“Look here. There’s supposed to be a metal plate engraved with the words, ‘Joined As
One Heart’. Did you see the metal plate when you found the pendant?”
Kate was stunned. She looked at the pendant and noticed that it did seem to be missing something. Steven was the one who found the pendant, so Kate did not know if the metal plate was there when he found it. Despite that, she did not have the intention to tell Gwen about Steven. It was better to have the least connection and interaction between Steven and Gwen.
She curled up her lips into a smile. “No, I didn’t see the metal plate you said when I found it.”
She put on a worried face when she looked at Gwen. “Did it fall somewhere else? I found this pendant when I was sitting on the sofa in the lobby. Did you search carefully? Maybe the metal plate got separated when the pendant fell off from you.”
The light in Gwen’s eyes slowly disappeared after hearing what Kate said. She had searched high and low over at the area near the sofa. If the metal plate fell off in the lobby, it was impossible that she could not find it. Moreover, Kate had mentioned the metal plate was already gone when she found the pendant.
Could it be…
Gwen bit her lip. Could the metal plate have fallen at the dump station? The thought entered her mind. She quickly turned around and wanted to leave the resort.
“Gwen!”
Yannie bit her lip and chased after Gwen when she saw Gwen running away. “Where are you going?”
Bethan frowned and looked at the woman in front of her. “You better be telling the truth, Kate.”
Finally, she turned and chased after Gwen. Kate squinted as she watched Bethan leave.
Kate’s instinct told her Bethan and Brettley could ruin the plan she had. If Gwen was alone in Saigen City, she would not be worried much. Now that Brettley and Bethan were here too…she had no way of guaranteeing that Steven and Gwen would not meet!
Gwen would go mad if she saw Steven. Not only was she going to suffer, but Steven would also start to be suspicious of his life too.
As she thought more of it, Kate took a deep breath. She took out her phone and dialed a number.
“Mrs. Hughes, is Mr. Hughes at home? Oh, nothing much. Steven told me you guys are asking me to get married soon…so I was going to ask what you thought about that.”
“Me? Of course, the sooner the better.”
When Gwen left The Spring Resort, she hailed a taxi. Bethan and Yannie ran after her and got into the taxi with Gwen.
“Hi, ladies. Where are you off to today?” the driver asked with a smile.
Gwen took a deep breath. “The dump station at the outskirts of the city.”
The air in the car became still. Even the driver was shocked.
“You…want to go to the dump station?”
The driver was puzzled with the question in his mind, ‘Did these girls, who just came out from The Spring Resort, just say they want to go to the dump station?’ “Yes.”
Gwen bit her lip and said with determination, “I’m not going to give up. I must find it today.”
Gwen would not be this trouble had it been anything else, but she could not afford to lose the metal plate on the pendant Luke gave her. The metal plate was engraved with the words, Joined As One Heart’.
Until now, Gwen could remember what Luke looked like when he gave the pendant to her. He was smiling very brightly that day. He pointed at the words and said, “Joined As One Heart. It means you and I have the same heart.”
At that time, Gwen did not know about her illness nor Luke was about to donate his heart to her. She thought Luke was just saying nonsense and thus said, “What do you mean, using the same heart? Are we going to share one body next, too?”
Luke hugged her and kissed her forehead. “It’s a good idea. That way, I can be with you no matter where you go in the future…”
Gwen’s tears could not stop falling down when she thought of the past.
‘Joined As One Heart.’
If she had known the underlying meaning Luke had, could she have stopped Luke from dying? She would not need to bear Luke’s heart in her chest and live meaninglessly and alone.
She submerged herself in sadness and did not notice that when the taxi took off, another taxi came in from the opposite direction. Steven was in the taxi with two cups of coffee. When the two taxis passed by each other, Steven suddenly looked into the other taxi and thus saw Gwen’s beautiful side profile and tears streaming down her face. At this sight, his heart felt inexplicably hurt. He furrowed his brow and looked at the taxi from the rearview mirror. ‘Was she crying? Why did she cry?’ he thought and sighed. He reached his hand into his pocket and wanted to take out his phone to look at Gwen’s social media account. The moment he reached into his pocket, he could feel something flat and metallic. Fishing out the suspicious item, he then had a look. It was a metal plate engraved with the words, ‘Joined As One Heart.’
At the dump station in the outskirts of Saigen City. Once the driver stopped the car, Gwen dashed out of the car and headed straight into the dump station, swiftly followed by Yannie and Bethan, who paid the driver the taxi fare before disembarking
When Bethan got out of the taxi, she was stunned to see the mountains of rubbish in front of her. For a moment, she did not know what to say.
‘Oh my god! How are we going to look for that tiny metal plate in these heaps of rubbish? It’s as hard as looking for a needle in the ocean!’
Nonetheless, Gwen could not care about anything and rushed toward these heaps like a madwoman. She did not care that she had just enjoyed her time at the hot spring or the smell or how dirty the rubbish was. She just rushed into the rubbish with her white–colored clothes.
