The car hadn't even come to a complete stop when Alexander pulled open the door and got out. He took big strides towards the car in front, but before he even got there, James had gotten out with Isabelle in his arms. He rushed over, as Sophia hurriedly locked the car and caught up.

Alexander's footsteps stumbled for just a moment, then he caught up to them.

There were many people in the hospital. They took Isabelle immediately to the operating room.

James sat on a chair in the waiting room with an anxious expression, whereas Sophia sat restlessly in her seat. She eventually got up and paced up and down in front of James every now and then.

Her pacing made James feel agitated. He couldn't take it anymore and raised his head. "Sophia, could you sit and be quiet for a moment?"

"James, your wife is lying in there, could you look a little worried?" retorted Sophia.

James didn't react to her retort and just waved his hand, wearing an expression that said he couldn't be bothered by her antics.

The assistant instinctively glanced over at Alexander, who stood around five meters away from the window, when he heard the two words "your wife" from Sophia's mouth.

Alexander appeared exceptionally quiet, as though he hadn't heard what was just said,. He stood still, staring out the window. However, the assistant noticed that his hand on the window sill had clenched into a fist. Because he had used excessive force, white lines had formed around his knuckles.

About half an hour later, the doctor emerged from the operating room.

Sophia was the first to rush over to him. "How's my sister?"

James followed closely behind, walking up to the doctor.

Alexander, who stood in his spot without moving, just slightly turned his head towards the two.

The doctor removed the face mask and said, "The patient is fine. Perhaps she hasn't been resting well lately, and when exposed to the cold, it triggered an inflammation in her body. Now, she has a high fever and her blood pressure is low, which is why she fainted. We've given her some fluids for now."

After a pause, he added, "If one of you is available, please proceed to patient registration for overnight stays."

Alexander glanced at his assistant, who instinctively knew to walk up to them. "Miss Davis, Mr. Williams, I'll go."

James and Sophia didn't reject his offer, and nodded. The assistant took the form, ready to go downstairs, when Alexander stretched out his hand and took it from him, walking downstairs.

After Alexander came back, Isabelle was given a private room at the hospital. When she fainted, her clothes had become completely dirty. Now, she'd changed into a hospital gown and lay quietly on the bed with an IV drip in her arm. James sat by her bed with a clean towel in his hands, wiping her hair and clearing the dirt from her face.

Alexander stood in the corridor, staring at that scene for a long time. In the end, he didn't go in but gave his assistant the money for the hospital bill, then turned to go downstairs on his own.

It was already evening by the time Alexander came back with a handful of bags.

The needle in Isabelle's arm was already removed and replaced with a plaster. She was deep asleep on the hospital bed.

When James, Sophia, and his assistant had received Alexander's call yesterday, the three of them had rushed overnight, so they hadn't slept all night. On top of that, after a day of torment at the hospital, they were so incredibly exhausted that they couldn't take it anymore and also fell asleep.

James lay spread out by the bedside. As for Sophia and the assistant, one was on the sofa, while the other was on the chair.

Alexander tried not to disturb them when he gently placed the things he'd bought on the table. Then he walked over to Isabelle's bedside and stroked her forehead to find that she still had a fever.

He walked softly into the bathroom, where he grabbed a towel and ran it under cold water. When he squeezed it dry, he walked back into the room again and placed it on Isabelle's forehead.

The cold soothed her a little, and her furrowed brows began to slowly relax.

Alexander didn't leave her bedside, whilst he stared at her with soft eyes. After quite some time, he stretched out his hand and stroked her head.

After he returned with the wet towel, he hadn't dried his hands of cold water. With her high temperature and his freezing touch, she couldn't help but to give in to the cold, wet palm of his hands.

At her sweet, obedient look, Alexander couldn't help but slowly curve the corner of his lips into a slight smile. With his thumb, he gently stroked her cheeks a little, but then, he glanced over at James, who was spread out at her bedside, fast asleep. His eyes twitched a little, and he pulled his arm back and walked away.

James, Sophia, and the assistant didn't wake up until the nurse came around to give them food.

Whilst they ate, the nurse used that time to check Isabelle's temperature. She still had a fever, and so the nurse put her on another drip.

It was already eight in the evening when they finished their dinner. When James saw Sophia's fatigued, sleepy face and the cramped hospital room, he said, "How about you guys find a hotel to get some rest, and I'll be fine here."

Alexander wanted to stay here so bad, but James was around. What gave him the right to take care of her?

