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Novel Catalog
Chapter_745
Midnight.
Above the YQ Research Center, in the manor house nestled under the shadow of night.
In the pitch-dark living room, sobs echoed intermittently.
The ghostly moonlight slipped through the windows, faintly revealing the silhouette of a person
writhing on the floor.
“Click!”
Lights flooded the villa, illuminating the figures of Vivienne and Percival as they emerged from the
darkness.
Their cold gazes fell upon Ramona, who was bound hand and foot in the center of the room.
By day, she was a damsel in distress, but now her eyes, having adjusted to the light, glared
furiously at the two of them.
Percival gestured slightly, and Thomas stepped forward to rip the duct tape from Ramona’s mouth.
Instantly, Ramona twisted in agony, collapsing to the floor, groaning uncontrollably.
Anna sauntered over, crouched beside her, and propped her up, gripping her cheek firmly, “Ms.
Grimshaw, I’d advise you not to fight this. Answer our questions, and maybe we can all play nice.
Otherwise, well, let’s just say we won’t be so merciful.”
Anna’s hand, holding a switchblade, brushed lightly over Ramona’s wrist.
Her icy eyes paused momentarily, giving a subtle shake of her head to Vivienne.
Vivienne’s fingertip twitched, and Anna stood up, retreating to her position behind Vivienne, her
sharp gaze never leaving Ramona.
Vivienne frowned slightly, masking her emotions from view.
Ramona’s meridians…
“Vivienne, what on earth do you want?”
Now that it had come to this, there was no need for Ramona to keep up her act. Struggling fiercely,
her eyes burning with rage, she shot at Vivienne, “Let me go this instant! Or you’ll regret it!”
After ranting at Vivienne, she turned to Percival with tearful eyes, “Mr. Ellington, are you really going
to let your fiancée run wild? She’s already ruined my career; why won’t you just leave me alone?”
Vivienne propped her head on her hand, thinking that Ramona’s ability to switch faces was so much
better than Arabella and Calista’s.
It would do them good to take lessons from her. Their performances wouldn’t have been so
unconvincing back then.
She nudged Percival with her elbow, “Mr. Wolf, your damsel in distress is lodging a complaint.”
A look of resignation flickered in Percival’s eyes, “Even if you wanted to tear down the palace, I’d be
right there with you.”
“Do you think I’m Leopold? Tearing down the palace? Mr. Wolf, I seriously doubt the image I have in
your heart,” Vivienne wrinkled her nose.
Percival intertwined his fingers with hers, “As heaven is my witness, you are flawless in my eyes,
the woman I love most in this world.”
Despite having heard countless confessions from Percival over time, Vivienne still felt her heart race
every time he looked at her with those deep, affectionate eyes and spoke those cheesy lines.
Ramona was baffled. Weren’t they supposed to be interrogating her?
How had the scene flipped so suddenly?
Thomas and Anna, standing behind Percival and Vivienne, tried to make themselves as
inconspicuous as possible, staring up at the ceiling’s intricate patterns with feigned indifference.
How to put it?
Though accustomed to their bosses’ relentless public displays of affection, they still found it
somewhat awkward.
“Hey, Vivienne, are you even listening to me? Let me go!” Ramona couldn’t stand the bizarre
atmosphere any longer.
Her sharp voice popped the bubble of tenderness between Percival and Vivienne.
As if just remembering the bound figure in the room, Vivienne stood up, “Ms. Grimshaw, we really
don’t want to make this difficult for you. We just want to know who’s pulling your strings.”
Ramona’s panic was fleeting, “What do you mean ‘pulling my strings’? Vivienne, I’m telling you,
everything you posted online is fake. I could sue you for slander. Why is your mind filled with such
filth…”
Vivienne leaned in, pinching Ramona’s chin, “I don’t have time for your games.”
Her delicate fingers slowly moved to Ramona’s neck, her beautiful eyes shining dangerously, “I’m
just curious: what exactly did you do to alter your meridians, to make yourself look like an ordinary
person? Your skills should be quite impressive; you shouldn’t have been caught by my people so
easily.”
Ramona’s pupils dilated, “You, what nonsense are you spouting?! What skills? I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
Vivienne clicked her tongue in disapproval, “Seems like you’re not going to give up till the last
second, huh? Anna, turn on the projector!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Anna replied in a deep tone.
Ramona frowned, “What are you trying to do?”
Vivienne forced her face toward the projection screen, where Anna tapped a few keys on her laptop,
connecting the projector to a surveillance feed.
On the screen, there was a bleak, dark room.
Under the pallid light, a disheveled woman named Gillian sat askew in a chair.
Her exposed skin was a tapestry of red and purple scars. Her vacant eyes stared blankly at the
space in front of her, her mouth moving silently with no sound.
Then, the crisp, melodic sound of a piano filled the air.
The closed door of the small room opened from the outside, and Brody entered with a syringe in
hand. Gillian, who had been as limp as a rag doll, suddenly stirred.
With a hoarse voice, she screamed at Brody, revealing the horrifying sight in her mouth where her
tongue should be – only a dark mass of flesh, so vile that even through the screen, one could
almost smell the stench.
Vivienne looked down, pleased with Ramona’s pale complexion, “This is someone who made a
mistake. Ms. Grimshaw, you wouldn’t want to end up like her, would you?”
“What do you mean? How dare you treat me like this?” Ramona’s voice shook with fear.
Was that even human anymore?
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That face, that body – was there a single inch left unscarred?
Vivienne shrugged nonchalantly, dodging Ramona’s earlier query without missing a beat.
With a casual wave of her hand, Anna shut off the projector.
Vivienne pressed, “Ms. Grimshaw, that little trick you have—altering the flow of someone’s
meridians—it’s not really yours, is it? If it were, why haven’t you regained your full strength after all
this time? If you don’t spill the beans about who had you cozy up to Kala, get close to my father, and
set up my mother, then what happened to the person in that video will be a picnic compared to what
I’ll do to you!”
“No… no…”
Ramona hadn’t anticipated that Vivienne would actually know everything.
Altering the flow of meridians to render them powerless was unheard of, even amongst the ancient
warrior lineages.
How could Vivienne have figured it out?
Swallowing hard, the gruesome image of what had befallen Gillian seemed to linger before her
eyes.
With pale lips and trembling fingers, Ramona whispered, “I-I’ll talk. It was the Grimshaws, the
Grimshaw family. They have ties with the GTO. They planted me by your side. Originally, I was
supposed to help the GTO with their agenda. But then, you-you actually managed to dismantle that
whole organization. So, they switched gears, told me to stir up some trouble for you, to find an
opportunity to steal the findings you retrieved from the GTO.”
Having blurted out everything in one breath, the vast living room fell silent, save for her heavy
panting reverberating through the space.