The temperature in Saigen City was very low. Soon, her hands got frostbitten, but she still continued on searching for the metal plate Luke gave her with her bare hands.
Bethan felt heartbroken to see how frantic Gwen was and felt her eyes stinging with tears. She walked toward Gwen and hugged Gwen tightly. “You can’t find it anymore. Stop it! Gwen, please wake up! Luke isn’t going to come back, even if you find the metal plate. He’s not going to come back! He’s not going to come back any more! Please wake up!”
Gwen bit her lip tightly. She forced back her tears and tried to break free from Bethan’s hold. “I know he’s not coming back ever! Because of that, I have to keep his gift safe!”
She sniffled. “Bethan, don’t stop me. I want to search for it.”
“Gwen!”
Yannie hurried over to help Bethan by pulling Gwen’s clothes when she saw how Bethan could not handle Gwen by herself.
“Stop it! If you want that metal plate, I can go buy a new one for you when we go back together, okay? There are many of them. You don’t have to be like this!”
Gwen bit her lip as Bethan and Yannie restrained her. Her eyes were still stubbornly looking at the mountain of rubbish. “Yes. I know there are dozens of places that sell that, but none of it was the one Luke gave me. I just want the one Luke gave me.”
She looked back with tears in her eyes. “I just want the one Luke gave me! I…”
Her voice cracked as she added, “Luke is no longer with us, and he’d be mad if I lost the things he gave me. If he’s angry with me…”
She wiped the tears off her eyes. “Does that mean I won’t see him in the next life?”
“No!”
Bethan and Yannie could not stop their tears from falling. They hugged Gwen and cried together. “I know Luke would still want to see you again in the next life. You lost it by accident after all, and I’m sure he won’t blame you! Please, don’t make it hard for yourself. Please!”
Bethan’s words were not enough to sway Gwen from her quest. She still acted like a mad person, running toward the rubbish. Bethan wanted to stop her again, but Yannie let go of her hands silently.
After Yannie let go of her hands, Bethan was not strong enough to stop Gwen. She struggled off and ran toward the rubbish again. Bethan looked at Yannie angrily as if she was scolding Yannie for letting go of her hands.
Yannie took a deep breath and took out her phone to show Bethan. “Is this the design of the metal plate Gwen lost?”
Bethan furrowed her brow and looked.
There were many photos that Yannie searched on the internet of the metal plate from Merchant City on Yannie’s phone. Bethan nodded and pointed at one of the metal plate photos. “This is the one!”
Yannie paused for a moment before taking out her phone and dialing Thomas’ number. “Can you do me a favor? I need your help forging a metal plate,” she said in a low voice. Bethan furrowed her brow when she heard this.
It turned out she had misunderstood Yannie. Yannie…had wanted Thomas to help her forge a new metal plate.
Bethan had to admit that this was a good idea.
All of a sudden, Bethan’s phone rang. It was a call from Brettley.
At this moment, Brettley and Thomas were together, and when he caught sight of the photo of the metal plate which Yannie had sent to Thomas’ phone, he immediately put two and two together.
This was why he had called Bethan immediately.
“Something happened to Gwen.”
Bethan exhaled and continued in a low voice that was barely a whisper, “Gwen accidentally lost her pendant, and even though we managed to find it in the end, the metal plate attached to it had gone missing. “You know that Luke was the one who gave it to her, so… “Anyway, she’s suspecting that the metal plate must’ve ended up in the rubbish dump.”
With that, Bethan raised her hand to take a photo of Gwen scuffling among the rubbish and sent it to Brettley. “Yannie and I can’t bear to see her like this, but we don’t have any other choice. We can’t allow her to continue rummaging in piles of rubbish forever… That’s why Yannie wanted Thomas’ help in forging a new one.”
“That’ll never work,”
Brettley said curtly, frowning.
Bethan paused. “Why do you say that?”
Surely it would not be too difficult to forge a new pendant for Gwen?
“This pendant was a gift from Luke; Gwen must’ve cherished it like no other. Perhaps there had been some scratches or minor defects on the pendant that would otherwise go unnoticed by the rest of us, but Gwen would surely know it was there.
“Instead of forging a new one for her that’ll give her a false sense of comfort, I think it’d be better to help her search for the original one.”
Brettley let out a sigh and added, “I’ll send Lucas and some of my men over to help. “Be prepared for the worst. If giving Gwen the fake one that Thomas helped make doesn’t work, be prepared to help her search for it until God knows when. “Oh, by the way, you told me before that someone had found the pendant when you guys were at The Spring Resort. Give me some information about the person who found it, including their room number, so I can send some men over to investigate.”
Bethan could not help furrowing her brow at the mention of the person who found Gwen’s pendant. She said in a whisper, “Actually…you know the person.”
Brettley frowned when he heard this as he followed Thomas out of the building. “I know this person?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.