Filed to story: Sweetheart Do You Still Love Me
“She gave you a hard time again, didn’t she?”
“Why do you care?”
None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for the stupid engagement party. Hence, Elspeth felt vexed even just looking at Arthur’s face.
“You’re my fianc?e. Of course, I have to stand up for you if she bullies you.”
It was like he didn’t care about her tantrums as he ruffled her hair as he pleased. Of course, his hand was swatted away with disdain.
“Alright, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“What secret?”
Elspeth glanced side-eyed at him.
“Actually, I was the one who poisoned the baby in her belly,”
said the man with a creepy grin.
It was evident that Elspeth had a hard time registering what she had just heard as she only appeared shocked after a long time.
“Why would you do that?!”
Arthur and Ginna had no personal grudges. In fact, he even used to like her sister Emma…
“You want to know why?”
Arthur pulled an inexplicably baffling and amorous smile at Elspeth, who held her breath and said,
“Tell me.”
“It’s a secret!”
With that, the man walked away resolutely.
Then, something seemed to have hit him as he turned back around.
“That reminds me. Our engagement party was ruined. We’ll have to redo it in a couple of days. You better get ready for it again.”
Elspeth had just lost interest in why he would poison Ginna, and now he threw this bomb at her.
“Can’t we just leave it as it is? We’ve already done it once, and everyone already knows.”
All things aside, just having to wake up at 5.00AM to get her makeup done was already torturous enough.
“That won’t fly. I’m a man of principles; everything needs to be done through and through.”
Arthur shook his head with a frown. It seemed that he cared a lot about this matter.
In the end, he still left after he said everything he wanted to.
Elspeth didn’t have anything important to see to either. Then, it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t given Isabel the medicinal herbs she had brought back the other time. Hence, she decided to buy a few other medicinal herbs from the hospital to mix with that batch after reaching home.
However, there were too few medicinal herbs in hospitals abroad. Even if the hospital she was in had the city’s largest medicinal herb dispensary, she couldn’t enter as she pleased, let alone obtain those medicinal herbs.
Still, she went with a glimmer of hope.
Just as she arrived at the entrance, the middle-aged man guarding the medicinal herb dispensary stood up and cautioned gravely,
“Persons concerned only, miss. Please leave.”
“I’d like to purchase some medicinal herbs. May I please speak to your person-in-charge about it?”
Elspeth asked politely.
“But…”
Seeing that a stunning, polite woman pleaded to him, the middle-aged man started hesitating.
At that, Elspeth began imploring and talking her way into it. Coupled with her impeccable smile, the man gave in immediately.
“Alright, alright, let me check.”
With that, the man left and returned with a Damorian guy, whom Elspeth thought looked familiar but just couldn’t quite figure out where she had seen him.
As the latter was also from Damoria, he lowered his guard immediately after seeing Elspeth, and he asked,
“May I know what you’ll be doing with these medicinal herbs, miss?”
“I have a friend seeking medical treatment,”
she answered euphemistically,
“and I happened to specialize in traditional medicine, so I’d like to buy some medicinal herbs.”
Hearing that she specialized in traditional medicine, the man narrowed his eyes slightly, and he sized her up arbitrarily with his piercing gaze.
“You look like you’re just in your early twenties, and you say you specialize in traditional medicine?”
Elspeth suspected that the man doubted her because she said she ‘specialized’ in the study, so she backtracked her words at once.
“Well, not really. I just know a thing or two.”
“Know a thing or two, and you already dare treat someone else so casually. Are you not worried you’ll cause your friend misfortune?”
The man was displeased no matter what she said.
“Yes, I only know a thing or two, and I’m not skilled enough, but my mentor’s a master in traditional medicine. Nothing will happen to her.”
At that, the man became even more skeptical.
“You have a mentor? What’s his name?”
Anyone with a good temper would’ve long become annoyed after so much questioning, let alone Elspeth.
“This doesn’t have much to do with my wish to purchase medicinal herbs, does it?”
Elspeth’s gaze turned cold.
“Of course, it does. If something bad happens to your friend after consuming the medicinal herbs you got from us, people will come to us after finding out the source of those herbs. So, to avoid any unnecessary issues, I have to get things straight.”
At the end of the day, the man was just doing his job.
“I only have some trust in you and asked so many questions because you’re also from Damoria. If it were someone else, I’d have shooed them away immediately.”
“I’m really sorry. I can’t tell you my mentor’s name. But I can most certainly treat my friend’s illness.”
Elspeth realized her overreaction might have upset him.
“In that case, you can forget about purchasing any medicinal herbs from us.”
The man’s expectant gaze dimmed at once.
After all, how could anyone bet on a person’s life so easily?!
“Well, can I please have a private moment with you? I’ll tell only you,”
Elspeth negotiated, seeing that the man wanted to leave.
He stopped at once, and he looked side-eyed toward the foreign man next to him. The latter understood at once and walked away acquiescently, as unwilling as he was.
