Chapter 179 - 178 Dont Tell Anyone Im Your Teacher

( ELIAS MERCER )

The golden crest on the heavy cream paper catches the dim light of the living room ceiling bulb. I run my thumb over the embossed letters. The texture is perfect. The weight of the cardstock is exactly right.

I let out a loud, raspy laugh. The sound echoes off the cluttered walls of my cramped apartment. I toss the envelope back onto the scratched wooden coffee table, shaking my head.

"You almost had me, kid," I say, leaning back into the sagging cushions of my sofa. "I have to admit, you went all out for this prank. Which print shop on Fourth Avenue did you use? The foil stamping is incredibly realistic. You must have paid a fortune just to cheer up an old man."

Emily sits across from me on a mismatched wooden dining chair. She does not smile. She does not roll her eyes or offer a sarcastic comeback. She simply rests her hands on her lap, her posture perfectly straight. Her dark eyes lock onto mine, completely devoid of humor.

"It is not a forgery, Elias," she replies. Her voice is quiet, carrying a terrifying, absolute certainty. "Dr. Harrison handed it to me directly an hour ago inside a private dining suite at Bordeaux 101."

I stare at her. The amusement slowly drains out of my system, replaced by a cold, creeping sense of disorientation. I look down at the envelope, then back up at her face. I try to force another laugh, desperate to keep the heavy, overwhelming reality at bay.

"Come on, Emily," I say, waving a dismissive hand. "Vanguard Medical University does not just hand out special admission letters in fancy French restaurants. They require a mountain of bureaucratic approvals, standardized testing, and committee reviews. You are telling me you bypassed all of that?"

"I am," she says smoothly.

I grab the envelope again. I hold it up to the light, searching for a misaligned font, a blurred ink stain, anything to prove this is an elaborate joke. The watermark of the university seal is embedded deep within the paper fibers. The signature of the Dean of Admissions sits proudly at the bottom in thick blue ink.

"This is insane," I mutter, tossing the letter back onto the table. "How did you manage this? You have been out of the academic system for years. Thomas Vance made sure of that."

Emily shifts in her chair. She folds her hands together, taking a slow, deep breath.

"A lot has happened in the last month, Elias," she begins. "Things you are going to find very hard to believe."

( EMILY )

The smell of searing garlic and ginger still hangs thick in the small apartment. I look at my former teacher, observing the deep lines of exhaustion carved into his face. He believes I am still the helpless teenager trapped in a damp basement. He has no idea about the storm I have navigated over the past four weeks.

"Start talking," Elias demands, crossing his arms over his faded flannel shirt.

I don’t sugarcoat the details. I deliver the facts with surgical precision.

I describe the sterile, overly air-conditioned room at the fertility clinic. I explain the exact moment Dr. Lin told me the frozen samples had been swapped, meaning the child growing in my womb did not belong to my fiancé, Julian Thorne.

Elias grips the armrest of his sofa, his knuckles turning white, but he remains completely silent.

I move on to the hospital. I describe the heavy wooden door of Julian’s recovery room. I recount the exact words Julian spoke to my stepsister, Chloe Vance, confirming their long-standing affair and his plans to delay our wedding. I describe the sickening, sweet scent of Chloe’s perfume lingering in the corridor after I slapped both of them and walked away.

Elias leans forward, his jaw locked tight.

I take another breath, pushing through the darkest part of the month. I tell him about returning to the Vance household. I detail the conversation I overheard between my father, Thomas, and my stepmother, Lydia. They had accepted a massive cash payout to sell me to Silas Hunt, a local syndicate boss notorious for his brutality.

"They sold you," Elias whispers, his voice thick with raw disgust.

"They tried," I correct him.

I explain the pitch-black storage room where they locked me away. I describe the freezing concrete floor, the smell of mildew, and the agonizing, raw thirst that scraped the back of my throat after three days without a single drop of water. I tell him about the violent crash of the front door splintering open, the sounds of Silas Hunt tearing the living room apart to collect his debt.

And then I introduce Alistair Wolfe.

I describe the imposing, terrifying presence of the CEO of the Wolfe Empire. I explain the contract marriage, the rigid prenuptial agreement designed solely to secure his heir. I recount the moment Alistair wrapped his heavy, warm suit jacket around my shivering shoulders and ordered his men to lock the Vance family inside that very same storage room.

I finish the story and fall silent.

The apartment is dead quiet, save for the distant wail of a police siren outside the dirty window.

Elias stares at the blank television screen. He looks like a man who just survived a physical beating. He rubs both hands vigorously over his face, dragging his fingers through his unkempt beard.

"Julian Thorne," Elias mutters, shaking his head. "The Vance family. Silas Hunt. And Alistair Wolfe. The CEO of the Wolfe Empire."

He stands up abruptly, pacing the short length of the cramped living room. His worn sneakers squeak against the scuffed linoleum floor.

"This is a soap opera, Emily," Elias says, throwing his hands in the air. "This is the plot of a cheap paperback thriller. You expect me to believe you stumbled into a sperm bank mix-up that resulted in a billionaire contract marriage?"

"I expect you to believe the truth," I reply calmly.

( ELIAS MERCER )

I stop pacing. I look at the young woman sitting in my dining chair.

Her posture is rigid, but her hands rest easily on her lap. A liar adds unnecessary adjectives. A liar fills the silence with desperate justifications. Emily just delivered the most chaotic, unbelievable sequence of events with the cold, detached precision of a surgeon reviewing a medical chart.

