Chapter 18
The oil slicks floating on the river surface shimmered with eerie light under the spotlight.
When Sienna was pulled ashore by the rescue team, she was still tightly clutching the immigration document that had fallen out of the trunk.
The plastic bag was swollen by the river water, and the word “Sienna” became a blot of ink, just like the handwriting Lewis had used when signing the consent form for her abortion back then.
Outside the intensive care unit, Robert handed over the phone while smoking. “He had three broken ribs, his left leg was amputated, and he was still clutching onto this before he fell into a coma.”
In the video, Lewis’s bloody hand was digging into the edge of the operating table, while underneath him was a burnt museum design blueprint.
In the corner of the blueprint, a rough sketch of a green emerald dome. was drawn, with the label “SW Starlight” written next to it.
Sienna threw the immigration approval letter into the trash can, and the metal frame made a loud clanging sound.
The nurse station TV suddenly interrupted with breaking news: The Mcclure Group was suspected of tax evasion and is under investigation, and the whistleblower is none other than Robert.
She touched her empty earlobe, where she had just gotten a new ear piercing, adorned with the Polaris blue diamond sample sent by the auction house.
Three months later, the electronic screen at London Heathrow Airport scrolled auction notices.
Sienna pushed her suitcase through the VIP channel, and the customs camera captured the newly inked letters “SW” on her neck.
Not far behind, a man leaning on a titanium alloy cane was threading a burnt wedding ring onto a platinum chain.
When the security detector sounded an alarm, he lowered his head and kissed the pendant.
Robert’s text popped up at this moment: “The museum’s foundation ceremony is next Wednesday, guess who donated the centerpiece?”
The picture is the auction notice of the Mcclure Group’s old mansion, and the final price was exactly the same as the unsold price of the emerald earrings that year.
The dome of the Sotheby’s auction hall bathed in soft light.
Sienna’s black silk gown swept over the marble steps, with scattered diamonds hidden within the folds of the skirt, like stardust.
On the display stand, the emerald earrings, broken into three pieces, shimmered with a cold light inside the bulletproof glass case.
The large screen was playing the footage of a Peruvian girl undergoing heart surgery, which was the tenth children’s hospital she had built with the proceeds from an auction.
The item was called “The Stunt Double.”
Sienna’s fingertips trailed watermarks on the glass, while the shutter sound abruptly echoed below the stage.
Three years had passed, and her left earlobe piercing had already healed,
11:13
Chapter 18
while her ring finger on the right hand had gained a plain band engraved with the abbreviation “SW Foundation“.
A sign was heard in the corner, “Number 38, five million pounds.”
Sienna’s breath caught when she looked up.
Lewis stood up, leaning on his black walnut cane, with the reflection of his titanium alloy prosthetic limb visible below the trouser cuff.
He raised his right hand, clutching the yellowed documents, with the faintly visible embossed words “the Immigration Authority” on the
comers.
The date stopped on the night she fell into the river.
“Congratulations, number 38.”
In the lingering sound of the auctioneer’s gavel, Sienna personally lifted. the display box.
As I approached, I smelled the scent of orange blossom mixed with the smell of medicine on him. It was the shampoo that she used to love in the past.
Lewis’s cane suddenly toppled over.
When he bent down to pick it up, a platinum chain slipped out of his
melt
collar, and the pendant was a and deformed wedding ring.
Sienna caught a glimpse of the newly added tattoo on the back of his neck. The letters SW covered the original TH, and the stitches were still swollen and red.
The cherry blossoms in London bloomed.
His voice was so hoarse that it was barely recognizable, and he handed
over the check with his fingerprint pressed against the signature line. “You used to always say, ‘the University of Cambridge, that tree…”
Sienna suddenly handed the display box to her assistant.
The illusion of cherry blossom rain flashed before his eyes. That night, he proposed under the tree, and hidden in the flower shadows was the customized TH necklace for Tracy.
The back door of the auction hall was blown open by the spring breeze, and she walked out, stepping on flower petals.
Lewis’s cane sound was neither too close nor too far behind, just like countless nights in the past when he deliberately lightened his footsteps. on his way home from overtime.
“Ms. Winters!”
He suddenly shouted at her.
In the twilight, that hundred–year–old cherry tree was more flourishing than three years ago, with charred marks exposed at the base of the tree.
It was him who burned the diary back then.
Sienna’s high heels sank into the soft muddy ground.
There was a leather diary in the tree hole, with the latest page holding a photocopy of an immigration approval document. In the margin of the document, it was handwritten. “The location of the SW Museum has been changed to the University of Cambridge.”
She suddenly remembered the anonymous donation she received last. week – a complete list of building materials for the entire museum, with a hasty signature “L” at the end.
“I enrolled in a course on cultural relic restoration.”
Chute 18
Lewis’s shadow crept closer, and the prosthetic joints made a faint sound. “The mentor said my brushstrokes…”
He suddenly stopped. The lipstick shade she used today was exactly the same as the day they first met.
Sienna threw the diary into the trash can.
In the crisp sound of the metal buckle hitting the barrel wall, she felt a B- ultrasound photo sandwiched between the inner pages.
It was hidden by him when he had an abortion that year. On the back, it was written, “Forgive me for learning to love too late.”
The sound of sirens grew closer, and Robert’s Maybach was parked by the roadside.
The car window rolled down, and he waved his champagne glass while chuckling. “I reported the Mcclure Group for tax evasion, surprised or not?”
Sienna, however, turned around and walked in the opposite direction.
The cherry blossoms brushed against her pinned–up long hair, and the three–year uncut ends of her hair swept across Lewis‘ frozen hand in mid-
air.
The museum donation certificate slipped from her handbag, and the word “Sienna” in the beneficiary column was the handwriting he had practiced diligently for three months.
When the streetlights lit up one by one, Lewis was still standing under the tree.
The prosthetic sensor got stuck by a petal, but he felt it was just right.
When she waited for him to come home that year, she stood stubbornly in
the same place, refusing to sit even when her legs went numb.
The auction hall cleaner swept up a pile of shredded paper, on which was printed the introduction of tonight’s highlight auction item. “The Stunt Double shattered in a car accident at the bottom of the river in 2019, and reassembled in the spring of 2023.”
The true main stone has been replaced with the Polaris Blue Diamond, which is now set in the dome of the SW Museum.
The end.
