to knock gently on Cleo’s door.

Cleo opened the door with a sharp frown. His voice sounded disgruntled.

“Didn't I tell you to not bother me if there’s nothing important?”

Cecil pursed her lips and twisted her fingers into a knot.

“Uncle Cleo, I was thinking I’d like to change my room.”

A strange look flashed across Cleo’s eyes, but he did not seem to think much of it.

“Do whatever you want.”

With that, Cecil nodded and silently returned to her room.

She stared at the French window and all kinds of exquisite furniture in the room. Then, she regarded the dresser stuffed with her clothes, shoes, and bags.

It all filled her with a sense of loss.

The bedroom was the largest in the villa, with a lot of natural light.

It used to be Cleo’s bedroom.

When he first brought Cecil in, he was the one who made a point of yielding his bedroom to her.

She remembered the way he gently touched her head and told her that she was a little princess who deserved the best room in the house.

Now that Cecil was leaving, Amelia was going to move in soon.

She was only an adopted girl at best and a guest at worst.

What right did she have to take the master bedroom?

That was why she proposed the idea of ​​changing rooms. It was mainly to yield the space to Amelia and also to help with her packing up.

By the next afternoon, she had moved all her belongings into a smaller room at the end of the corridor.

The room used to be Cleo's study.

After cleaning the room, she gathered her documents and prepared to head out to sort out her visa.

When she passed the living room, she made a very faint nod in Cleo’s direction to acknowledge him.

She no longer greeted him with the same amount of warmth she used to.

Cleo was not used to how quiet she was.

When he observed the way she was slithering out of the house, he could not shake off the feeling that she had changed.

With a slight frown on his face, he called out to her before he thought better of it.

“Where are you going? It’s snowing too much out there. Need a ride?”

It was a long time since he offered to drive Cecil anywhere at all. She was a little too stunned to react.

“It’s going to be Christmas tomorrow. Aren’t you going on a date?”

She murmured in such a low voice that Cleo could barely hear her.

“What did you say?”

Cecil clenched her hands into a ball and dropped her eyes.

“I saw the news yesterday that mentioned something about you buying a diamond necklace that cost almost ten million dollars at the auction house. You’re going to give it to Amelia, aren’t you?”

Cleo was taken aback and blurted out sheepishly, “I was going to…”

Then, his voice was interrupted by the doorbell.

Shortly after that, Amelia showed up wearing a knitted mini-dress. Her long and curly hair was draped down to her waist, and her makeup made her look very delicate.

She immediately took Cleo by his arm when she walked in and spoke in a flirty voice.

“I’ve got a Christmas gift for you, Cleo. Do you want to guess what it is?”

It was just as Cecil had expected. She lowered her head and smiled bitterly.

Perhaps because she had made up her mind on leaving, it no longer hurt as much to know that they were going on a date.

She quietly withdrew to make room for them.

It helped that Cleo had dismissed their previous conversation as well.

Just as she was about to leave the house, he suddenly called out after her.

“Hold on, where were you going? I’ll drive you.”

Cecil was briefly taken aback by the gesture but still accepted it timidly.

“Thank you, Uncle Cleo.”

This time, she thanked him sincerely.

She was especially sincere in addressing him as her uncle.

Cecil rarely went out on weekdays. Usually, she spent most of her time in her studio, which was why Amelia was intrigued that she was going out on such a snowy day.

“Cecil, you don't have a boyfriend, so why are you going out in this weather?”

Cecil did not know how to tell them about her plans to leave and ended up saying vaguely, “I… I just need to get something done.”

Either way, they would be able to connect the dots when they arrived at the visa office.

Amelia did not continue pressing for answers and instead turned to Cleo to ask about their plans for the day.

The two were chatting away enthusiastically and seemed to have completely forgotten about the presence of Cecil in the back seat.

When they reached a red light, Amelia produced a lipstick and asked Cleo to help her touch up her makeup.

Cleo was very receptive.

He cupped her face in his palms and was very gentle with her.

When it looked like their faces were drawing closer, Cecil quickly turned away to look at the snow wafting out of the sky.

When they were about to reach their destination, Amelia suddenly mentioned that she needed to head back home to get a coat.

The navigation screen showed that they were only two kilometers away from their destination.

Without even thinking about it, Cleo mentioned that he would have to take a detour and so beckoned for Cecil to hail a ride to get to her destination.

Cecil smiled bitterly and did not protest as she got out of the car.