She described the smell of the storage room. She described the exact weight of Alistair Wolfe’s jacket. You cannot fabricate those kinds of sensory anchors.

I look back down at the golden crest of the Vanguard Medical University acceptance letter resting on the coffee table.

She did it. She survived a gauntlet of betrayal, abuse, and underworld violence, and she used it to secure her future. She is pregnant with the heir to the most powerful corporate empire in Asuir City, and she is about to walk into the nation’s top medical school.

A loud, genuine laugh bursts from my chest. I cannot contain it. The sheer absurdity of the universe is too much.

"You hit the jackpot, kid," I say, pointing a finger at her. I shake my head, a massive grin splitting across my face. "No, scratch that. A jackpot implies luck. You struck it rich. You took a nightmare and spun it into absolute gold."

I walk past her, heading straight for the small kitchen area. The chicken she prepared is still sitting in the cast-iron skillet, smelling incredible.

"Get up," I order, waving my hand at her. "Take that apron off. You are a Vanguard scholar now. You do not cook in my kitchen today."

"Elias, you don’t even have clean plates," Emily protests, standing up from the chair.

"I will wash them," I reply, grabbing a sponge and scrubbing vigorously at a ceramic bowl in the sink. "Sit down at the table. We are celebrating. I think I have a bottle of cooking wine hidden behind the soy sauce. It is terrible, but it contains alcohol, and today calls for a toast."

I take over the stove. I crank the gas burner up high, throwing a handful of dried chili flakes and extra scallions into the hot oil. The kitchen fills with thick, spicy smoke, stinging my eyes, but I don’t care. For the first time in years, the suffocating gray fog inside this apartment feels completely gone.

I plate the food, wiping the edges of the bowls with a paper towel. I set the steaming portions of spicy chicken, tomatoes, and spinach down on the small wooden dining table. I pour two small glasses of cheap, oxidized cooking wine and slide one toward her.

"To Vanguard," I say, raising my glass.

"To Vanguard," Emily echoes, tapping her glass against mine.

( EMILY )

The chicken is incredibly spicy. The heat burns my tongue, making my eyes water slightly, but the flavor is deep and comforting. I eat quickly, enjoying the rare sense of peace settling over the messy apartment.

Elias eats with actual enthusiasm, completely abandoning the artificial garbage he usually consumes. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, looking more alive than he has in a decade.

"The classes are going to be rigorous," Elias says, pointing his wooden chopsticks at me. "Do not underestimate the Medicinal Chemistry program. They will try to break you in the first semester with advanced synthesis labs."

"I am prepared for the coursework," I reply, taking a sip of water to cool the spice in my mouth. "But I won’t just be taking classes. Dr. Harrison wants me to interview for a position inside the Vanguard Research Institute."

The wooden chopsticks slip from Elias’s fingers. They hit the porcelain bowl with a sharp, echoing clack.

He goes completely still. The easy, warm camaraderie we just shared evaporates in a single heartbeat. The color drains from his face, leaving his skin a pale, sickly gray under the overhead kitchen light.

"What did you just say?" Elias asks. His voice is a harsh, scraping whisper.

I set my fork down, alarmed by the sudden, terrifying shift in his body language. "Dr. Harrison gave me a recruitment brochure. The board of directors at the Vanguard Research Institute reviewed my file regarding SN1818. They want me to apply for a lead researcher position in their biochemistry division."

Elias stares at me. His eyes are wide, filled with a dark, swirling mixture of panic and deep-seated dread. He grips the edge of the wooden dining table, his knuckles turning stark white.

"Elias," I say softly, leaning forward. "What is wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost."

He doesn’t answer immediately. He looks wildly around the small kitchen, his gaze darting toward the locked front door and the drawn window curtains as if expecting someone to burst through the walls.

He leans across the table, closing the distance between us.

"Listen to me, Emily," Elias commands. His tone is stripped of all sarcasm, all humor. It is a rigid, absolute directive. "When you walk onto that campus in September, you are a blank slate. You learned your chemistry from textbooks. You practiced in your high school laboratory. You taught yourself in your bedroom."

"I don’t understand," I say, frowning in confusion.

Elias grabs my wrist. His grip is surprisingly strong, his fingers digging into my skin.

"Do not tell anyone I am your teacher," he says, emphasizing every single syllable. "You do not mention my name to Dr. Harrison. You do not mention my name to the board of directors. If anyone asks who mentored you, you lie. Do you understand me?"

I stare at the raw terror radiating from his eyes. Elias Mercer is a cynical, exhausted man, but he is not a coward. Whatever is hiding inside the Vanguard Research Institute terrifies him to his very core.

He has protected me for years. He gave me the keys to his basement when my own father locked me in the dark. He provided the equipment I needed to build my future. I owe him my absolute loyalty.

"I understand," I reply, keeping my voice steady and completely devoid of hesitation. "I trust you, Elias. I will never speak your name."

He releases my wrist, sinking back into his wooden chair. He lets out a long, shuddering exhale, running a shaking hand over his face.

"Why?" I ask quietly. "What happened at that institute?"

Elias picks up his glass of cheap cooking wine. He downs the liquid in a single, desperate swallow. He sets the empty glass down on the table, staring at the spicy chicken remaining in his bowl.

"You will find out soon enough once you enroll," Elias mutters, his voice heavy with an old, rotting exhaustion. He looks up at me, his eyes dead and hollow. "Just remember what you promised. Keep our relationship completely confidential. Your life might depend on it."