Chapter 307: Chapter 307

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However, Lucas didn’t look that old at all. While I walked in silence out of shock, Yi Jenny, who was walking ahead of us, suddenly paused her step, took out her cardkey, and put it on the card reader next to the door.

Like a control room in a spaceship, the door opened to both sides and the reception room came into view. Inside this building, where everything was gray, only this space looked like a normal place.

The floor was covered with flat black marble tiles; a huge window wall was on one side of the room. Beyond that, the lights from the skyscrapers of City Hall station were shining brightly.

Yi Jenny obstinately made Lucas and I take a seat on the couch and moved to the direction that had an electric kettle, so she could serve us some teas.

Feeling uncomfortable to sit beside Lucas, I perched on the tip of the couch. As soon as I took that action, Lucas insisted, “I told you earlier that as long as I accomplished my purpose, I don’t have any interest in you. If you keep behaving like that, you’re hurting my pride.”

Since I became aware that he was twenty-four, I could have acted a little more politely; however, I could not behave that way this time.

With a grimace, I quietly replied, “No matter how I behave, please mind your own business. I don’t want to be within the range of someone who calls me a moron.”

Lucas, who was leaning back on the couch, began to have an inquisitive frown on his face. As if he felt ridiculous, Lucas uttered, “You’re really something than you look, huh?” He then changed his posture out of the blue and flaunted a smile while crossing his legs.

“And what should I call a person other than a moron when she was deceived by a stranger and came all the way out here?”

I couldn’t say anything to his mocking words. However, the person who cheated someone was the bad guy, not the person who was deceived! I mean, in the first place, the story became too large-scale for me to understand when Lucas brought up the case of Ruda being chosen as Yi Jenny’s successor.

I felt the urge for violence after a long time. While I took a deep breath to control myself since I couldn’t fight him, Yi Jenny returned to us, at last, and placed teacups in front of us.

As if she heard all our conversations, Yi Jenny flung a question to Lucas as soon as she sat down on the chair across us.

“Your personality has changed a lot since we haven’t seen each other.”

Lucas also replied with a smile, “Of course, it has been a decade.”

The period of time that he dropped so frankly made me surprised. The story about the successor test I heard from Lucas sounded so vivid that I didn’t think it would have happened more than three years ago. Having these thoughts in mind, I heard Yi Jenny’s question again.

“What have you been up to?”

“The skills I’ve learned from you made me afford my living.”

Unlike his remark, the way he spoke didn’t sound thankful at all.

Taking a sip of tea, Yi Jenny replied nonchalantly, “Why didn’t you keep living that way then? Why are you here?”

“I told you, I’m here to verify if Ruda qualifies the successor position.”

Yi Jenny’s eyes turned sharp at Lucas’ response. Amid the strained atmosphere, their eyes met in the air.

Yi Jenny then broke the ice, “That’s none of your business.”

“Don’t I deserve that?”

“It’s already over.”

“I…!”

Simply ignoring Lucas’ words, this time, Yi Jenny switched her gaze to me.

I became tense. While a loud sound came out once I swallowed my saliva, Yi Jenny asked, “So, why are you here, Miss?”

“Um… I…”

Although she had a deal with Ruda, Yi Jenny was the one who sent the helicopter to help to save us; therefore, it wasn’t easy for me to quickly tell her what was going on. While I hesitated to respond, Lucas spoke on behalf of me, “Same business as me.”

“Ha…?”

“I came here to take Ruda,” I replied to Yi Jenny, who let out a sigh as if she felt dumbfounded. The look on her face changed enigmatically. She then asked, “Are you sure?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you also think that Ruda doesn’t ‘deserve’ to become my successor?”

I was surprised to hear the word ‘deserve’ slipping out of her mouth. Diverting my eyes back onto Lucas, I came up with another thought.

Yi Jenny seemed to believe that I was influenced by Lucas’ response; therefore, I was considering that Lucas deserved to become the true successor instead of Ruda.

I quickly shook my head, uttering, “Oh, no! That’s not what I was thinking! But no… maybe that’s right.”

When I suddenly changed my attitude into a calm way out of bewilderment, Yi Jenny slightly wrinkled the corners of her brows. Putting the teacup down on the table with a smack, Yi Jenny threw a question.

“What would that mean?”

I clenched my fist over my knees. Taking a deep breath, I slowly continued, “I think Ruda doesn’t belong to the successor position. He also has no reason to become a successor.”

A moment of silence took place again. I felt that Lucas’ gaze at me had changed somehow, but I didn’t know why. Was he being perplexed because I was making a similar argument as his?

Yi Jenny then spoke in a low voice, “Why do you think that way?”

Swallowing my saliva once more, I replied, “As from what the security team said just now, first, because Ruda wants to leave this place…”

‘I think he’s been trying to escape here consistently––’ I added, but Yi Jenny intervened and said, “Do you think that can be a reason for me to let him go?”

Her response suffocated me. Looking up at her cold and dull face, I murmured to myself, ‘What the heck is she talking about?’

“Doesn’t Ruda… also have a right to live his own life?”

“If he’s just my son, yes, he surely does,” with a pause, Yi Jenny drove a wedge in her remark, “But he’s my only successor.”

“I don’t know why Ruda has to become your successor in the first place. I heard that there were many other candidates for that position including Lucas beside me.”

“Are you objecting to my choice?”

Yi Jenny’s voice still sounded dry and flat. Holding the armrest of the couch, she continued to ask, “When you never saw any other candidates besides Lucas and never even attended the test site?”

Unlike the way she spoke, Yi Jenny didn’t look that mad. Instead, she was slightly grinning as if she was too dumbfounded that she even felt a little excited.

I thought for a second that her eyes, which were curved into a smile, resembled Yi Ruda’s eyes; however, I soon bit my lips.

In Yi Jenny’s point of view, I would look absurd to say such things since I was only a seven-year-old kid a decade ago when the successor test took place. However, I was the one who knew Ruda in the present, the seventeen-year-old Yi Ruda…

Licking my lips, I carefully opened my mouth, at last.

“Watching them competing for that position, you might have thought that the successor should be a person who’s cool-headed and ambitious, right?”

Yi Jenny tossed a question, “And?”

“I think Ruda isn’t that kind of person.”

“Hmm…”

While she crossed her legs nonchalantly, I dropped my gaze at the floor and barely continued, “As far as I know, Ruda wasn’t that type of person at all.”

That was true. I didn’t know about ‘the Ruda’ in the past, but I could speak everything about the current Ruda.

“He’s such a great listener.”

Within a few days after our first encounter, Ruda was the first person to notice and comfort me, who had difficulties in coping with people’s attention. Going through so many things afterward, Ruda was always there listening to me.

“And he knows how to comfort people.”

She pulled me in her arms to embrace me, who was in a panic. Her arms were so tight and warm that when she was next to me, I always felt relieved.

“And… Ruda sincerely loves our classmates… for real.”

If she wasn’t, she had no reason to have a sad face while looking at the kids in our class at the party. She blamed herself that she wasn’t being able to reveal her true color. That was why she felt a sense of shame while looking at us.

Ruda also wanted to become truly free, at least, in front of us as much as we treated her with all our hearts. Giving back the love as much as one had received would only happen between a good and intimate relationship.

Concluding my words, I raised my head. These were the aspects of Ruda I had seen while spending half a year together. I didn’t know what Ruda was like ten years ago; however, I was confident that no one would know Ruda in the present better than I did.