He stared at Isabelle in bed with a serene look on his face, then after a long a while gave a light nod and said, "All right."

Before he left, Alexander pointed at the bag he had brought in the afternoon. "Those are clothes for her."

"Mm." James nodded and said, "Got it."

Alexander glanced over again at Isabelle in deep sleep, then strode out the door.

~*~

The assistant found a hotel near the hospital and made reservations for three rooms.

Alexander stood in front of the window and smoked around three cigarettes before realizing that he'd finished the pack. He laid down on the bed, but no matter what he did, he couldn't fall asleep. In the end, he changed clothes and walked out the room.

He went to the convenience store by the hotel and bought a pack of cigarettes. As he came out the store, he lit one up. Standing in the unfamiliar street of the town, he took two deep drags.

The night breeze blew past and fused with the dry summer heat. Nights in the little town seemed notably peaceful. There were practically no cars on the street, and even the shops on both sides of the road were closed for the night. Every now and then, one or two motorbikes would speed through the street.

Alexander stood there for a while, but in the end, he strode all the way to the hospital.

When he reached the in-patient's block, he put out the cigarette in his hand.

The corridor was very quiet. All that Alexander could hear was the sound of his own footsteps echoing in the long corridor.

He stopped outside Isabelle's room but didn't enter. He leaned against the wall and, through the glass window, stared at James overlooking Isabelle. There he was, sitting by her bedside, raising his arm to adjust the IV drip.

Alexander couldn't help but lift his head up at the lights above him that made his eyes dry and obscured his vision. An irrepressible bitterness tossed around in his chest.

~*~

Sometimes,no matter how hard people try to keep things hidden, there would still be loopholes.

When Mr. Williams was having dinner with some investors in the entertainment industry, he found out that Isabelle had gotten injured during the filming of "Heaven's sword".

Initially, Mr. Williams had no idea that the victim was Isabelle, hence he just treated the news as gossip. In the end, the investor came close to him and whispered softly that the victim seemed to have been his daughter in law, but to prevent any trouble, the crew had stopped the news from spreading.

Mr. Williams wasn't sure of those words' credibility, but when he returned home, he still told Mrs. Williams about the matter. From there, Mrs. Williams had called Sophia's mother to ask about it and she had called Isabelle to find out. But when no one answered the call, she anxiously dialed for Sophia.

Even though Sophia had reassured her that Isabelle was already fine and that she and James were there, taking care of her, Mrs. Williams and Sophia's mother still took a flight down the very next day.

~*~

On yet another night, Alexander's assistant carried a pack rice over to Alexander's car. He opened the drivers seat door and sat in.

Alexander sat in the passenger seat with the new phone that his assistant had gotten for him and was scanning through the pile of company documents, with the seemingly untouched lunch at his side.

His assistant frowned, placing the new pack of food in the car before bringing the previous pack out to toss it in the rubbish bin. He returned back to the drivers seat and said, "Mr. Smith, you haven't eaten in almost a day, have some food."

"I'm not hungry." Alexander didn't bother lifting his head when he replied faintly, he continued to stare at the phone and reply to the pile of emails.

The assistant continued, "Mr. Smith, there are people taking care of Miss Davis, I'm sure she'll be fine."

Alexander ignored him, bringing his phone closer. He said, "There are some problems with the contract, I've indicated the areas that need to be edited and have sent it to your email."

Ignored, the assistant touched his nose and looked out the car to face a certain window on the second floor. Sighing inwardly, he thought about how Mr. Smith was the most worried when Miss Davis fell ill. But beside her, she had her fiance, so all Mr. Smith could do was stand by the side.

Yet when Mr. Williams's mother came, he could no longer even stand by the sides and had been relegated to waiting in the car. When she finally woke up in the afternoon, the assistant had ecstatically reported the news to Mr. Smith, hoping that he would get some rest, but unlike what he had hoped, the other had no intention of leaving.

The assistant remained silent, not disrupting Alexander. The entire car was silent except for the few words from Alexander while he was holding meetings with the board members.

At night, the skies were dark. When Alexander finally finished a large chunk of work, he placed his phone at the side and leaned back against the seat. He reached his hand out to massage his forehead before spotting his assistant through the rear view mirror. He paused before saying, "You can go back now."

The assistant asked, "Then... What about you, Mr. Smith?"

"I..." Alexander raised his eyes to look at the second floor window that his assistant was looking at just now. He then said, "I'll wait awhile more."

