The Retired CEO's Guide To Being Spoiled-Chapter 188: The Silence of the Stars

Inside the car, his field of vision had been restricted, framing only the brilliant, artificial blaze of Saint Lawrence City below. But out here, under the open dome of the heavens, the night was vast and all-consuming. It wrapped around him, immense and ancient. Julian tilted his head back, his eyes widening as he took in the spectacle above.

He felt infinitesimally small. If the city below was a sea of golden, man-made light, prosperous, noisy, and suffocating in its frantic energy, then the sky above was a primordial universe, silent, eternal, and achingly beautiful.

The atmosphere at this altitude was exceptionally clear, far removed from the smog and light pollution that choked the metropolis. The sky was a canopy of the deepest, velvety black, scattered recklessly with millions of diamond shards. Stars glittered with a cold, piercing brilliance. Some stood alone, proud and solitary in their luminosity, while others clustered together in misty, ethereal nebulas that stretched across the zenith like a ribbon of spilled silver milk, painting the galaxy in strokes of pale light.

Julian took a deep, greedy breath. The frigid air rushed into his lungs, sharp and purifying. It felt as though the clean oxygen was scrubbing away the heavy, muddy residue of sadness that had clogged his chest all evening. The tightness in his heart began to unravel, replaced by a sense of awe.

"Do you feel any better?"

Ethan’s voice came from beside him. The man was leaning casually against the side of the car, his arms crossed over his chest, watching Julian’s profile rather than the stars.

Julian pursed his lips, instinctively trying to salvage a shred of his dignity. He turned his head away, feigning nonchalance: "I was never not fine to begin with."

Ethan chuckled, a low sound that vibrated in the quiet air: "Still stubborn. The little painted cat cries his eyes out and then insists he is tough."

Julian did not reply verbally. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and shot Ethan a glare filled with accusation. His expression clearly communicated his grievance, you explicitly promised you wouldn’t laugh at me for crying, yet here you are, bringing it up again.

Seeing that vivid, lively expression return to Julian’s face, so different from the hollow, tear-streaked look of earlier, Ethan laughed openly. The sound echoed pleasantly amidst the silent mountains. Suddenly, without warning, Ethan moved. He reached out and, with shocking ease, lifted Julian off the ground as if he weighed no more than a child.

"Ah!" Julian gasped, instinctively grabbing Ethan’s shoulders for balance.

Ethan deposited him gently onto the hood of the car. The engine beneath was still warm, radiating a comforting heat through the metal against Julian’s legs. Ethan then stepped in close, placing his hands on the hood on either side of Julian’s hips, effectively trapping him within the circle of his powerful arms. He leaned in, his face level with Julian’s, his expression turning serious.

"Tell me, are you truly letting Dahlia Thorne’s words weigh on your mind?" Ethan asked, his gaze searching Julian’s eyes: "Julian, you must understand something. That woman... right now, she is nothing more than a cornered beast. She is a fanatic who has reached the end of her rope, snapping and biting at anyone within reach in a desperate attempt to drag them down with her. Why should you burden your heart with the ravings of a madwoman?"

Julian looked at him, then sighed softly, the sound dissipating into the wind: "I am not taking her words to heart," he admitted quietly. He leaned back, resting his spine against the slanted windshield of the car, and shifted his gaze away from Ethan’s intense stare to look back up at the distant, glittering stars. "I... I was just thinking. Wandering thoughts, mostly."

"Hmm?" Ethan prompted gently, not moving from his position: "Thinking about what?"

Julian remained silent for a long moment, watching a star twinkle in the distance. The question had been gnawing at him, born from a confusion of identity. He was Julian, yet he was not the Julian who had lived through the history these people knew.

"Ethan." Julian whispered, his voice barely audible over the wind: "If... if back then, I really hadn’t survived... if I had died... would you have been heartbroken?"

In truth, Julian did not know why he needed the answer so badly. Perhaps it was because the person standing before Ethan now and the person from the past were two different souls inhabiting the same body. Was he asking this question on behalf of the original owner of this body, the tragic figure who had suffered so much? Or was he asking for himself, the soul currently residing here, standing in this position, entwined in this complex contract? Julian himself was not entirely sure. He was simply curious.

Would Ethan Caldwell, the cold, calculating scion of the Caldwell Empire, feel pain for a person he wasn’t even close to? Would he grieve for someone he had never truly met, someone who was merely a "future spouse" on a paper contract?

Julian looked at the man. He suspected that a man as ambitious, rational, and ruthless as Ethan Caldwell would not possess such an excess of compassion. A man like him dealt in assets and liabilities, not sentimentalities for strangers.

And sure enough, the answer came swiftly.

Ethan’s voice cut through the night air, decisive, firm, and without a singular shred of hesitation or hypocritical comfort.

"No. I would not."

"If such a tragedy had truly befallen you back then." Ethan Caldwell began, his voice devoid of false sentimentality, cutting through the crisp mountain air with brutal honesty: "I suppose I would have felt a fleeting sense of pity. I would have regarded it as the unfortunate demise of a poor, luckless child who simply lacked the strength to survive in this predatory, meat-eating world."

He paused, his dark eyes reflecting the cold, distant starlight, mirroring the harsh reality of his words: "But, Julian, you must understand... this upper echelon of society is littered with such tragic figures. Broken porcelain dolls and discarded pawns are not a rarity here. I cannot possibly spare a piece of my heart to mourn for every single one of them."