Cleo’s car sped away after that, its wheels tossing up a large mass of snow.

There was not a single soul anywhere along the side of the road, so Cecil walked for the remainder of the journey to the office and handed in her documents.

When she left the office after sorting out the paperwork, she bumped into one of her teachers back when she was in high school.

The two chatted briefly.

Upon hearing that Cecil was going to move overseas, the teacher seemed taken aback.

“Are you not going to come back after that? Is your uncle okay with that?”

Cecil did not know why her teacher suddenly brought up Cleo and briskly made up something on the spot.

“Yeah, he’s okay with that. Besides, we’re not related by blood, and now that I am of legal age, I can’t keep troubling him anymore. It’s good for me to go overseas and see the world anyway."

The teacher nodded solemnly.

“It may be true that you two are not related, but still, Mr. Emerson has been nothing but wonderful to you.

“There was once when you attended a competition and were accused of plagiarism by the other teams, and Mr. Emerson was having surgery for his appendicitis at the time. He rushed to the competition venue immediately after the surgery to vouch for you.

“This other time, when you had a fall at the school, Mr. Emerson sped to school and took you to the hospital right away. I heard he was in the middle of negotiating a deal worth several millions of dollars, and he just walked away from it!

“There’s also that time when some punks were trying to bully you, and he had someone teach them a lesson…”

Cecil found herself thinking about the distant past as well when she heard her teacher recounting her stories.

Towards the end of their conversation, the teacher held her hand tenderly and earnestly advised her to remember Cleo’s kindness and to repay him.

Cecil nodded silently.

She had been thinking about repaying him for all the dedication and kindness he had shown her.

She wagered that the best way she could repay him was to tell him she was leaving.

That way, he no longer had to worry about her holding onto him.

When she got home, she changed out of her clothes soaked by the snow and sat at her desk to make some calculations.

She had been living with the Emersons for many years and had been paying attention to the household expenses. She had managed to arrive at an approximate sum.

Apart from the general expenses, there must have been plenty of other hidden expenses over the years.

To be on the safe side, she decided to triple the tallied amount.

Around noon, she sorted out all the gifts Cleo had given her in the past and listed all of them on an online market site.

Then, she contacted a real estate company and put the Millers’ family home on sale.

After everything was done, she felt like a weight was lifted off her chest. As soon as she lay down on the bed, her phone vibrated.

It was a stream of messages from Amelia.

There were dozens of pictures followed by a brief text.

[Cecil, I’m going to be in Hawaii with Cleo for a few days. Make sure to be good at home by yourself!]

She did not need to open the pictures to know they were pictures of the couple boldly displaying their affection for each other.

Ever since they had become official, Amelia would send her dozens of such pictures after their dates.

In the past, she would become so upset at seeing these pictures that she would lose sleep over them. She would even sometimes cry until her eyes became red and swollen.

Now that she had decided to see Cleo as nothing more than a family member, such pictures no longer affected her the same way.

Furthermore, she was no longer interested in deducing Amelia’s intentions. All she did was send a brisk reply.

[Sure. Have fun.]

Five days later, Cleo returned with Amelia.

As soon as they stepped into the house, Cecil's eyes were immediately blinded by the dazzling necklace around Amelia’s neck.

She snuck a glance at it before looking away.

Her hunch was right; the necklace was meant for Amelia.

In that case, what was it that Cleo was trying to say last time before his sentence got cut off?

Whenever Cleo was around, Amelia had always been very warm and friendly with Cecil. This time, she went right up to Cecil and took her hand.

“Cecil, you must have been so bored at home these last few days! Look, I bought a bunch of things. Come and see if there is anything that you like!"

With that, she took off her coat and dragged over a large box.

Cecil shook her head a few times to refuse the offer.

Amelia reacted by casting a strange look at her.

“Come on, don’t be shy! Just think of it as a gift from your future aunt, alright?” Amelia said in a tone that was hard to read.

The sheer mention of the word ‘aunt’ made Cecil look up subconsciously.

She immediately felt something jolt inside her when she caught a glimpse of the red marks on Amelia’s neck.

Amelia had sent a lot of pictures, and one of them was a shot of the bed inside the hotel room.

At the time, Cecil could not figure out why Amelia had sent that particular picture.

It was easy to form the connection now that she had spotted the marks Cleo had left on her.

Cecil kept her head down and stayed silent.

While they were unpacking, Amelia began to talk about the banquet that was happening tonight.

