A new text message suddenly popped up on the screen of his mobile phone. Marcus, who was about to switch off his mobile phone, looked at it and immediately frowned. It was still the strange number he hadn't saved: 'Is wearing sunglasses on your head in the cabin your special hobby?'
Subconsciously looked up, the person beside him smiling at him was Ethan.
Marcus was a little surprised, 'Why are you here?'
'Why can't I be here? This doesn't seem to be a private chartered plane, does it?'Ethan asked back, rightfully so.
Marcus didn't expect to run into Ethan on his flight back to the UK and in a neighboring seat, so much so that he had to suspect that Ethan had checked his schedule and followed him on purpose.
This time, Marcus was wearing light-colored glasses, which suited his skin tone so Ethan could see his suspicious eyes behind the lenses. With some amusement, he wanted to reach out and remove his glasses for him, but then he raised his hand and thought better of it, as they didn't seem to know each other well enough to do that yet.
'Don't get me wrong,' Ethan explained,' I'm not perverted enough to follow you, I was in London to discuss business with a partner and I didn't think it was a coincidence that I was on the same flight as you or in the next seat.'
Marcus didn't pay any more attention to him and waited until the plane took off and flew smoothly before he finally took off his glasses and took out his laptop without glancing at the people around him.
Ethan read the magazine on the plane for a while, feeling bored. Then he turned to see Marcus staring intently at the computer screen, his sideways gaze falling over.
It wasn't that he intentionally wanted to probe people's privacy. What Marcus was looking at on the plane in a dignified manner definitely wouldn't be a classified document, and he didn't seem to be avoiding people. He could see it once he turned sideways himself, so he looked at it as well, and then, in surprise, it also blurted out, 'You're looking at this kind of stuff?'
The screen was a novel, and it was the cheesiest kind of tabletop romance, the president and the fiancée who ran away with the ball or something, Ethan's mouth twitched at the corners, Marcus was just as bent as he was, right? Even if he wasn't, he didn't seem like the kind of guy who would be into this kind of girlie stuff, did he?
Marcus glanced at him sideways but said nothing; cold eyes could not be seen. I had a few emotional ups and downs, turned back, knocked on the keyboard a few times, just read the document closed, and directly deleted it.
Ethan saw him put down the chair, ready to sleep, touched his chin, and secretly thought Marcus was dull. He couldn't help but call him again, 'Are you going to sleep now? Don't you want to eat something first?'
After a long time, the person about to fall asleep under the blanket slowly threw over a sentence, 'I can't eat, don't make noise.'
******
More than ten hours later, the plane landed at Heathrow Airport. When they got off the plane, the two naturally did not say hello to each other and went their separate ways. They came to pick up Marcus, the family butler. His home is in a small town near London. It takes two hours to drive there. A whole block of ancient castles has a history of several hundred years.
The so-called aristocrats of this age were mainly in the early decline or even downtrodden, but they were a good point of identity symbols. The Coote family is an aristocrat and a prominent capitalist, so they still live a decent life of the upper class. They also stayed in this castle only after the retirement of Marcus's grandfather, the Duke of Brandon, who came here to retire.
But because it is a family gathering, scattered in the world's children and grandchildren the past two days one after another returned, Marcus grew up with people cold inertia, close to five fingers to count. To the family, most people have no emotion, so they see people who are also hypocritically polite to cope with. I only think about why Grandpa suddenly wants to organize this family gathering.
A large family is together for dinner. Everyone deliberately ends every move to maintain their aristocratic etiquette. Words also seem to be rehearsed beforehand. Such an atmosphere makes Marcus feel very depressed, inadvertently reminding him of his mother.
When his mother was an international student from China, his father gave birth to him because of his love for marriage. The result in a few years was almost this castle with all kinds of inhuman harsh rituals and cold human feelings drove crazy, and he insisted on divorcing his father to go back to his home country; at that time, he was only three years old, his father thought that his mother betrayed him in the divorce cut off Marcus and his mother and all the possible means of contact, until six years ago, his mother died of illness, he did not see again. Until six years ago, when his mother died, he never saw her again.
Marcus ' Chinese name was left to him by his mother, whose surname was Bo.
After ten hours of flight and then more than two hours of car, although almost all the way to sleep over, because of the lack of food coupled with jet lag, this time Marcus only felt uncomfortable and had a headache, even if their stomach was already in the song of the empty city, but to this large family of the so-called relatives, which also forced his mother to leave the year, he is half of the appetite is not. He had no appetite at all for this large family of so-called relatives.