Isabelle was in the hospital ward but he was down here. Even if he waited till she was discharged, he still wouldn't be able to get close!

The assistant knew that he wasn't in the position to comment, but after hesitating, he couldn't help caring. "Mr. Smith, why don't you go back to the hotel for some rest, you spent the whole of last night in the hospital staircase and hadn't rested the entire day, you'll burn out if you continue at this rate."

Burn out... Alexander's gaze remained on the second floor window. The lights were still on and he could vaguely make out the silhouettes passing behind the windows. He laughed lightly as though he had just heard a joke, and replied, "I won't burn out, I'm used to it."

Probably due to the conditions that he grew up in, he had grown up with personality issues: he was introverted, aloof, and difficult to be with, the longer people interacted with him, the more tired they became. Soon, he began to keep his thoughts to himself, but at this moment, he wasn't able to keep the sorrow inside him.

It was the kind that couldn't be contained inside, and this was the first time he spoke such private thoughts to his assistant. "You've no idea how many times I've waited for her in a car just like this."

Just like this, he had sat and guarded her so many times he had lost count.

When he was young and poor, he wasn't able to give her happiness, so he didn't dare to pursue her. But sometimes, when the thoughts became too much, he would stand on the ground floor of her hostel for a long time just to sneak a glance at her. Yet it wasn't every time that he was able to see her since she didn't stay in school everyday.

After that, when they lost contact and he was busy filming, he didn't have much time in Beijing, but every time he was there, he would guard by the area that she lived. Sometimes, he would wait till night fell, and sometimes he would wait till the next day, and sometimes he waited for more than a day for just a glimpse of her, even if it was just her back, a simple sight was enough.

One year, on his birthday, he didn't receive any blessings and had felt really lonely, so much so that he started to yearn for her presence. In the end, he took a flight all the way back to Beijing only to be faced with disappointment.

So, he was used to it and was not tired out by it, there were even times that it made him feel safe and at ease.

The assistant had never chatted with Alexander like this, so he was at a loss for words. After a long while, he finally said, "Mr. Smith, why don't you chase her? You can compete fairly with Mr. Williams."

"Compete fairly?" Alexander repeated the words, his gaze glazed. When he was three, his mother had knelt outside Williams house door to help beg for his life, at that time, he had already lost the rights to compete fairly with James.

Most importantly...

Alexander said, "No matter what his mother does, it doesn't change the fact that he is the only family I have left."

When Alexander was eleven, he lost his mother and was sent to Williams family by his grandfather. At that time, Mrs. Williams, Mr. Williams, and even the helpers wouldn't even glance at him, only James didn't despise him and chose to accept his aloofness, treating him kindly and even trying to be friendly with him.

When the midnight alarm sounded, James would receive a lot of red packets, each filled with a thick wad of cash. Any one of the red packets was filled with more money than the inheritance that Alexander's mother had left for him.

But he had none.

At that time, James had thrown all the red packets into the bin, saying a sentence that even till today was deeply etched in Alexander's heart: If my brother doesn't have any, I don't want them either.

From then on, he had always treated James as his brother.

In that instance, the assistant had no idea what Alexander was thinking.

This man of little words that was always cold and distant seemed like he would never be happy or upset, he seemed to be nonchalant and never having a care for the world, but even though his words were often mean and he wasn't the best person to be with, deep inside, he held so much.

When someone treated you with just a little bit of care, you would keep it deeply inside your heart and stay loyal to that person,willing to accept all the pain on his behalf.

Since Mr. Smith knew that Mr. Williams liked Miss Davis, he decided to give up his rights.

Because he didn't want to hurt him.

Willingly suffering by himself.

The assistant felt his throat choke up, his heart begin to ache. Only after a long while did he speak up again. "But, Mr. Smith, there's a long way ahead, you can't just keep waiting. Why don't you try to find another girl..."

Yes, he could try to like another girl. If he could successfully find someone else, maybe he wouldn't be in so much pain.

Alexander replied helplessly, "But other girls... they aren't Isabelle."

In that instance, the assistant was left speechless.

The car sank into silence once more. Seemingly after a long while, Alexander spoke again, rushing his assistant back to rest. This time, the man nodded and left silently.

Alexander winded down the window and lit up a cigarette. Through the smoke he blew out, he stared at the second floor window, sorrow flashing past his eyes.

She was just a few meters away from him... But he wasn't able to go up.

It was as though he was able to touch her if he just reached out, but somehow, he wasn't able to hold on.

Between them, there was a long wall that he was never able to cross.