Chapter 272: I Must Have Seen a Ghost
The two did indeed end up as enemies. The so-called "good brother" became convinced that Mr. Young and his little sweetheart were having an affair, that he’d been cuckolded. He played the victim, causing a huge scene, but even that wasn’t enough for him. He went as far as hiring a group of thugs to harass the couple.
To protect the woman he loved, Mr. Young fought the thugs. He still has a scar on his right hand from where he was stabbed during the fight.
After this incident, his little sweetheart finally saw the man’s true colors and, in turn, realized her childhood friend’s feelings for her.
Their relationship quickly blossomed, and it wasn’t long before they were married. They’ve been a loving couple ever since.
Mr. Young, who had just had his deepest secrets exposed in the blink of an eye: ’!!!’ ’Even the people closest to me might not know about this! Where on earth did this girl hear it?!’
Arabella Donovan scanned the room, her gaze finally landing on Mr. Cole. Her brow furrowed, her expression serious.
Even though Mr. Cole was sure he had a clear conscience and lacked the colorful pasts of his colleagues, he couldn’t help but feel his heart leap into his throat. He was afraid Arabella Donovan was about to say something shocking that would shatter his carefully maintained image of a stern leader. ’I’d never be able to manage my subordinates again!’
Fortunately, after staring at him for a long time, Arabella Donovan finally managed to squeeze out a single sentence.
"Your second grand-uncle’s brother-in-law’s second daughter’s granddaughter is now the daughter-in-law of your second cousin-uncle’s female cousin’s husband’s nephew."
Everyone else: "???" The hell was that?
Mr. Cole: "..."
As the subject of this revelation and the focus of everyone’s curious stares, it took Mr. Cole a long moment to untangle who Arabella Donovan was even talking about.
"...That is, in fact, a thing." ’If this girl hadn’t suddenly brought it up, I’d have never even remembered that connection existed,’ he thought. ’This is just bizarre!’
"You can’t possibly think I investigated all of this beforehand, too, can you?"
The men fell silent at her words. One or two even grumbled inwardly, ’Some of this stuff, we don’t even know ourselves. It’s not like you can just look it up.’
’But if she didn’t find this out through an investigation, then could this girl really...?’
In an instant, all eyes in the room turned back to Mr. Cole, clearly waiting for him to make the call.
"I’ll admit, what you’ve said is most likely all true. It’s just..."
"What ’just’? I trust my Serena. She never drops the ball on important business. And with something this major, she would never just spout nonsense. She must have truly foreseen something."
"Elder Donovan, this matter is of great importance. Even if she does have some abilities, we still need more factual evidence to..."
"We’ve already established these things are going to happen in the future," Dennis Donovan interrupted before Mr. Cole could finish. "Where do you expect her to go to find evidence for you?"
"Actually, there is a way."
As soon as Arabella Donovan said this, everyone in the room looked over in surprise.
’In her eyes, the fact that these men were no longer making snide remarks about her earlier words meant their attitudes were already softening.’
’And once their attitudes softened, her job would become much easier.’
"I understand the gravity of this situation, and I know that getting you to believe me and accept this right away is asking a lot. So, I prepared some things in advance."
The moment Arabella Donovan finished speaking, Miles Donovan’s shout came from outside: "Young Miss, I’ve brought the things you asked for."
Before Arabella Donovan could speak, Dennis Donovan replied first in a clear voice, "Come in."
What Arabella Donovan had asked the butler to retrieve was a stack of documents, not particularly thick. As Mr. Cole and the others took the papers and looked them over, they discovered lists of names, genders, occupations, locations, and... causes of death?
"This is..."
"Didn’t I just mention it? In the near future, or in places we don’t know about, certain people will be—or have already been—pulled into another dimension, a world parallel to our own. This happens for a very specific reason. In that world, they have to complete missions and fight to stay alive. If they succeed and survive, they can return to our reality. If they fail, they die there. And the specific trigger that pulls them into that other world is a near-death injury."
"A near-death injury?"
"That’s right." Arabella Donovan stepped forward and pointed to a name on the list. "Take this person, for example. She’s a nurse. One day, she was working the night shift. On her way home around three or four in the morning, she was in an accident with a truck that was driving on the wrong side of the road..."
"And then she was pulled into that world."
"Correct. The flow of time is different in the two worlds. After she was pulled in, she might have spent three or four days there before ultimately dying. But here, in our world, less than an hour would have passed. The official story would be that she was picked up by an ambulance but died on the way to the hospital, with rescue attempts failing."
Mr. Cole’s brow tightened. "So if she survived in that world and completed her mission, she would have lived here, in our world?"
"Yes. For instance, this one." Arabella Donovan pointed to another name, a man’s. "This person was the owner of a small company. His company went bankrupt during an economic downturn when his cash flow dried up, and he was saddled with a lifetime of insurmountable debt. He couldn’t see a way out, so he found a tall building and jumped from the roof."
"He tried to kill himself? And he was taken too?"
"Yes, but he was luckier than the nurse; he made it out alive. So, his suicide attempt became a miracle story. His fall was broken by an outdoor air conditioning unit and then by the awning of a ground-floor storefront. He didn’t just survive—he walked away with only minor cuts and bruises."
Hearing this, the expressions on Mr. Cole and the other men soured. A modern high-rise with rooftop access would be at least five or six stories tall. To jump from that height and walk away with nothing more than a few scratches... that was a miracle.
’If what Arabella Donovan said was true, didn’t that mean this unknown force could easily control life and death, deciding with a whim who lives and who dies? The thought was terrifying.’
"Oh, right. If they make it back alive, they also get handsome rewards. The rewards are different for different trials. Take this man, for instance. His reward for clearing the trial was a large sum of money—just enough to pay off his massive debts."
Mr. Young, who handled financial affairs, felt his eyes sharpen. ’Very good,’ he thought. ’If he had massive debts, then the reward must have been a very substantial sum. A large, untraceable transfer of funds. That’s something to watch for!’
Mr. Cole and the others quickly caught on. The man tried to kill himself over debt, and his reward was the exact thing he needed: money.
’Was it a coincidence, or was it by design? Did this mysterious force choose its subjects at random, or were they targeted?’
At that moment, none of the men noticed that even as they voiced their skepticism, their minds had already started to unconsciously follow Arabella Donovan’s lead, pondering the implications of her words.