Chapter 261: Came Out
A sliver of doubt lingered in Vivian Lowell’s heart. However, seeing how earnest Mr. Drake looked, she decided not to ask any more questions. Whatever it was, it was fine. Mr. Drake was indeed passionate about public welfare and genuinely treated her well. There was nothing much she could do except live up to his kindness. With his daughter gone, she respected him and was willing to take care of him within her means while doing her own job well. She would help Mr. Drake fulfill his wish of protecting small animals!
After seeing the brand representatives off, Vivian accompanied Eleanor Rhodes to catch cats again. This time, Mr. Drake tagged along because he was curious. He wanted to see what catching stray cats was actually like. However, he felt a bit helpless when he realized the process was incredibly tedious and mundane.
"The trap is set, but who knows when the kitten will go in! Even an e-bike passing by on the road can scare them away. Doesn’t that mean you have to wait an hour or two, or even longer, every single time?"
Vivian nodded, indicating that was indeed the case.
If they were catching cats in a ventilation shaft or if a kitten was trapped in a narrow space, they could use a catch pole to secure it. But in an open residential lawn like this, they had no other options. The area was too large to be enclosed. All they could do was place delicious food in the cage to lure the kitten in. Once it stepped on the trap plate, the cage would lock. That was the only way to catch them.
It sounded easy enough. But just as Mr. Drake said, a passing e-bike could easily scare the kittens away. It was incredibly difficult to catch a litter of three to five kittens. Spending an entire afternoon only to catch one or two kittens, or even none at all, was par for the course.
"That’s just too much hard work," Mr. Drake muttered, though he couldn’t think of a better method either.
The pet hospital had limited funds. The money earned from shooting videos was barely enough to cover the cats’ food and drinks. If they had to hire more people to help, the budget would definitely fall short! Vivian and Eleanor were doing this for public welfare; they volunteered their time for free, but they couldn’t keep paying out of their own pockets! Pitching in occasionally was fine, but if they operated at a constant loss, they wouldn’t be able to sustain it.
After chatting for a while, a kitten finally entered the cage. The group had been busy all morning, arriving at ten o’clock, and now it was twelve. All that effort yielded just one kitten!
"Mr. Drake, are you hungry?" Vivian asked, worried about the elderly man’s health. She suggested, "It’s not good for us to just wait around here blindly. If you’re hungry, let’s go grab some food first. We can leave the cage here and come back to check on it after lunch."
Mr. Drake had no objections. Likely worried that the two young women wouldn’t be able to handle skipping meals, he agreed immediately.
At noon, the three of them, joined by Caleb Quinn, went to a Chinese restaurant to order food. Eleanor was quite happy. She ordered four dishes and a soup, saying, "We have a lot of people today, so we can eat more! In the past, when it was just Vivian and me, it was never convenient to eat Chinese food! Two dishes were too few, but three were a bit too much! There are so many delicious things, but we could never eat them all at once, which was such a pity. Mr. Drake, since you’re here today, we can finally add an extra dish!"
Mr. Drake chuckled. It was obvious that he was very happy hanging out with these young people.
By the time they finished eating, it was already past one o’clock. When the group returned to the residential area, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the cage they had left behind had caught two kittens.
"Two cats in one cage!" Eleanor was so excited she practically jumped up. "That’s wonderful! The person who asked for help said the mother cat only gave birth to three. Now that we’ve caught all of them, we can head back! Mr. Drake, you’re really our lucky star! It’s been so long since we caught two cats in one cage. We managed it today just because you’re here, that’s awesome!"
"Not at all, not at all!" Mr. Drake hurriedly waved his hands to deflect the praise. Since all the cats had been caught, the group prepared to head back.
Mr. Drake needed to make a trip back to his company, and Vivian also had to return to hers. Thus, Eleanor and Caleb took the captured kittens back to the pet hospital together. The group soon went their separate ways.
After returning to the company, Vivian threw herself back into her busy work.
In the blink of an eye, a week had passed.
Vivian even worked overtime on Saturday! When Sunday finally came around and she could rest, she had to accompany Eleanor out to catch cats again. She was run off her feet, only returning home at nine o’clock on Sunday night after finishing the cat trapping and grabbing some barbecue.
When Vivian got home, Grandma Faulkner was still watching TV, and Julian Faulkner was there as well. The moment Vivian walked through the door, both of them turned to look at her. Grandma Faulkner’s eyes crinkled in a smile, seemingly in a good mood, and she said, "Vivian, you’re back! Perfect timing, I’m heading to bed! You and Julian should go upstairs and rest too!"
"Okay, Grandma." Vivian agreed. She handed the cream sponge cakes she had bought to Ms. Shaw, asking her to put them in the fridge so she could take them to the company as snacks tomorrow.
"Oh, they look so sweet!" Grandma Faulkner muttered, unable to resist looking at the cream sponge cakes. She loved eating sweet things, but she was getting older and her teeth weren’t great, so she was afraid of getting a toothache!
"Grandma, hurry up and go rest," Vivian said with a smile, walking over to help support the elderly woman.
A few minutes later, Vivian went upstairs, only to see Julian back at his desk, handling work. Yesterday, Vivian had gone to the company to work overtime with Julian, and he had also gone out for meetings this morning. Otherwise, given his personality, he definitely would have wanted to accompany her out to catch cats.
The two of them had been busy for a whole week and hadn’t even had the chance to have a proper conversation. Seeing that Julian was still busy, Vivian couldn’t help but walk over.
"You haven’t finished your work yet?"
"Yeah." Julian didn’t look up, replying, "There’s been a lot going on lately. By the way, I heard that Lawyer Donovan is getting out of the detention center tomorrow."
Vivian froze for a moment before remembering. She had been so busy these past few days that she had completely forgotten about the man. Lawyer Donovan had been placed under administrative detention for seven days and fined 3,000 yuan for trespassing onto someone else’s property. Tomorrow marked the end of his sentence, so naturally, he was due to be released.
Vivian strongly disliked Lawyer Donovan. He would do any malicious thing for money; he truly had no morals whatsoever!
"He’ll probably still run around trying to sort out Rachel Faulkner’s matters, right?" Vivian asked. She then recalled what Julian had said earlier—he was going to find a way to cut off Felix Faulkner’s connections, ensuring that no lawyers in their circle would help Felix or Rachel anymore.
Of course, this also served as a warning to Lawyer Donovan. This time, it was just seven days of administrative detention. But if Julian went to the police station and claimed that the Faulkner Family had lost something valuable, Lawyer Donovan’s punishment wouldn’t be limited to just a seven-day detention. It could even be elevated to a charge of burglary!