After dinner, Marcus went upstairs to his room, took a shower, and tried to sleep, but there was a knock on the door.
Marcus opened the door and was surprised to find his grandfather standing outside with a food tray in his hand.
'I see that you didn't even eat anything at the dinner party just now, I think you must be hungry, so I'm bringing you a midnight snack.'
Marcus hurriedly got out of the way and invited his grandfather in.
With only his grandfather present, Marcus was much more relaxed. He was hungry, so he said thank you, sat down, and started fixing the food on his plate.
Compared to his father, who was strict only with himself, Marcus was closest to his grandfather, who always loved him very much. He was the only one in the whole family who would forgive him for his capriciousness and wouldn't ask too much of him in a self-righteous manner.
'Marcus, is it true that you don't like these people in the family?'
Marcus was his real name and the name Grandpa had given him. Marcus was surprised that he would suddenly talk about this, stopping to cut food in his hand and raise his eyes to look at him.
Grandfather sighed softly, 'You know about those things don't you, your mother was forced to leave.'
Marcus knows that his mother is just an ordinary Chinese international student; these proud aristocrats were to see that if her grandfather had not promised her, she could not be married to the Kurt family. Just after the marriage, his father was busy with work and did not have much time to care for his mother. His mother was thrown alone in this cold castle, suffered from all kinds of inhuman difficulties and insults from those people, and finally had to. The last thing she had to do was to leave.
'When your father said he wanted to marry your mother, I advised him to think. He insisted that I did not want to see my child's love end without a problem before agreeing to them. I did not expect to end up with such an ending; I was also negligent,' Grandpa said and sighed heavily. Father, in the end, also went down the same path as I did back then; he never remarried after your mother left and lived unhappily all his life.
Marcus also knew this. His cold nature was almost inherited from his father; since childhood, he rarely saw his father smile. Not long after the news of his mother's death came back, his father also ended up in depression; because of this, he couldn't hold a grudge against his father either.
'I know you chose to work in China after graduation you want to go to your mother's hometown, so I did not stop you...'
Marcus remained silent; he chose to go to China to work; it was indeed because of his mother's reason, and of course, there was also the reluctance to give up on William; it was just that the latter reason would be too ridiculous to say now. His parents' things, he actually knows, just let Marcus does not understand is grandpa said his old way back then this meaning grandpa and grandma husband and wife for decades, although not counted as love and affection, but also respect each other like a guest, three years ago when grandma died, he remembered that grandpa that period has also been very depressed and very sad.
'This time to call you all back to host this family gathering because I'm afraid I won't have the opportunity to see you again. Last week, the doctor diagnosed that I have a malignant tumor in my body...'See, Marcus heard this at first, surprised, then red. Seeing Marcus's first surprise at hearing, his eyes reddened. Grandpa waved his hand to interrupt what he wanted to say. Don't have to feel sorry for me; I've lived long enough to be able to see Minnie one more time.'
'... Xiao Min?'
'He is my first love.'
I looked at the grandpa, who was handed to the hands of the yellowed photo, listening to the grandpa recount. Marcus only knew the original fifty years ago. Grandpa went to the United States to discuss business in New York and met a Chinese girl called Minnie. Because of the vast differences in identity, Grandpa's parents do not agree with them. Finally, Grandpa was forced to relinquish this relationship and return to the United Kingdom. Since then, he has not seen that girl, and the family chose a lot of door-to-door young ladies for him to pick from. Marcus's grandmother, although she is also Asian, was adopted by a vast, wealthy family, Grandpa, only because he saw Xiao Min's shadow in her and finally chose her.
'For so many years I've been trying to find her by all means, but I've found nothing, now all I can think about is seeing her one more time before I die, and I can't move my body, and although it's very difficult, I'd like to ask Marcus for you to help me keep looking for her...'
Marcus clenched the photo in his hand. Once he thought that even his closest grandfather was about to leave him and that he would be the only one left in the future, his heart burst with sadness. Holding back the tears about to come from his eyes, he said, 'Don't worry. I will help you find her back.'
Grandpa kept thanking him, and Marcus comforted him with kind words. Only after Grandpa left did he lie down on the bed with a complicated heart and once again examine the photo in his hand.
The girl in the photo smiled brightly and sweetly while Marcus stared blankly and inexplicably felt a little familiar. Especially those eyes, he always felt like he had seen them somewhere.
Marcus frowned as his mind flashed back to the eyes of a particular person who was confident and even irritatingly smug at times. How could that be?