The woman's smile immediately disappeared. She kicked hard at the stool he was sitting on and ran a hand through her hair in irritation. "You bastard!"
Marcus did not show any reaction. He only lowered his glance and stared at the wine glass in front of him like it was some mystical marvel.
In the dim light, no one noticed a drop of crystal liquid falling and dispersing into the wine.
At the same time, in another bar, Rachel and Lea anxiously watched Celia guzzling wine like water. All their attempts to stop her were futile.
Eyes blurry, she sat with her head on the table, muttering something about her relationship with Marcus.
Lea signed and said, "I didn't expect her to be crazier than I am. By the way, what's going on with Marcus? Weren't they supposed to elope before? Why did he suddenly hook up with that woman, then? Who was she, anyway?"
Rachel shook her head. Even she was confused. "That woman must be his blind date. Celia mentioned that his parents arranged for him to be introduced to a girl from a family of equal social rank." Lea scoffed at the explanation with a frown on her face. She took a look at Celia, who had fallen asleep on the table, picked up the woman's unfinished glass of wine, and took a sip. "If Marcus were forced to do that for some reason, then there would be some wiggle room. The thing is, I don't think he did that unwillingly. He seemed to enjoy it very much!"
Once she had her first sip of wine, she couldn't stop herself from drinking more.
Rachel reached out a hand to stop Lea, who was about to pour herself another glass of wine. "Please don't leave me with two drunk women to send home later."
"Relax, my friend. I have a higher tolerance for alcohol than Celia."
Lea patted Rachel on her shoulder. "I have an idea. Do you want to hear it?"
Before Rachel could respond, Lea had already whispered the idea to her. She slowly formulated the details of the idea that she had just come up with.
Rachel's eyebrows twitched as Lea's idea registered in her mind. The other woman was so smart that she could come up with ideas that ordinary people wouldn't be able to imagine no matter how hard they tried. 'It could work.'
Lea looked at Rachel's reaction. Seeing how she seemed to be on board with her idea, Lea grinned and drank more wine. Finally, Henry arrived to take her home, looking down at her in helplessness and adoration.
She and Jack first saw Celia home and then headed back to their own home.
On the next day, the nurses at her hospital remarked on the dark circles under Rachel's eyes. Some of the nurses flocked around her and asked, "Rachel, is there anything going on with you these past two days? You've been looking so haggard lately."
She tried to laugh off the comments awkwardly. However, when another nurse asked about Celia, she was speechless for a moment, stunned, before she came up with a plausible excuse.
She had almost forgotten about it.
On her way back to her office after lunch, Rachel found a group of nurses in the emergency room clustered around something.
Normally, the emergency room handled at least ten emergency rescues on a daily basis. People initially got curious about these cases, but they quickly grew used to them.
Puzzled, Rachel glanced at the commotion for a while. She was about to step away when her phone in her coat pocket rang. The screen showed Lea's name.
As soon as she connected the call, Lea's agitated voice rang in her ear. "Rachel, where are you? Come here quick! Something happened to Celia."
For some reason, Lea's voice sounded like she was somewhere close.
Rachel disconnected the call and heard Lea's faint voice. Her pace gradually quickened until she was running. Pushing her way through the crowd, she saw Celia lying on the stretcher with her eyes closed.
Lea was steadily pressing a hemostatic sponge against the gash on the side of her head, but blood kept trickling down steadily.
It was a shocking sight.
"What happened?"
"I got a call from Celia's neighbor. She was already like this when I arrived." Lea herself was looking a bit shell-shocked.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel calmed down and said, "It's going to be fine, the doctor will handle it."
Along with two doctors, she hurriedly wheeled Celia into the emergency room.
After an hour, she came out again. She took off her mask and said to Lea, who had been waiting at the door, "The wound has been stitched, and she's only a bit bruised. She's still unconscious because she has just lost a lot of blood."
The tension visibly leached out of Lea's body, and she heaved a large sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."
The two of them went to the ward together and sat quietly, waiting for Celia to wake up. Rachel, who was trained to act detached when dealing with patients, didn't feel anything just then. Now that she was no longer in treatment mode, tiredness overwhelmed her after she sat down.
She propped her chin on one hand and was starting to drift off when she heard Celia muttering. Her heavy eyelids suddenly popped open.
Celia sat up on the bed and looking around her in confusion. "Why am I in the hospital? What happened?"
"That's what we would like to know. What's wrong with you? If your neighbor didn't go out and see you, you could have bled out or worse!"
Although Lea spoke a little harshly, her hands as she gently placed Celia's intravenous drip-inserted hand into the quilt were gentle.
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