Chapter 4
Seraphine froze.
She looked up, her gaze icy behind her glasses. "Mr. Talbot, if you continue with these irrelevant comments and interfere with my work, I will terminate this treatment session."
Lucius frowned but said nothing more.
Her cool fingertips held his eyelid open as the cold instrument probe slowly approached. Unlike Lucius's agitation, Seraphine remained the consummate professional throughout.
When the examination concluded, she withdrew her hand and recorded the data on her tablet.
"Mild corneal edema, elevated intraocular pressure, and retinal photoreceptor activity lower than indicated in your reports," she concluded. "Intervention treatment is needed immediately. Tomorrow at nine a.m., my team and I will come to your residence."
With that, she didn't spare Lucius another glance before leaving with her team—efficient and detached.
Lucius watched her familiar retreating figure, his eyes darkening. "Barry," he said coldly.
"Yes, Mr. Talbot."
"Investigate her. I want everything on Alice from birth until now. I need to know what she was doing five years ago."
He couldn't believe two people could be so similar. She had better not be Seraphine. Otherwise, there would be a five-year-old debt to settle.
Barry's heart sank. This was trouble—his boss seemed fixated on Dr. Davis. But he dared not comment, only nodding in acknowledgment.
Meanwhile, Seraphine returned to her temporary office at the hospital. She connected her tablet to a projector, displaying the data collected during the examination.
[Luminex Paralysis Virus activity: 78.4%, showing significant upward trend.]
Ten years ago, Lucius first contracted this rare virus, resulting in blindness and paralysis of his legs.
When the once-privileged son fell from grace, becoming an object of ridicule, the Talbot family relocated him to a countryside villa to recuperate.
Seraphine had abandoned everything to follow him secretly. She had nursed him tirelessly, helped cure his blindness and paralysis, and stayed with him through the darkest two years of his life.
Yet after his recovery, when he became the head of the Talbot family, he forgot every promise he'd made to her.
Seraphine stared at Lucius's medical report, hatred swirling in her eyes. This virus was aggressive. Without timely suppression, it would eventually erode the entire central nervous system.
By then, blindness would be the least of his problems.
But she wouldn't let him die so easily—that would be too merciful. She wanted him fully conscious, witnessing how she would exact retribution for everything he and the Talbot and Manners families had inflicted upon her.
Seraphine dialed Barry's number. "Barry, I have the preliminary treatment plan."
On the other end, Barry immediately sat up straight. "Please go ahead, Dr. Davis."
"To suppress the Luminex Paralysis Virus, we need a primary medicinal ingredient called 'Cryovita Orchid.' This herb has extremely demanding growth requirements. Its flowers bloom for only two hours, and the medicinal component must be harvested within that window. Please arrange this quickly—I need the herb within three days."
Barry listened, bewildered, but agreed readily. "Of course! I'll handle it immediately. Where can we find it?"
Seraphine's red lips curved into a cold smile. "That's beyond my purview. With Mr. Talbot's vast connections, I'm sure this small matter won't pose a challenge."
She hung up. Besides the greenhouses of the Jennings family in Sovereign City, there was likely no other place in the world cultivating Cryovita Orchid. And the Jennings family was her backer.
Without her permission, Lucius would never obtain it, regardless of his power and influence.
Keep searching, Lucius. Taste the bitterness of hope followed by despair.
At Serenity Health Center, Seraphine changed into surgical scrubs and entered the operating room. As part of her arrangement, besides treating Lucius, she was required to hold a position at the hospital and regularly perform challenging surgeries.
Today's patient was a seven-year-old boy needing retinal detachment repair. Under the surgical lights, Seraphine wielded a precision microsurgical knife with focused calm.
Four hours later, the operation was a perfect success.
After the final suture, she exited the operating room, her tense nerves finally relaxing slightly. The prolonged concentration had left her fatigued. She removed her mask and walked to an open-air balcony at the end of the corridor for a breath of fresh air.
Light, somewhat furtive footsteps approached from around the corner. Seraphine kept her eyes closed, assuming it was just a passing nurse.
The footsteps stopped not far from her. She sensed a small gaze fixed intently upon her.
Opening her eyes, she saw a boy of about five standing nearby. He wore a perfectly tailored little suit, like a miniature adult.
His delicate face was strikingly beautiful, but that straight nose, the stubborn curve of his tightly pressed lips, and those deep-set eyes... The face was unmistakably a smaller version of Lucius's.
Seraphine's heart seized in that moment, as if gripped by an invisible hand. Her breath caught. If not for his unfamiliar suit, she might have thought the child was her own Heidi.
In age and appearance, the two children seemed cast from the same mold.
A pang of bitterness rose within her. Had Elsie already been pregnant with Lucius's child when she left five years ago?
Nolan Talbot was also studying her. Earlier that day, he had overheard Barry mentioning that his daddy had brought in a super-skilled doctor lady at this hospital.
He had slipped away from his nanny to see what this miracle doctor looked like and whether she could heal his daddy's eyes.
After searching for a long time, he finally found her. And then he saw a woman in a white coat remove her mask.
In that instant, Nolan felt his heart skip a beat. He secretly kept a photo of his birth mother—the only picture of a woman in his daddy's study, tucked inside an old book.