Everyone Can Hear My Thoughts, and Now They're Panicking

Jasper Sterling lowered his gaze and sipped his tea. ’So that’s how it is,’ he thought.

Jane Lancaster said, "Oh, since we all ended up at the same table, I’d say it’s fate. Why don’t we all leave together?"

Alan Wallace was a little confused and hesitant.

Jasper Sterling put down his teacup. "Mr. Wallace, why not stay a bit longer? Wait for Mr. Hughes to get things confirmed before you go."

Alan Wallace froze. ’Is he telling Ronald Hughes to get it done right now?’

Of course, that was exactly what he wanted, but wasn’t this a bit rude? It was like he was rushing the man to help him.

Ronald Hughes also had mixed feelings. He had agreed to help, but he certainly wasn’t going to be proactive about it. He’d probably contact his connections in Solara in a couple of days when he had the time.

Now that he was being pushed, he had no choice but to get up and hurry out.

He needed to think carefully about how to bring this up and ask the other party to make the arrangements without fail.

——

After hearing his sister’s thoughts, Alvin Lancaster thought, ’Thank God I came with her!’

Apparently, a vicious dog was going to attack someone tonight, but for some unknown reason, Luna Morgan—the one who was supposed to show up and save them—was stuck in a hospital room.

That mother and daughter could have been saved, but now their chances looked slim.

’Is that why my sister is stepping up to save them herself? But she’s just a young girl. How could she possibly handle a vicious dog?’

’My sister is being so reckless! How could she do this? Doesn’t she trust me, her older brother?’

Alvin Lancaster was extremely anxious, feeling like he was on pins and needles.

Thinking about the impending fight with the vicious dog, he felt an urgent need to find a suitable weapon.

Henry Hughes rushed in, and seeing the state Alvin was in, he paused. "Alvin, you don’t look so good."

"Ah, right, right, right, I have a stomachache. I need to go to the bathroom." Alvin Lancaster shot up from his chair. "Henry, can you show me the way?"

Henry Hughes said, "...Oh, okay."

As it happened, he had something he wanted to say to Alvin anyway.

「Over ten minutes ago, after the Lancaster siblings, Alvin and Jane, had left.」

Jean Hughes bent over and picked up Reggie, who had pounced on him with his front paws up. He sat on the sofa and began to gently stroke the dog’s fur, over and over.

Jim Jenson suddenly kicked a dog toy with all his might. "Fucking bitch!"

Henry Hughes jumped in fright and edged closer to Jean Hughes, looking scared.

Jean Hughes looked up at him. "Are you making a scene in my house?"

Jim Jenson was panting with rage. "She’s the reason my old man exiled me abroad for all those years! She’s lucky I haven’t killed her already. What gives her the right to be so damn arrogant?"

"I’ve put up with her for long enough. Back then, she had Caleb Lowell backing her. What is she now?"

If it hadn’t been for Caleb Lowell, he never would have put up with it for so long.

Jean Hughes’s fingers paused, and he said thoughtfully, "Actually, I’m starting to feel like backing her up myself. You are not to touch her."

Jim Jenson was stunned. "Young Master Hughes, you like her? Have you forgotten how vicious she is? How old was she back then? She killed your dog! That little husky!"

Jean Hughes’s face fell. "Alright, don’t say another word."

Squeezed too tightly in his grip, Reggie let out a painful YELP and sprang away.

"Let the past be the past." Jean Hughes pulled Reggie back into his arms, comforting him gently.

In the end, Jim Jenson didn’t dare say anything more. But once he was out the door, he viciously kicked a nearby tree trunk right in front of Henry Hughes.

"Has Young Master Hughes lost his mind? How could he be charmed by Jane Lancaster?"

He had waited so long for Jane Lancaster to finally lose her backing, only for Jean Hughes to take an interest in her in the blink of an eye. And he seemed very interested, at that.

Jim Jenson sneered. "No wonder she came running over today. So it was to seduce Young Master Hughes. That little bitch. If I’d known, I would have killed her back then."

Henry Hughes, ever the timid one, said, "What are you thinking of doing? Don’t do anything crazy!"

His heart pounded with fear; he had a bad feeling that Jim was about to start something.

’In that case,’ he thought, ’I’d better give Alvin Lancaster a warning as soon as possible.’

Alvin had grown up now, and his business was flourishing. He was no longer the skinny, bumpkin kid everyone used to look down on.

Henry Hughes made up his mind. It would be much better to befriend someone like Alvin Lancaster from now on.

——

Henry Hughes led Alvin Lancaster to his room.

He chose his words carefully before speaking. "Alvin, you should be careful of Jim Jenson. I’m afraid he’s not up to any good..."

"I know," Alvin Lancaster said, scanning the room.

"What are you looking for?" Henry Hughes asked, puzzled.

Alvin Lancaster’s gaze returned to him. "Do you have a knife I can borrow?"

A vague image flashed through his mind. "A big one," he specified. "Like a long watermelon knife, not a small paring knife."

Henry Hughes looked at him with a complicated expression.

He lowered his voice. "Are you thinking about Prince?"

When Jean Hughes first came to Stratton, the Hughes family, worried he’d be bored, gave him a husky to keep him company.

Huskies are supposed to look like wolves, majestic and imposing, but this particular dog’s intelligence was questionable. It seemed to get dumber as it grew, and it loved nothing more than to roll around in the mud all day.

In the beginning, Henry Hughes, Jim Jenson, and a few other boys took turns walking the dog. But they eventually lost interest in the "stupid dog" and gradually started letting it roam free.

Even Jean Hughes only played with the dog for a bit with a frisbee when he got bored of studying.

When the dog died, everyone was shocked and surprised, but the most heartbroken one was, without a doubt, Alvin Lancaster.

He spent more time with that dog than anyone else.

"Prince?" Alvin Lancaster felt as though his mind had been struck by lightning, and a flood of images flashed before his eyes.

He saw the husky sprinting with wild abandon, rolling on the grass, and being kicked away while being cursed as a traitor.

’Why was it called a traitor?’ Alvin Lancaster remembered. ’It was... because of me.’

Because he hadn’t crawled on the ground and barked like a dog for their amusement as usual, they had pinned him to the floor.

The boy leading the group had even put a foot on his leg, saying he’d "help" him act like a dog.

Prince had come tearing in from a distance, viciously sinking his teeth into that boy’s calf, and was then kicked away.

"So all of you ganged up to bully me when we were kids," Alvin Lancaster said, his voice ice-cold.

"...You remember it all? I’m sorry." Henry Hughes was embarrassed. "We were just kids, we didn’t know any better..."

"’Not knowing any better’ is no excuse!" Alvin Lancaster said, his voice rising with agitation.

Henry Hughes stared at him in stunned silence, apparently not expecting him to care so much.

Alvin Lancaster felt like a hole had been torn in his heart, with a cold wind RUSHING through it.

’So I had experienced such vicious bullying, and yet I’d completely forgotten it all. I even tried to be friends with this group.’

That’s right. Back then, I really thought they were my friends.

He had just been brought back to the city then. He couldn’t tag along after his big brother every day anymore, because his brother had to learn how to manage the company from their father.

He couldn’t follow his younger brother, either, because his brother was so smart he’d been sent to an elite tutoring program.

His father paid him no mind, no one did. Only Jim Jenson had invited him to hang out, saying they should be friends.

But he didn’t know that "making friends" meant debasing and demeaning himself for everyone’s amusement. It meant barking and crawling like a dog, and sometimes, when his "friends" were in a bad mood, he had to let them kick him a few times.