Chapter 357: Major Discovery
On the sixth day of his investigation in Rivia, Ryan suddenly made a major discovery.
That day, after running around town with the legal team, everyone was completely exhausted. They sat down at a riverside café and ordered coffee, planning to head back to the office for overtime once they were done. Suddenly, someone nearby pulled a dark, grimy object out of the river.
It had rained the past few days, causing the river to swell and wash a lot of trash downstream. To maintain the city’s appearance, sanitation workers were currently cleaning the river’s surface.
The object they’d dredged up was heavy, and the worker tossed it aside roughly. With a dull THUD, water droplets splattered all over Mr. Miller.
The object, having soaked in the river for who knows how long, reeked horribly. The stench instantly clung to Mr. Miller’s immaculate suit.
Already mentally exhausted from work, a frustrated Mr. Miller glared at the sanitation worker.
"Hey, watch what you’re doing! You got my clothes dirty!"
The sanitation worker was a scruffy, middle-aged man whose age was hard to tell.
Upon hearing this, he acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing. He glanced at Mr. Miller once before continuing to cast his tool back into the water.
Mr. Miller’s pride was wounded. He shot to his feet and strode over to the man.
"Are people in your country all this uncivilized? Is this how you treat foreign tourists? You got my clothes dirty and can’t even apologize? Or do you not understand the English I’m speaking?"
Everyone was in a bad mood, but if Mr. Miller started a fight in a foreign country, it would only make their situation worse.
Ryan went over to pull him back. "If he had any class, he wouldn’t be doing this job. Come on, don’t lower yourself to his level."
Mr. Miller’s face was dark. He shot the worker a glare and turned with Ryan to go back to his seat.
But as if the sanitation worker had a screw loose, the next second, he actually picked up that grimy black mass he had just fished out and viciously hurled it at them.
With a loud CLANG, everyone was splattered with filthy water. The table was knocked over, and coffee spilled all over the ground.
This time, it wasn’t just Mr. Miller who was furious. Everyone at their table, as well as customers at other tables, leaped to their feet in unison.
"Hey, are you out of your mind? What are you doing?"
The owner heard the commotion and rushed out, absolutely livid.
"What do you think you’re doing? What the hell is wrong with you? Pick that thing up, clean the floor, and apologize to my customers! I was already doing you a favor by letting you fish for trash around here, and you repay me like this? Hurry up! Or I’m calling the police!"
As everyone muttered and pointed fingers at the sanitation worker, and the owner aggressively pulled out his phone to call the police, the worker finally walked over reluctantly and grabbed the dark, grimy mass.
It was only when he grabbed it that everyone realized what it was: a piece of clothing, a black overcoat.
The worker gripped one sleeve, his eyes full of defiance, and nonchalantly dragged it past the crowd.
Wherever he passed, people quickly moved out of the way.
But when Ryan’s gaze fell upon the coat, his expression suddenly changed.
"Wait!"
He stepped forward, grabbed the sanitation worker, and snatched the coat away.
Soon after, Cecelia Archer received his call.
"President Archer, we’ve had a major breakthrough. We originally said we found none of President Vaughn’s DNA at the crash site, and the Rivia police tried to argue with us, saying our suspicions were baseless. But today, we’ve found solid proof! President Vaughn absolutely did not die in that car crash! At the very least, he definitely wasn’t burned alive in that car! His overcoat was found in the river today!"
"What?"
"If he had been burned to death in the car, there’s no way his coat would have ended up in the river. I’ve already applied to have the case reopened. The coat has residual DNA from President Vaughn, but they don’t have his genetic records on file here, so we can’t confirm his identity. I need you to send me some of Candy’s hair as fast as you can."
—
Damien Vaughn’s words gave Sherry renewed hope to live.
Her emotions calmed slightly, and she stared intently into Damien Vaughn’s eyes.
"I’ve always felt there’s something different about you. Are you someone important? What exactly happened that night? Why did you show up by the pond? Why were you covered in injuries? What’s your name? Where are you from? Can you tell me everything?"
It wasn’t that Damien Vaughn didn’t want to tell her; it was that he couldn’t remember.
In the days since his mind had cleared, he had been constantly pondering the very questions Sherry had just asked.
But it was as if an eraser was in his mind, wiping away all his previous memories.
Aside from muscle and physiological memory, the only other memories he had were of Sherry, from the moment he opened his eyes.
He told Sherry the truth. "I don’t know. I can’t remember. But I believe that as long as I can get out of here, I’ll find a way to remember. Our priority right now is to survive and get our strength back. As long as you trust me, I will definitely get you out of this predicament. Don’t lose hope, okay?"
Sherry had all but given up on life, but looking into his determined eyes, she thought of her poor mother and her elderly grandparents back home. Maybe they were looking for her...
"Alright, I’ll trust you this once. I’ll try to hold on. I hope you get better soon. I don’t know how much longer I can last either."
To speed up his recovery and get Sherry out of their predicament, Damien Vaughn had her find a large, discarded piece of glass. They pasted paper on the back, turning it into a makeshift mirror.
He propped the mirror against the wall, and just as he’d expected, it reflected a large patch of sunlight into the room the next day.
He sat in the sunlight, using a stick Sherry had found to set his leg and the ribs in his chest, then bound them tightly with strips of cloth cut from his clothes.
This lessened the pain, allowing him to perform some simple movements.
Her father had robbed them again yesterday, leaving them without a single penny. Three people needed to eat, and they still had to pay for Risa’s medical expenses. The pressure on Sherry was immense, so she found another job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant.
One job during the day, the other at night. With this schedule, she had no time to rest.
Damien Vaughn disagreed. "If you don’t sleep, your body will collapse in a few days. You can’t do this."
Sherry shot back, "Then what do you suggest? Should the three of us just stop eating and wait for God to save us?"
Damien Vaughn hated how powerless he was.
Even though she started at the Chinese restaurant, her pay wouldn’t come right away. So, Sherry could only scavenge for leftovers and bones from the trash to stave off their hunger.
Heating them up with a little water or boiling them into a thin soup was, at least, helpful for Damien Vaughn’s recovery.
Damien Vaughn didn’t know what kind of life he had lived before, but he knew for certain that he had never eaten leftovers scrounged from a trash can, or bones that others had already chewed and spat out.
Because the first day Sherry brought him a bowl of rice and soup and told him she’d found it, he had almost thrown up.
However, faced with an overwhelming will to survive, none of that mattered anymore.
Eventually, he not only got used to it, but he could even joke about it with Sherry.
"The meat is very fresh today. The soup smells delicious."