Salute to the General novel Chapter 10

Back in the Cloud Palace, Nathan was enjoying his lunch together with Penny and her family, soaking in some wonderful, quality family time.

Suddenly, the Benson's phone let out a loud shrill.

He could not believe his eyes when he saw the number on the screen, "Wait, it's Samuel calling. Why would he call me all of a sudden?"

"My instincts tell me he must have called for the pill," Nathan stressed out, with an indiscernible curl of his lips.

With that being said, he laid out the pill on the table. The pill had been sealed up to preserve its freshness and effect.

It had dawned upon Benson and his family that Nathan had seen this coming when he had said that it would be a matter of time for Samuel and his men to come begging for the pill.

With a smidgen of skepticism in his eye, Benson put the call on speaker mode,

"Hello?"

Samuel's voice resonated across the other end of the call, "Benson, dad is in terrible shape now and he needs Phoenixia to save his life. Bring the pill over now, right away."

Benson's startled eyes grew bigger and rounder when he heard Samuel's quivering voice asking for the pill -It's true! Nathan had hit the bullseye again!

He flashed an unbelievable look at Nathan and was about to open his mouth to agree to Samuel's request.

Benson had always been wary of his elder brother; he would never dare to defy Samuel.

Leah snatched the phone away before he could say a word. "Huh! So you're asking for Phoenixia now?" She cried scornfully, "Didn't you guys throw it on the floor and say that it was a rotten pill? And you even told us to save it for ourselves?" "What makes you think that you can just take it back now since you've treated it like dirt?”

"Don't think that it'll be so easy to take it back just like this. Come and beg us if you really want it!"

With an angry grunt, she hung up the call.

The phone shrilled again the moment she hung up; it was Samuel again.

She switched off the phone altogether, along with her own and Penny's phone. "Didn't they just put us to shame in front of our friends and relatives when they'd dumped our present to the floor?” The redfaced Leah spoke agitatedly, "Not to mention how they singled us out by making us sit outside the banquet, feeding us with leftovers."

"Yet they have the guts to demand us to hand over the pill as if they have every right to own it."

"There's no way I'm going to give in unless they come to us and plead for it. Not over my dead body!"

Penny could not tear her eyes away from Nathan. It was unfathomable to her how he could say things with absolute accuracy. This was just like the previous occasion when he expected that Mr. Harvey would show up at their door with an apology. It had turned out to be true.

Now his prophecy seemed to materialize again when he said that Samuel and his men would come back for the pill, and he was right again. Samuel had just called Benson asking for Phoenixia.

It dawned upon Penny that Nathan had always kept his word; his prediction was never wrong.

"You'd better be upfront with me and tell me what's this all about," Penny demanded with a scrutinizing tone.

"What are you talking about?" chided Nathan with a lighthearted smile, feeding Queenie with her food.

"Don't give me that look." Penny puffed at him, "What made you think that Samuel would come and beg us forthat pill? How did you know that in advance?"

Her words prompted Benson and Leah to fix their suspicious eyes on him.

"When I was mulling over what should be the best birthday present for Sean, I heard that he had a medical condition of the three highs, which was prone to illnesses such as stroke," Nathan explained.

"That's why I wanted to give him the pill as a present."

"As for what makes me so sure that they would come back and beg us for the pill, it all began at the banquet when I saw him offering rounds of toast to his guests."

"Drinking is the largest cause which has led people with such medical conditions to fall ill, hence I've secretly feared the worst for Sean."

"I was sure that Samuel and the rest would be bound to find out about Phoenixia from the doctor, should anything have happened to Sean. That's why I said that he would come to us and ask for the pill in order to

save Sean."