BXBX NOVEL Chapter 153 - Riddles And Puzzles
Chapter 153: Riddles And Puzzles
"Now tell me, what happened? What do you mean by saying you don't want to live with lunatics who killed your mom?" I started our conversation. My eyes on Tiffany who stood in front of me. While her eyes stared at the faint red marks on her wrists.
She lifted her head and looked at me suspiciously. But instead of answering my question, she said strange things.
"Salvation."
"Huh?" I frowned in confusion.
"Salvation," she repeated.
"What are you talking about? Are you trying to avoid my question?" I asked in a displeased tone.
She frowned and I could catch the confusion on her face.
"Am I wrong?" she muttered. Her eyes returned to the red marks on her wrists.
Feeling that she was starting to suspect my unusual strength, I tried to explain to her.
"Look, I'm sorry about your wrists. I've been learning martial arts lately, but I didn't mean to hurt you." I admitted I lost my cool earlier, that's why I lost my control over my strength a bit.
Although she still looked at me suspiciously, she finally covered the red marks with her jacket sleeves.
"Is that so?" she replied lightly followed by a long breath coming out of her mouth.
"So what's your question?" I guessed she didn't pay attention to my words earlier.
"What do you mean by saying you don't want to live with lunatics who killed your mom?" I repeated my question. After their divorcement, Tiffany's mother lived in a different place but remained near my stepfather's apartment. Since she could not accept her divorcement and still wanted to be close to Tiffany. My father actually couldn't accept his divorcement either, but he decided to take the bitter pill and let my mother go. But despite his pain, father apologized to me and Celia for his failure to keep mom with us.
"That's a long story. But I'm going to tell you the outline since I don't want you to equate me with that crazy couple." A breath came out of her mouth.
"After we moved to Lightglen City, I had a hard time meeting my mom. I thought she was angry with me. She even blocked my contact. And when I went to her house, the neighbours said she had moved out shortly after us. Two months after that, my cellphone broke, so I took it to a repair shop and the technician said he found a small device there. " I could see her eyes filled with anger.
"That device changed my cellphone settings and made my mom and I block each other. After that, I asked the technician to sent all blocked messages and calls to my cellphone." She took a deep breath, trying to swallow her anger and sadness.
"And I found hundreds of my mom's messages and calls there ..."
She paused for a moment, trying to calm herself down. While I could only be silent since I did not expect my question would dig up the wound in her heart. But I needed to find out what was going on.
"From one of her messages, I found her new address and found that my dad had lied to her by saying we moved to Saltmire Town. When I went to her house ..." I could see her eyes began to tear up.
"I could only find her corpse ..."
My eyes widened in shock. Now I understood her anger and hatred.
"Did she ..." I could not continue my words, but another guess crossed my head.
"She committed suicide and no one noticed it ..." she continued sadly. Saltmire Town was a small town with sparsely populated homes and residents, maybe that's why her neighbours didn't notice it. Moreover, she was a newcomer.
"I'm sorry for your loss ..." I said in an apologetic tone. Now I understood why they suddenly moved abroad and why Tiffany hated them. Although they couldn't be prosecuted since this was a suicide, I suspected they ran away just in case the police opened up their case.
She took a deep breath once again to calm herself down.
"After that, I decided to stay at Aeros and cut ties with them. Now they have blocked my contact and I also don't know where they are now. For me ... They are dead."
"You just let it slide?" I was quite surprised Tiffany let them escape after what they did.
She smiled bitterly.
"What can I do? Crying ? Asking for their responsibility? Beat them?" A condescending breath out of her mouth.
"I'd rather not see them again for the rest of my life than do something stupid that could ruin my future."
I hated hearing this stuff, but what she said was true. I didn't even know what to say and do to my mother if I met her. But I couldn't keep this bitterness forever...
"Then what do you mean by I live under someone else's protection?" I asked again. Those words bothered me since I never felt any protection.
She smirked.
"Ethan, some people have no choice but to protect the people they care about in the shadows because of some annoying rules. That's all what I can tell you."
From her words, I seemed to know who she meant, but the question was what had 'she' done? Why could Tiffany say 'she' protected me and Celia? And I knew, even if I insisted on asking Tiffany, she wouldn't tell me about this because it had something to do with association.
"One more thing." I took out my cellphone from my bag and showed her my mother's number.
"You said they moved abroad 10 months ago, but all this time my mom has been calling me with this number. She also sent money and called me using the same number." If it was a different person I should have recognized it by her voice.
She frowned, her eyes fixed on my cellphone screen. I was sure she recognized this number because my mom had been using it for more than 10 years.
"That's impossible. Her cellphone with this number was lost before they moved abroad. After all, the virtual account office should have blocked this number." Then she paused as she realized something.
"Unless ..." Her words stopped there.
"Unless?" I asked her to continue.
But she answered with another question.
"Is she still contacting you?"
"No, she blocked my contact a week ago."
"I see ..." She smirked again.
"She has gone too far ..." she muttered.
"Stop giving me riddles and explain to me," I said impatiently.
"I can only say that person did her best for you. And you should be grateful for that."
I quickly guessed, what Tiffany meant was the same person who protected me.
'But why? Because she feels guilty about dad? ' Even though I didn't know what Tiffany meant, I remembered Ruby also saying the same thing. But whatever it was I had to find out about this, since there were still so many unanswered questions in my head.
"Are you finished yet?"
"Yes. Thank you for telling me." Actually, I was quite unsatisfied with her answer, but I didn't think I could get more than this.
"Alright. Then, I'll excuse myself."
She just turned around but I called her name.
"Tiffany ..." She stopped.
"I apologize for what I did before," I said. Previously I thought badly of her, but I never thought she also experienced bad things like me.
"It's fine. I'm used to it," she replied in a nonchalant tone without turning to me.
"Um ... You still remember my address, right? If you have time, you can come over for dinner with me and Celia," I said in hesitation. I was not sure she would take it, but at least I tried. Tiffany was the only child, so she was probably living alone and though I hated her or rather envy her because my mother treated her differently from me and Celia, after all, she was my stepsister. Moreover after hearing her story, now I felt sorry for her.
She let out a condescending chuckle.
"Ethan, you are the same as your dad." She turned to me.
"You are too kind."
"Thank you for your compliment," I said with a smile. I remembered that she had only met my father twice, but it seemed like she knew my father better because they were both demon hunters.
"It's not a compliment, Ethan. I just pointed out your weakness."
"Calm down, I don't always act like this. I know who my friends are and who my enemies are," I said with a smirk.
"That's good ---" Before she finished her sentence, suddenly, I could smell the faint stinking stench. An announcement with a red box appeared in front of me.
[!!! Warning !!! ]
[Another Demon detected!]
Meanwhile, I could hear vibration from Tiffany and I was sure it was her Demon Compass. That's why she stopped her words. We stiffened as our eyes searched for the demon. While our brains were looking for a way, how could we face this demon without exposing our identities?
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