Chapter 4

Church bells rang in the distance. The fog gradually disappeared to reveal the church in the mountains.

Joy ducked her head to look at the stone path underneath her feet as she continued upward.

“What’s this?”

Suddenly, a voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked up and saw Yelena standing before a tree as she observed the prayer ribbons tied on it.

“May Joy always be happy and successful in life. Samuel.

“May Joy always be successful and be filled with hope. Samuel.

“May Joy be blessed, and may no misfortune befall her. May the people she meet be kind. Samuel.

“May Joy always be safe.”

Yelena kept reading, and her jealousy grew.

As Joy stared at the prayer ribbons, her composure cracked, and her thoughts drifted.

Due to the earthquake, she had always been sickly and often fell ill.

In order for her to get better sooner, Samuel came over to the church every week to hang prayer ribbons for her so that she would be safe.

She never expected Samuel to have tied so many prayer ribbons to the tree over the years.

The ribbons were still on the tree, but things would no longer be the way they were between her and Samuel.

“Your relationship is so good. It makes me feel like I’m a third wheel.” Yelena stopped reading. With a long face, she turned around to leave.

Samuel hurriedly grabbed her and patiently tried to calm her down. “Don’t get angry now. You’re not a third wheel. You’re my wife, and she’s just my sister. If you don’t like it, I’ll have someone remove the ribbons.”

With that said, Samuel had the church attendant remove all the ribbons on the tree.

The ribbons were removed one by one and stepped all over. They were stained with mud.

Soon, new ribbons were tied to the tree, all containing Samuel’s love for Yelena.

Yelena finally smiled, and she gave Joy a smug look, but she pretended to be worried. “Won’t Joy be mad if you do this?”

Samuel just smiled. “My sister can’t possibly be more important than my wife. You’re not mad at me anymore, are you?”

Perhaps Yelena was happy because of what Samuel did because she stuck herself to Samuel’s side when they returned to the city.

Joy sat in the back with her eyes shut. Just when she wanted to rest, the car suddenly sped up.

She opened her eyes and wanted to ask what had happened when she suddenly heard a loud bang.

The car suddenly broke down, breaking through the barricade before spinning a few times. In the end, it got stuck in the mountain valley.

Her head was slammed back against her seat, and it knocked her out. When she regained consciousness, she found that she was pinned to her seat. A tree branch had stabbed through her arm, and blood was flowing everywhere.

To her side was Yelena, who was unconscious. She seemed to be fine and had just fainted from shock.

Samuel reacted quickly. He first broke the car window and climbed out. After staggering a few steps, he finally regained his footsteps. After looking at the pained Joy and the unconscious Yelena, he hesitated for a moment before he picked Yelena up.

“I’ll leave with Yelena first and have someone pick you up later.”

Then, he did not even look at Joy anymore. With Yelena on his back, he hurriedly left out of worry about anything happening to her.

When he gave up on her, Joy told herself that she would never cry for him again and only live for herself.

But when she was pinned in the car and trapped in an empty mountain valley, she could not help but remember the earthquake all those years ago.

At that time, she was also trapped under debris. She was alone in the dark underground with nothing else around her. She had been trapped for three days and three nights, and she cried for the exact same amount of time.

Later on, the Foster family took her in, and she dreamed about that night every day. Then, she would wrap herself up in her blanket while crying so hard that she trembled.

At that time, Samuel would always rush into her room and hug her tight. “Don’t be scared. I’m here. I won’t let you get hurt anymore.”

But at that very moment, she could only watch him as he left. In the end, he vanished from her sight.

More blood showed up on her arm. As the sun set and the seconds trickled by, Samuel did not come back to pick her up.

With a bitter smile, she used the last shred of her strength and climbed out of the car regardless of the pain. Then, she gritted her teeth and pulled the tree branch from her arm. Finally, she started crawling out.

She did not know how long she spent crawling. Her blood mixed with her tears, but in the end, she managed to crawl to the road before she fainted.

When she woke up, Joy found herself in a hospital bed, and her arm was wrapped up in thick bandages.

The last thing she remembered was a kind passerby picking her up and sending her to the hospital.

Up to that point in time, Samuel never visited her.

The nurse told her that he was taking care of Yelena.

Yelena was only mildly injured, but he had reserved an entire floor for her to rest. He even had specialists take care of her.

Once she heard this, Joy instinctively looked at her bandaged arm and remembered how she was hospitalized for a minor cold in the past as well.

Just like how he was doing with Yelena at the moment, Samuel had made it seem like Joy was terminally sick and asked many doctors to examine her. He also stayed by her side at all times and even pushed back the time for him to return to his duties.

Tears fell from her eyes and wet the pillow.

Many of her friends came to pick her up on the day she was discharged. Among them was a boy who was once her admirer. When she saw the flowers in front of her, Joy instinctively wanted to reject them, but the boy interrupted her with a stammer, “J-Joy, you don’t have to read too much into this. These flowers are to congratulate you for being discharged. I know that you’re about to leave soon, and I want you to live your life well from now on.”

Joy was stunned momentarily before she thanked him and took the flowers.

But right when she turned around, she saw Samuel standing at the hospital entrance.

He seldom got mad, but his expression was dark at the moment. He glared at the flowers in her hands coldly before he left.

Joy was surprised and a little puzzled. She could not understand why he was angry, but she did not think too much about it. Once she got home, she put the flowers into a vase.

Suddenly, someone knocked on her door. While using the wall as her support, she walked over to open the door to see a well-defined face.

Samuel!

Ever since he learned of her feelings, their relationship had become sour, and Samuel never came to visit her again.

Why was he here?

When she was about to ask, Samuel hugged her. The sudden action made her stagger backward and they fell on the couch in her room.

She smelled the scent of alcohol from him and wanted to avoid him, but Samuel grabbed her chin and kissed her!