CHAPTER 79: CHAPTER 79: CLIFF-LIKE NEGLECT

Victoria Sinclair vaguely heard some words, feeling somewhat baffled, "What?"

Eugene Vaughn closed his eyes, as if struggling to breathe, lightly parted his lips to exhale, then raised his eyes to look at her. His tone was as cold as ice, "Didn’t you go to the hospital today?"

"No, there was an issue at the drug research lab."

"I went to the drug research lab to find you. Apart from a staff member on duty, no one was there."

Victoria Sinclair slightly clenched her fists, and explained anxiously, "I really went back to the lab, but there were some tricky matters I needed to handle outside."

Eugene Vaughn’s deep eyes were as dull as ashes, his aura as cold and sharp as an ice cellar. He nodded, indicating he’d heard enough, and turned to walk towards the room.

Victoria’s unease churned within her; the previously distant and cold Eugene seemed to have returned.

She stepped forward quickly, grabbing Eugene’s arms with both hands.

"Eugene, don’t you trust me?" Her voice carried a hint of panic, tender yet humble.

Eugene lifted his hand, shrugged off her touch, and stepped aside with disdain, gazing forward, his tone frosty, "I do."

Victoria stared at his cold, handsome profile, feeling chilled, mixed with a stabbing pain like needles, her eyes moistened, "What on earth happened to you today? Did I do something wrong? Didn’t we have a good time yesterday?"

Eugene stood motionless, his hand clenched into a fist upon being pulled from his pocket, with the veins on the back of his hand slightly protruding.

Victoria’s heart trembled with fear, her fingertips shaking as well, as she sensed Eugene’s anger and indifference.

It came so suddenly, so inexplicably, making her afraid.

Eugene’s gentleness towards her seemed to have vanished again.

She mustered her courage, slowly reaching out to touch his fist, "Eugene, if there’s something dissatisfactory to you about me, could you please tell me honestly? I can change."

The moment her hand touched Eugene’s fist, it was roughly thrown off, and he left behind two cold words, "No reason."

He strode into the room and shut the door.

At that moment, Victoria felt she had fallen into an endless abyss, waves of coldness flooded in, as the pain in her heart devoured her bit by bit, and her vision was blurred with tears.

This familiar chasm-like coldness happened again, leaving her lost and confused, just like two years ago when they had just registered for marriage.

She thought Eugene had encountered something unhappy, affecting his mood.

She spoke to him with such gentleness, humility, and eagerness to please, trying to close the gap between them, but what Eugene gave her was a distant attitude, impatient words, and two long years of coldness.

Recently, Eugene’s gentleness and enthusiasm toward her made her mistakenly believe that he had changed, so she gave him a second chance to hurt her.

Tears welled up in Victoria’s eyes, she slowly closed her eyes and took a deep breath, two clear tears slipped down her pale cheeks.

She wiped the tears away with her hand, turned around, and walked into the room.

The June night, very short and restless.

Just after 5 a.m., the sky began to brighten rather hazily.

Victoria awoke to the ringing of her phone amidst her groggy sleep.

She opened her eyes, reached for the phone, saw the caller display, sat up suddenly, and answered it, placing it to her ear, "Hello, Captain Lu."

"Ms. Sinclair, we’ve located Walter Yates’ position, it’s crucial to leave immediately, give me your location and I’ll send someone to pick you up."

"Okay." Victoria threw off the covers, swiftly got out of bed, sending her location while heading to the bathroom.

She freshened up and changed in record time, grabbed her bag, and dashed out the door.

Ten minutes later, a black sedan picked Victoria up at the entrance of the community.

Professor Li and Angela Austin were in the car too.

Victoria greeted them and sat in the back seat.

The captain in the front passenger’s seat said, "Ms. Sinclair, if you cannot capture these ten monkeys safely and effectively, we will have to shoot them on sight."

Victoria nodded understandingly, "Alright."

Professor Li nervously protested, "They cannot be killed; they’re extremely important. If they die, cultivating a new batch of virus monkeys would take at least two more years."

The captain disagreed, "Professor Li, human lives are more important. If the virus from these experimental monkeys infects humans and spreads widely, you’ll be the ones held accountable, your heads wouldn’t be enough to count for the punishment."

Professor Li swallowed nervously and continued to plead, "Captain, please don’t resort to killing them unless absolutely necessary, I beg you."

The captain responded, "Of course, as long as you have safe ways to handle them, we won’t shoot unnecessarily."

Angela noticed Victoria had been silent since getting in the car, with a somewhat ugly expression, her eyes fixated forlornly out the window.

Angela gently touched her arm, "Victoria, what’s wrong?"

Victoria returned to her senses, pretending to be calm, "I’m okay."

Angela touched her cheek, leaned forward to peek at her tired face, "Did you not sleep well last night?"

Victoria leaned back in the seat, responded faintly, "Mm."

Angela rubbed her hand, "Don’t worry, we’ll definitely catch Walter Yates and find the ten monkeys."

Victoria said nothing, closing her eyes to rest.

After driving for over five hours, by one o’clock in the afternoon, the police captured the hiding Walter Yates in a village in another province.

Of the ten monkeys, only five were found.

The others were nowhere to be found.

Victoria and Professor Li urgently conducted quarantine and protective measures for the monkeys, performing thorough disinfection in places the monkeys had been.

To quickly find the remaining five monkeys, the captain directly took Walter Yates to the nearby police station, joining forces with local officers to interrogate and investigate him.

The police spent half the day questioning, to no avail.

Walter Yates was detained and taken back to the province, and the five recovered monkeys were sent back to the drug research lab.

While the remaining five missing monkeys were like a ticking time bomb, potentially triggering a major epidemic at any time.

On this day, running across two provinces, several people worked until midnight.

Victoria sat in the office of the drug research lab, staring blankly at her phone screen.

The subway stopped, and Nathan Austin drove over to pick up Angela.

Angela, worried about Victoria walking alone at night, came to her side, "Victoria, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been out of it all day."

Victoria shoved the phone into her backpack, zipped it up, "I’m fine."

"My brother came to pick me up."

"Then you go on ahead, thank you for your hard work today, sleep in tomorrow and come in at noon."

"Eugene didn’t come to pick you up?"

Victoria pressed her lips bitterly, shaking her head.

"The way back from the lab to your home, there are few pedestrians and vehicles. It’s not safe for a girl to walk alone at night, take my brother’s car, it’s on the way anyway."

Victoria, always with a strong sense of security, stood up with her bag, "Okay, I’ll trouble Nathan then."

Angela hooked her arm, walking out side by side, "With my brother, you don’t need to be so polite."

Victoria got into Nathan’s car.

The 1200-meter drive took only four minutes to the community gate.

"Thank you, Nathan." Victoria expressed her gratitude and was about to open the door.

Angela turned her head from the front passenger seat, "Victoria, I’ve been hesitating to tell you something for days, but seeing you so out of sorts these past few days, do you already know?"

Victoria’s hand paused slightly on the door handle, looking at Angela, "What is it?"