“Cleo, let's bring Cecil with us to Miss Maya’s twenty-first birthday banquet! Those two are around the same age and should get along very well.”

Cecil did a double take upon hearing the mention of a banquet.

Ever since her parents passed away and she moved into the Emerson house, Cleo had never brought her to attend any parties with him.

She did not think much of it, but she was aware that there were some people making comments about her being a parasite.

Just like every other time, Cleo shook his head and dismissed the suggestion entirely.

Amelia wrapped herself around his arm and tried to persuade him in a sultry voice.

She claimed it would be boring without Cecil around.

With that, Cleo gave in and agreed to the suggestion, mainly out of affection for Amelia.

Upon observing the display of intimacy between the couple, Cecil kept her head down to hide a faint smile forming on her lips.

Amelia was truly one of a kind for Cleo to willingly set aside his principles for her.

It looked like he was very fond of Amelia.

That was all Cecil needed to know.

She had the strength to leave Cleo, knowing that he could find happiness, even if Cecil was not the one to give him that happiness.

It was a very lively banquet with many people interacting in quick succession with one another.

Cecil stood by herself in the corner and watched as Cleo drank to countless toasts for Amelia.

Meanwhile, Cecil quietly sipped from a glass of fruit juice.

At one point, several chattering girls passed by and accidentally spilled a drink on her.

They were very apologetic, and Cecil was, in turn, very gracious.

She did not seem very bothered and proceeded to head to the washroom to clean herself.

Before excusing herself to the washroom, she handed her bag and phone to Cleo.

When she returned ten minutes later, Cleo regarded her with a frown and spoke in a tone that was hard to place.

“Your aunt, Dianne, just called and asked me if you were available to talk. She says she’ll call again later when I told her you’re busy.”

Cecil tensed up at the mention of Dianne.

She managed to relax when she realized Dianne had not mentioned anything about her going abroad to live with her.

Cleo was very perceptive and noticed the subtle change in her demeanor. He could not stop himself from probing.

“When did you get in touch with Dianne?”

“About two weeks ago. She just asked me to send some old pictures of my grandparents.”

The lie she made up on the spot seemed to put Cleo at ease.

He no longer suspected her of anything and proceeded to turn around to help Amelia fix her hair.

After Cecil retrieved her phone and handbag, she turned around and prepared to head back to her corner.

It all happened very quickly.

Someone had accidentally knocked over a nearby tower of champagne glasses, which came crashing down in Cecil and Amelia’s general direction.

“Careful!”

Cleo was the closest to them.

He instinctively reached for Amelia and pulled her into his arms in one swift movement.

Bang!

The champagne tower collapsed and produced a thunderous crash. Cecil barely had time to react and was thrown to the floor.

There were broken shards of glass everywhere, and she had landed on top of them.

There was blood everywhere, and her white gown had turned red.

It was a horrifying sight to behold.

Everyone present at the venue was equally shocked by the sudden commotion. Even though Amelia was unscathed, she burst out crying from shock.

Cleo looked at Cecil, who was covered in blood and lying on the ground, then at Amelia, who was crying in his arms.

He hesitated for a moment before turning to his bodyguard.

“Take her to the hospital.”

After issuing the order, he carried Amelia away from the venue.

When the pair disappeared, Cecil stumbled to her feet.

She could feel countless pairs of sympathizing glances cast in her direction.

It was an hour past midnight by the time she got home after dressing her wounds.

The doctor had given her more than a dozen stitches and made arrangements for her to be hospitalized. However, she refused hospitalization and insisted on going home after collecting the medicine.

Cleo was not home yet.

She switched off the lights and lay on the bed, then she stared transfixed at the ceiling, drowned in darkness.

Her body was screaming all over from the searing pain, it was difficult to sleep at all.

By the time she finally felt like she was about to drift off to sleep, it was three o’clock.

Suddenly, the lights in the living room came on.

Cleo staggered into the house and went upstairs.

He reeked of alcohol.

Instead of heading to his bedroom, he went to the last room down the corridor that used to be his former study.

He gently opened the door.

Cecil tended to move around when she slept, and when she turned to the side, she was irritated by the contact against her countless cuts and coughed faintly in her sleep.

Cleo was alerted by the faint voice she made.

He followed the direction of the voice and went to the head of the bed. In one swift gesture, he pulled the figure in bed into his arms.

With one hand, he pulled apart her shirt so he could press his hand against the soft of her waist.

With the other hand, he cupped her chin and proceeded to kiss her.