Outcast Queen: Her Return from Hell novel Chapter 140

"Meredith, stop dreaming." Marcus frowned deeply, scoffing in disdain. "He is this sick, and you think playing the flute will cure him? That's an absolute fantasy."

"Marcus!" Meredith spun her head around abruptly. Her gaze instantly turned frigid as she stared him down. "Weren't you just saying you'd carve out my kidney to make Grandpa better? What's wrong? Now it's just playing a flute, no knives or bloodshed involved, and you're going out of your way to stop me? Do you genuinely want to save him, or do you have ulterior motives and are terrified of him waking up?"

Marcus's heart violently trembled. When did this girl... become so sharp? She had actually learned how to turn the tables on him.

He avoided Meredith's gaze, arguing forcefully. "I just think there's no need to waste time on such pointless tricks."

"Hah. Pointless? You think sitting here doing nothing for an hour isn't pointless?" Meredith pressed him step by step, her presence actually overpowering Marcus's. "Regardless, I am going to play this piece for Grandpa today to show my final respects, and absolutely no one is going to stop me."

The cold hardness in Thaddeus's eyes finally melted slightly as he waved a hand. "Enough. Since Meredith has this filial piety, let her have her wish."

He looked at Milo. "Go ahead. Make sure you get back within the hour."

"Yes, sir."

Watching Milo turn and leave, Meredith secretly let out a breath of relief, her palms covered in cold sweat.

Meanwhile, the unease in Marcus's heart grew wildly like weeds. His intuition told him that Milo's departure was definitely not as simple as it seemed, yet he couldn't find a reason to argue against it.

"Meredith." Thaddeus looked at the daughter he hadn't truly looked at in a very long time, speaking suddenly. "You've grown quite a bit."

Those words were incredibly light, like a faint, barely-there sigh.

Meredith, however, acted as if she hadn't heard a thing, turning back to Phoenix with a blank expression.

Thaddeus shook his head, ultimately withdrawing his gaze.

"Merry, that performance was absolutely incredible," Phoenix quietly gave Meredith a thumbs-up, using her body to block everyone else's view. "I was actually worried you'd be crushed by your dad's aura and spill everything."

Meredith smiled bitterly and shook her head, lowering her voice. "I was definitely a little scared. But I was tempered in that place, after all. If I were still a weakling who let people walk all over me, I might as well just drop dead right now."

Phoenix shot a thoughtful glance at Thaddeus.

The man gave her an extremely contradictory feeling. He possessed the cold majesty of a family head, yet the occasional fatherly love he revealed was tinged with helplessness.

Could there have been hidden circumstances behind what happened back then?

After all, Gideon's poisoning was already shrouded in mystery. In a place where wealthy families ran deep as the ocean, what you saw wasn't necessarily the truth.

Time ticked by minute by minute. The wall clock let out a monotonous, oppressive "tick-tock" sound.

The sound wasn't loud, but it struck like a clap of thunder, ruthlessly slamming into the top of everyone's heads.

Everyone whipped their heads around, staring dead at the hospital bed.

They saw that Gideon, who had been unconscious all this time, fluttered his eyelids a few times, and then... slowly opened those cloudy, yet still sharp, eyes.

"Grandpa!"

Meredith cried out in surprise and joy. She instinctively wanted to rush over, but after taking a single step, she suddenly recalled all the past misunderstandings and forcefully stopped herself, her eyes instantly turning red.

He's awake? He's really awake?

Marcus's face instantly turned ghastly pale, his fists clenched tightly as a suffocating wave of dread consumed him.

An unprecedented wave of panic drowned him like a tidal wave.

Just as pale as death was the old man.

Gideon waking up meant that the truth was exposed—as a fraud, he was completely finished.