"You don't understand." Herbert Ken shook his head, still reluctant to come out from under the desk.
Instead of letting his daughter see his ghastly face now, he would rather die alone.
Let her continue to believe that he had died many years ago so that she would always remember the positive, heroic image of him.
He wanted to be her eternal hero!
He was a coward now.
The thought of his daughter's possibly frightened look, and her contempt if she were to see him this way, made him afraid of confronting her.
Just like in the recent days, he had watched her from a distance and guarded her. He was contented as long as she was safe and healthy.
But that wasn't enough for him after all. When he watched her from afar, he wanted to hear her voice. When he heard her voice, he wanted to hug her.
It was part of being human, we would never be satisfied with the status quo. Whenever a wish gets fulfilled, we would immediately create a new wish to hope for.
Seeing his father like this, George Ken was overcome with despair. He continued, "Dad, please come out first, and please believe in me. Now, with such advancement in medical technology, we shall go overseas where I will find you a good cosmetic surgeon to restore your face."
"George, can I really regain my original appearance? Is it really possible?" Herbert repeated the question several times.
If it weren't for the fact that he wanted to reconcile with his daughter, his current appearance didn't really matter to him.
However, he yearned to see his daughter. He wanted to hear his daughter call him 'dad' in her pleasant voice. He wanted to hold his daughter in his arms and tell her that she was his daughter.
His enemy was now dead, and now his daughter was his only reason to live.
"Dad, it's definitely possible." George helped Herbert up and said, "When your face is restored, we will tell Karen."
"Can I really reunite with Karen? Will she be willing to accept me?" Herbert was still not confident.
"Dad, you should know, she has often asked me about you. She always said how good it would be if she could meet you." After a pause, George continued, "She grew up in the Daly family, and Samuel didn't treat them well. Had it not for Charlie's protection, I'm afraid Samuel would have sent Karen away long ago."
"I feel guilty for them, I failed to rescue them from that misery. If I had come back then and took them away, her mother would not be forced to jump off a building to commit suicide. Karen would not be treated as a traitor and be used as a pawn."
Herbert was furious when mentioned about this matter.
He had known that Karen was his own child, but for years, he didn't come to rescue them because he didn't want to be controlled by Samuel Daly. When he finally made up his mind to take them home, someone plotted against him.
"Dad, it's not your fault. We all know that you loved them. If you hadn't encountered that car accident and become disfigured, you would have exhausted all means to bring them home." George was still young at that time, but he remembered vividly about his father's demeanor.
Herbert continued sadly, "That's not an excuse. In short, it's I who made them suffer because I was useless then. If I were capable, I wouldn't have let her mother suffer for so many years. I couldn't save them."
Herbert had always known that Karen was his daughter. It was Samuel and the Gook family who had sent Karen's mother to him, in hopes of using her to threaten him to work for them.
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