Chapter 5: Countdown

At 9 pm, Mr. Turner finally replied with a few messages.

“Derek Sanders’s family is in the medical equipment business, and they’ve always done well. Two years ago, they made a killing selling masks. His dad was smart and sold the whole company and factory at the peak, cashing out for hundreds of millions.

After getting rich, the Sanders family invested in several companies—real estate, tech, whatever was hot. It was okay at first, but the last couple years the market hasn’t been great. Except for one information services company that’s still operating, the rest are losing money.

And the biggest client of that info services company is our company.

Not long ago, Derek’s dad had a bad checkup, hasn’t been seen for a while, probably has a serious illness.

That’s all I’ve found for now. I’ll update you if there’s any progress.”

I looked at the screen. The next challenge Lillian was about to do was:

Challenge 92: Carve the initials of me and another man on a gift, give it to him, and make him say he likes it.

No wonder she said she had a gift for me.

I went home. Lillian was watching TV in the living room.

The smell of reheated barbecue wafted through the apartment, mixing with the faint citrus scent of her perfume. The TV was playing a rerun of The Office—Michael Scott blundering into another awkward moment, canned laughter echoing. Lillian’s eyes sparkled as she patted the seat beside her.

“Honey, you worked hard, come sit, I have a gift for you.”

Lillian pulled me to the dining table, sat across from me, and took out a gift box.

“Ta-da!”

I opened the box. Inside was a watch.

“Why are you giving me a watch? It’s not a special day.”

“Because you gave me happy times, I want us to last forever. Also, I can earn some money from this deal, so I can pay off my debt to you sooner. Giving a gift to my creditor—is that weird?”

On the back of the watch was an engraving: Sun & Zephyr

“What does this mean?”

“You and me.” Lillian pointed at the words. “You’re my sun, bright and warm, so you’re Sun. And I’m your breeze, gently blowing by your side. When you miss me, I’m everywhere. When you don’t, I’m not there, so I’m Zephyr.”

Such rare words, and she managed to come up with them.

This is clearly the initials of Lillian and Derek.

“Do you like it?” Lillian stared at me with big eyes, waiting for my answer.

“I like it.” I nodded and touched her nose. “I like whatever you give me.”

I really wanted to slap myself, as if I were shouting how much I liked the fool’s hat she was putting on me.

The absurdity of the moment nearly made me laugh, even as my heart sank. I was like one of those clueless husbands in the sitcoms, the last to know, only this wasn’t TV—this was my life coming apart, thread by thread.

“As long as you like it. I’m going to the room to watch a show, you play some games.”

Lillian skipped to the room, and soon the post was updated again.

Challenge 92: Carve the initials of me and another man on a gift, give it to him, and make him say he likes it. Completed.

There were no photos or videos in this post, maybe she didn’t have a chance to take any just now.

In less than 24 hours, Lillian had updated three challenges in a row.

I didn’t have much time left, and every remaining challenge was horrifying.

Challenge 93: Appear in front of him with another man.

Challenge 94: Have dinner with him and another man.

Challenge 95: Make him spend a large sum of money for you and another man.

Challenge 96: Confess love to another man in front of him.

Challenge 97: Make him suffer a serious injury.

Challenge 98: Make him never recover.

Challenge 99: Let him know all this.

I turned off my phone, realizing that I didn’t have much time left.

The only sounds left were the TV’s canned laughter and the tick of the watch on my wrist—counting down, second by second, to whatever came next.