Chapter 718 Face-Slapping (3)
Lauren’s pupils shrank.
The biggest humiliation of her life was when she involved herself with Herman’s marriage and became the third party persecuted by everyone. Whenever people talked about her these days, they always called her the homewrecker who had successfully become the lawful wife.
Yet Nora had brought it up in public in front of everyone. It was simply infuriating.
There was anger all over Lauren’s face. She demanded, “What’s the meaning of this, Ms. Smith?”
“You don’t dare to make the bet with me?”
Nora raised her brows.
Pushed into a corner, the angry and anxious Lauren could only say, “Fine.”
She clenched her fists tightly.
In order to return to the Hunt Manor, as well as to return to the pinnacle of status in New York, she was really holding nothing back. When she thought about it carefully, though, nothing could go wrong with that pot of flowers anyway. Nora was at a complete disadvantage when she made the bet with her.
To be honest, the moment Nora said that the ingredient was too strong, Lauren had already felt a little guilty. She’d actually had some takeaways from her time studying medicine abroad over the years.
However, she strongly believed that even if something were to really go wrong, it would only happen at a later stage.
It was impossible for that to happen within an hour.
She was sure to win the bet.
When she thought about it this way, Lauren didn’t feel so unhappy anymore-because the bet was clearly to Nora’s disadvantage.
After the two parties made the bet, Lauren summoned some people and instructed, “Keep a close watch on this pot of Ghost Orchids. If anything goes wrong, you must notify me immediately!”
No matter how rare the Ghost Orchids were, they were nothing more than a pot of flowers for Lauren. What she cared about was not the flowers but winning the bet.
She spoke very loudly, everyone heard her. Lauren explained with a smile, “We’ve already made the bet, after all. I’m just afraid someone would deliberately spoil the flowers within the hour because they are sore losers. It would be terrible if people refuse to pay up when that happens.”
Iris, however, ignored her. Instead, she pulled Nora to the side, lowered her voice, and asked, “Tell me the truth, are you Orchidiance?”
Nora’s lips curled into a smile and she nodded.
Iris: “…”
She stared at Nora with a dazed look on her face. “Orchidiance is the only person capable of curing Matthew’s flowers, why didn’t I think of that? No, it’s because you are too young. I didn’t expect Orchidiance to be so young, I always thought that she would be as old as me, or perhaps even older.”
Nora looked at her.
After speaking, Iris’s immediate thought was not that she now had someone to treat the flowers in her greenhouse, if anything ever happened to them.
On the contrary, she heaved a huge sigh.
She said, “I originally thought that there are only so few people in this world who can cure Matthew’s Ghost Orchids because those flowers are really very difficult to treat. When you said that you can cure them, I thought that you were just taking a gamble. But I didn’t expect that what was just a one in ten thousand probability for me, would instead be a 100% sure-win probability for you.” Nora replied, “Therefore, you have to tell your story now.”
Iris was taken aback for a moment. In the end, she waved and said, “Ah well, never mind, this is all meant to be!”
She had also thought things through herself. By taking a gambler’s mentality with this, she was also just trying to give herself a ray of hope in the future.
She didn’t want to age and die in that suburban villa and be separated from Justin for the rest of her life, either.
All of this had been predestined a long time ago, that was all.
She said, “I hope the two of you won’t hate me after you hear my story.”
Back then, she had s.h.i.+elded Justin from everything. Now that her son had grown up, it was ultimately time that he paid his debt.
Iris sighed.
Nora patted her shoulder. “We’re not afraid.”
When one was young, their mother was an almighty figure that s.h.i.+elded them from everything Now that they had grown up, they were willing to be that almighty figure for their mother.
The two chatted for nearly an hour. When the hour pa.s.sed after they made the bet, Lauren glanced at the orchid. When she saw that it was still blooming beautifully, she heaved a sigh of relief at once.
She then went up to Iris and Nora. “Ms. Smith, you’ve lost.”
Nora looked at her. “There are still two minutes to an hour.”
Lauren smiled and said, “There are only two minutes left, but that pot of flowers is now blooming even more beautifully than before. There is no risk of it wilting at all, so you two are losing for sure.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
Nora stood up and looked down at the time on her cell phone.
Lauren curled her lips disdainfully and said, “Ms. Smith, to be honest, we are all family. How can there by any grudges among family? Why do we have to draw such a clear line between us? Why don’t we just forget about the bet? Lest it reflects poorly on us. I’m not someone who would hold grudges against my young ones either. The old madam is getting on in years, though. Herman has always wanted to be filial to his mother and be by her side, so let’s not have the Hunts stop him anymore…”
As soon as she said that, a security guard rushed over in a panic and said, “Mrs. Hunt, this is terrible!”
Lauren was taken aback. She turned around and saw that the security guard was actually the one whom she had instructed to keep a close watch over the Ghost Orchids just now!