Julian offered a soft grunt of assent, offering his thanks before turning to walk back toward his private office.

A heart that had grown accustomed to witnessing the cruel realities of life and death should fundamentally not be prone to such erratic swings of emotion, yet whenever the subject turned to Clara, he found himself entirely unable to maintain control.

Pulling to a stop, he turned his head to stare out the corridor window.

A trace of intense self-reproach flickered through his darkening eyes.

If only he had possessed the courage to take that single step forward years ago and remain by her side, would he have been the one protecting her right now? Would she have been spared from enduring this much agony...

Darkness completely claimed the sky.

Inside the intensive care unit, the mechanical rhythmic beeps of the medical monitoring equipment echoed back and forth in the quiet room.

Separated by the glass of the observation window, Ethan stared fixedly at Clara's bloodless, pale face, his hands slowly clenching into tight, white-knuckled fists.

Without making a sound, Julian stepped up to stand directly beside him.

Following a long, heavy silence, Julian suddenly broke the quiet, his voice flat and absolute: "Moving forward, I will be the one looking after Clara."

Chapter 13

Regarding Julian's appearance, Ethan initially intended to ignore him completely, but he never expected the man to utter those specific words.

"Julian, in what capacity and with what right do you say that?"

His haughty aura made it seem as though he were looking down on a ridiculous farce.

Julian shifted his gaze to look directly into Ethan's piercing, frozen glare. "She has been hurt enough by you already. Do you still have no intention of letting her go?"

Their gazes collided like fire and water, each carrying an unyielding sharpness that refused to back down.

After a long time, Ethan was the first to shatter the silence. "That is an issue between her and me. She did not belong to you before, and she certainly won't in the future."

With that final remark, he turned and strode away.

Watching that clinical, retreating silhouette, Julian's expression turned incredibly unsightly.

Ethan was just as confident as he had been ten years ago, only carrying a hint of inexplicable, wild arrogance now.

It was as if he considered Clara to be a prize already securely within his grasp.

Looking at Clara's tightly closed eyes, Julian let out a long, heavy sigh.

The streetlamps were dim, and a fine drizzle began to drift through the sky.

An hour later, inside the CEO's private office.

Ethan casually tossed his winter coat onto the sofa, sitting down with a hint of exhaustion as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

The quieter his surroundings grew, the more explicitly clear Clara's voice echoed in his mind.

"When we first married, didn't you state that you only wanted me during the duration of our marriage?"

"If I agree, wouldn't I be just like you, treating marriage as nothing more than a transaction?"

"My mother has passed away. Her final wish was for us to get a divorce."

His jaw tightened, and he felt as though thousands of nerves in his brain were being violently tangled together, causing an acute, sudden ache to bloom.

After a long pause, Ethan finally broke the silence, his voice tight. "Harvey."

Hearing his name, the secretary, Harvey, immediately stepped into the room from the adjacent office, his tone deeply respectful. "Mr. Ethan."

"There is a blank file folder inside the right-hand drawer of the desk in my private study. Go fetch it for me."

Hearing the order, Harvey nodded politely. "Understood."

As the sound of footsteps faded into the distance, Ethan rose and walked over to the window, staring blankly out at the neon skyline of the surrounding high-rises.

If everything truly was the way Julian claimed... had he genuinely misunderstood Clara all this time?

Half an hour later, Harvey returned, extending the folder toward him.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Ethan finally pulled the contents out, and a sequence of long-buried memories instantly flooded his mind.

A faded, yellowed photograph, and an old, dusty pink envelope.

These two meager objects felt as though they carried the absolute weight of his youth.

Standing to the side, Harvey caught a glimpse of the photograph and couldn't help but feel a wave of shock. "Is this... Mrs. Ethan?"

Throughout the entire corporate structure, aside from Harvey, who was strictly required to handle Ethan's private affairs, absolutely no one knew that Clara was Ethan's wife.

But even for him, it was merely a known fact.

In the photograph, Clara was clad in a school uniform with her hair tied back in a ponytail, a brilliant, radiant smile stretching across a face that still carried a trace of baby fat.

Ethan picked up the pink envelope, sliding the letter out from within.

The intense tension on his face fractured into a hint of hesitation.

Years ago, on the literal eve of his marriage to Clara, he had accidentally uncovered this object from an old backpack inside a storage box. The initial flutter in his heart had ground to an abrupt halt the moment he saw the name "Julian" written repeatedly throughout the entire text.

Noticing that Ethan's expression was turning increasingly monstrous, Harvey didn't dare to even draw a loud breath.

After a long silence, Ethan finally stuffed the letter back into its envelope and extended it outward. "Take this to carry out a handwriting analysis. Get the results back to me as quickly as possible."

Harvey took the item in a slight daze.

"Push back my itinerary for the next few days. Hand over operational matters to the Vice President for the time being. If there are critical documents requiring my attention, send them over digitally; I will handle them personally."

Hearing Ethan deliver these commands, Harvey opened his mouth as if to protest, but was instantly driven back by the man's freezing gaze.

"Understood, Mr. Ethan."

Harvey bowed his head, turning to leave the room.

Plunged back into absolute silence, a hollow sensation accompanied by a sharp, stinging prick wrapped around Ethan's heart.

He traced the contours of Clara's photograph with his fingers. It wasn't until a long time had passed that he opened a search engine on his computer and keyed in three words: "ALS disease."

In the very next fraction of a second, the horrific state of the patients filling the screen caused his pupils to violently dilate in pure terror!

Chapter 14

The patients displayed on the screen all possessed limbs that were dry and emaciated like kindling, their sallow cheeks deeply hollowed out, their empty eyes completely devoid of any life.

"A terminal illness more merciless than cancer; 80% of patients meet their end within five years!"

The razor-sharp text felt like a blade slicing directly across Ethan's vision, the sudden pain making his breathing catch in his throat.

In a horrifying daze, it felt as though the face of every single patient on the screen transformed into Clara's silhouette.

On some future day, she would also become just like these victims, entirely unable to move a single muscle, forced to witness her own steady march toward death every single day.

With a loud "slam," the laptop was violently snapped shut.

Ethan leaned back against the support of his chair, drawing deep, ragged breaths as if he were the one requiring urgent medical intervention.

Staring at the flushed, healthy, smiling face of the Clara in the photograph, a tightening agony stabbed deep into his chest.

Several rumbles of muffled thunder rolled across the sky, and the rain suddenly turned torrential, allowing the freezing chill of the melting snow to seep into the air.

After a long time, Ethan slipped the photograph into his breast pocket, standing up to grab his winter coat as he departed.

The hospital.

It was already the dead of night, and the corridor was entirely silent save for the rhythmic footsteps of the on-duty nurses.

The medication inside the IV drip quietly fell drop by drop, and the piercing scent of disinfectant saturated every single corner of the intensive care unit.

Ethan sat directly beside the mattress, staring fixedly at Clara's bloodless face.

He had completely forgotten the last time he had looked at her this intently. He only recalled that back then, her features always carried a smile as warm as the sunshine, and her eyes held a brilliant light resembling the stars.

Gripping that fragile hand, the ice-cold sensation of her skin caused a painful lump to catch in his throat.

He had always believed his own hands were cold enough...

Suppressing the bitter sorrow twisting within his chest, Ethan reached out to gently stroke Clara's cheek. "The moment you wake up, we will..."

His raspy voice cracked, and after a long pause, he failed to continue the thought.

In the absolute quiet, the only sound remaining was the faint, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor displaying a fluctuating line.