As she spoke, my mom even pulled a bunch of local specialties from her bag: “Here, these are things we bought locally. Good quality, low price.”
Cole looked at me, confused: “How did they end up in Portland? The tickets I gave you were for the Northwest! And I distinctly heard the rescue team call you, demanding a hundred thousand!”
I picked through the local products my mom brought me and said nonchalantly: “When your parents came over, they saw the travel tickets on the table and made a huge fuss, insisting on going on the eight–hundred–dollar tour. I couldn’t dissuade them, so I had to send them instead. I wanted to call
and ask you, but your dad said ‘Man works, woman runs the house‘, and there was no need to disturb you with such things.”
Cole’s face and body gradually stiffened. His pupils dilated with extreme anger. He began to breathe
heavily: “Impossible… How could this be… So the ones in the Northwest were…”
“Yes, your parents. I wanted to rescue them. You stopped me.”
Finally, my parents fully grasped what had happened.
After a moment of silence, Cole suddenly erupted: “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?! You knew
about my plan all along! That’s why you gave the Northwest tickets to my parents! You deliberately
didn’t tell me that my parents were the ones trapped in the wilderness! You were waiting to see me make a fool of myself! Riley Thompson, you have such a vicious heart!”
I put on an innocent expression: “What are you talking about? What plan? Didn’t you just say you were helping a friend?”
Cole began frantically searching the room for his phone. With trembling hands, he called his parents.
But no matter how many times he dialed, the response was always: “The number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later…”
He knelt on the floor, desperately/sending messages to his parents on every platform. But all messages vanished without a trace, like stones sinking into the sea.
Meanwhile, he accidentally clicked on his mother’s Mom’s Facebook posts. Only then did he discover that from the day they boarded the Business Class flight, his mother had been posting at least ten Moments updates daily. Relatives commented underneath, expressing envy that she had such a
good son.
13:35
His CF Extorted Mo for $100K Quar Dinner 1 Soized His Fortune and Bloodline
44.9%
Chapter 9
However, Cole had long ago set his Facebook to not show his parents‘ Moments updates, so he never
saw these posts.
Cole fancied himself a filial son, verbally claiming he was dutiful and appreciated how hard his parents worked to raise him. In reality, it was common for him to go ten days or half a month
without contacting them.
Sending greetings on holidays was entirely up to me – I sent messages and gifts to my in–laws. He
only drove the luxury car back to the countryside at New Year to show off, making sure everyone knew Cole Braxton had made it big in the city through his own efforts.
But only I knew his so–called filial piety was just an act. His so–called success was merely an elite
image carefully constructed for those few days around New Year.
And now, this “elite” was kneeling on the floor, utterly broken, mirroring exactly how I had knelt
that day, holding my phone to call the rescue team.
“How could this happen…”
“You didn’t know about my plan? Then why did you send my parents?! You did it on purpose! This is
murder, do you realize?! I’m calling the police! I will absolutely not let you get away with this!”
As he spoke, Cole grabbed his phone, ready to call the police.
I stopped him first: “The tickets were bought by you. The contact person was your friend. The people who took your parents into the wilderness were your people. You want to call the police? I should be the one calling the police, shouldn’t I?”
Cole’s eyes filled with despair: “How could I possibly want to kill my parents?! It’s all because of you! If it weren’t for you, my parents would never have gone to the wilderness! You deliberately didn’t
tell me! There were so many chances for you to speak up!”
At this moment, I actually saw a rare spark of genuine filial piety in him.
Seeing him becoming increasingly deranged, my father shielded both me and my mother. My mother took out her phone, preparing to call the police.
But before she could dial the number, the sound of police sirens wailing came from outside.
13:35
