Chapter 997:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

Everything after that became hazy and fragmented. The endless sea. The bright sky. The scorching sunlight overhead. He drifted for what felt like forever before a foreign fishing boat finally discovered him.

They brought him to an unfamiliar country where no one knew who he was. Without identification or status, he was treated like an unwanted stray and abandoned in a shabby hospital hidden deep within the slums.

He didn’t know how much time passed before his mind finally became clear again. Since he couldn’t understand the language, he communicated with the nurses through gestures and expressions. One of the nurses later brought him a pile of bills, signaling that he needed to pay for his treatment.

Even while badly injured, Kole forced himself to work. Because he had no identification papers and couldn’t speak the language, he could only take the dirtiest and lowest-paying illegal jobs. Still, he endured it all silently. He saved every cent he earned, using half to slowly repay his medical debt while carefully setting the rest aside.

After a very long time, he finally managed to save enough money to buy a hard-earned ship ticket back to Zhatwell, along with a secondhand phone.

The second the phone landed in his hands, Kole hurriedly searched for any news about Carole.

One article after another flooded the screen like a river bursting through a broken dam.

“A Powerful Alliance between Two Elite Families of Zhatwell: the Wedding of the Knight and Davis Families Stuns the Entire City.”

“Carole Knight Gives Birth to a Healthy Baby Boy.”

“Mike Knight Spends Millions on Rare Jewels for His Beloved Wife’s Birthday.”

“Knight Group Shares Soar to an All-Time High as the Love Story of Mike and Carole Knight Becomes the Talk of the City.”

𝖩𝗈𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗌𝖺𝗇𝖽𝗌 𝗈𝖿 𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗌 𝗈𝗇 𝗀𝖺𝗅𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗌.𝖼𝗈𝗆

Only then did he realize that their wedding had happened a year ago. Even the news about her giving birth was already three months old.

Kole sat motionless in the freezing attic, staring at the glaring headlines and smiling photographs on the screen. For a long time, he couldn’t pull himself back to reality. The fire inside him had survived pain, and even the shadow of death itself, yet all it took was one glimpse of her happiness to extinguish it completely.

Carole was living well. No, she was flourishing. In every report, she was cherished by her husband, surrounded by luxury, holding a beautiful child in her arms while the women of Zhatwell envied her life.

And if he returned now? A man with nothing to his name. Ragged. Broken. A fugitive without legal status, hiding like a rat in foreign streets. If he asked her to abandon everything and follow him into a life filled with danger and uncertainty, would she still agree?

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