Chapter 15: Full Circle

**Chapter Fourteen**

I took Ethan to live under a bridge.

I took on sewing work, and after finally finishing it, when I went to exchange it for money, Morgan Lowe happened to show up.

Morgan sneered and had his buddies snatch the sewn handkerchiefs from the shopkeeper, throw them on the ground, and stomp on them.

"You dare do business with the criminal Shaw family?"

Morgan turned and gave Ethan a sideways look.

"Hey, if you hadn’t said this was Ethan Shaw, I’d have thought he was just a beggar."

Ethan’s lips trembled as he clenched his fists.

Morgan walked over and slapped him hard across the face.

"By rights, no shop in Maple Heights should do business with your family."

"But considering our past friendship, I can’t let you starve."

"How about this—you kneel and beg me, and I’ll have the shopkeeper accept these handkerchiefs. How’s that?"

"Get lost!"

Ethan swung his fist in anger but was quickly beaten up by Morgan’s buddies.

Unable to stay in Maple Heights, we had to flee to Savannah.

After living in Savannah for a year, my grandfather’s family wasn’t well-off, and rumors about the Shaw family kept getting worse.

He didn’t dare help us openly and could only secretly send some food.

Ethan and I lived through an extremely hard year until Commissioner Lowe suddenly got promoted and transferred to another city.

Only then did our lives get a little better.

If he’d stayed in Maple Heights, with his constant harassment, Ethan probably couldn’t have passed the SATs.

Later, when Ethan joined the federal judiciary, his first task was to investigate old cases and clear Judge Shaw’s name.

Only then did he discover that, given Judge Shaw’s past merits, the government’s order was to seize the house but not the family trust.

The trust included charitable funds and educational endowments. Since the Shaw family still had a young child, these properties were left to support him.

It was Commissioner Lowe who was greedy. Seeing Grandma Shaw was dead and bullying young Ethan, he wanted to seize everything for himself.

After Ethan discovered this, he stayed quiet and kept collecting evidence of Lowe’s crimes. By then, Lowe was already a state official. Just before his retirement, Ethan had his entire family prosecuted.

Now, with memories from his previous life, Ethan naturally wouldn’t associate with Morgan Lowe.

He focused on his studies, and in just one year, passed the SATs.

A ten-year-old with a perfect SAT score—what a prodigy!

The Shaw family held grand parties, and because Ethan had to attend so many celebrations, he finally agreed to come out.

Ethan and I saw each other from afar.

**Chapter Fifteen**

That day, I was wandering aimlessly on the street.

I saw Ethan come out of a diner, avoid the crowd, and turn into a nearby alley.

The smell of fried onions from the diner clung to the air as I stepped into the alley.

I couldn’t resist and followed him.

"Ethan—"

Ethan stopped.

After not seeing him for a year, he had grown much taller. His face still had some childishness, but his bearing was even more restrained and cold, more and more like the judge he’d become.

I clenched my hands.

"Ethan, congratulations."

I swallowed hard, the word catching in my throat. "Congratulations, Ethan." But all I could think was: did he even remember the life we shared?