Chapter 286: Nathaniel Sloan’s Dream, The Savior from Back Then

Chapter 286: Chapter 286: Nathaniel Sloan’s Dream, The Savior from Back Then

Zane Grant’s anxiety deepened. "What exactly happened?"

Luke White lowered his head. "Mr. Grant, when we arrived, Mr. Sloan was lying on the ground next to a crashed car. There were bullet holes on the vehicle, but Mrs. Sloan... is nowhere to be found!

"Judging from the traces at the scene, there were quite a few people there. However, there was no blood, so it’s likely she was taken away..."

Zane’s heart skipped a beat. The absence of blood at the scene only proved that Estelle Lockwood wasn’t injured at the time. But she was currently missing. Was she kidnapped? Where could they have taken her? Were these people after Nathaniel, or were they targeting Estelle? And with Nathaniel unconscious and Estelle missing, what would happen to the three children at home?

Zane narrowed his eyes. "Luke, lock down this information for now. With Nathaniel unconscious from the poison and Estelle missing, many people will undoubtedly start making their moves."

Luke, of course, understood the stakes.

"Search for Estelle’s whereabouts in secret, and notify the Kendrick family," Zane ordered.

The Kendrick family was Estelle’s maternal family. They needed to be informed of this incident. With the Kendricks involved, the chances of finding her would increase significantly.

Nathaniel Sloan felt as if he were in a dream. In this dream, he had returned to ten years ago, back to when he was eighteen years old. He had just inherited the charity foundation, received the letter from the previous Mr. Lynch, and learned that Miranda Lancaster was his mother. Then, he unexpectedly fell into a coma.

When he woke up again, he was no longer in Crestfall. Instead, he found himself in the mountains of the Sunkenlands. It seemed the mastermind behind this wanted to leave him to fend for himself and die.

Nathaniel couldn’t help but sneer inwardly. Why leave him to die? If they wanted him dead, why not just kill him directly? It was only later, when he discovered that the poisoner was Old Mr. Lancaster, that he understood. It wasn’t that the old man didn’t want to kill him outright; rather, Old Mr. Lancaster cared too much about his own reputation. If he did the deed himself and was discovered, there would be endless trouble.

At that time, he clearly knew he had been poisoned. First, he felt extremely sensitive to both cold and heat, and then he completely lost his ability to sense temperature. Next went his sense of smell. The mountains of the Sunkenlands were layered with endless peaks, filled with countless exotic flowers and rare plants. How could there be no floral scent at all? Then went his sense of pain. Even when his calves were cut by sharp blades of grass and bled profusely, Nathaniel didn’t feel the slightest sting.

And finally, his vision... Nathaniel realized he had gone blind. Unable to see anything, he wandered through the mountains like a lost soul.

Perhaps Old Mr. Lancaster leaving him to die slowly in the wild was indeed the greatest revenge against him. But Nathaniel couldn’t understand. What had he done wrong? What had his biological mother, Miranda Lancaster, done wrong?!

As a father and a grandfather, Old Mr. Lancaster ruthlessly harmed his own daughter and grandson, stopping at nothing to eliminate them—he didn’t just want them dead; he wanted them to die in agony!

Before her death, Miranda knew that Nathaniel was her son, yet she couldn’t acknowledge him. In her final moments, could she really not have imagined the kind of life Nathaniel was enduring under Laura Jennings’s care? But she was dying. The official story that she "died of depression" was nothing more than an excuse. Everyone knew exactly whose hands Miranda had died by.

Unable to let go of her son, Miranda passed away burdened with hatred and reluctance. And now, with Nathaniel... Old Mr. Lancaster wanted him to suffer the same fate, tortured by resentment and pain.

Why did it have to be this way?! What did they owe him?!

Unfortunately, Nathaniel could no longer see. Even with his astonishing brilliance, he was powerless in the face of illness and pain. He felt that he probably wouldn’t make it out of these woods alive. Thus, Nathaniel tried everything he could to leave behind clues. Sadly, he didn’t even know if anyone would ever find him after he died.

Just as his sense of hearing was about to fade entirely, he heard a female voice nearby. The voice was crisp and slightly childish, with an innocent charm. Just from listening, one could tell she was a young girl who had been well-protected and deeply doted upon by her family.

The girl called out to someone behind her. Nathaniel listened carefully before finally making out the words.

"Grandpa, someone fainted over here!"

Nathaniel felt as though his body were no longer under his control, floating lightly in mid-air. He quickly realized—right, he was still dreaming. He knew perfectly well that this was a dream, watching everything from his past unfold before his eyes.

He saw himself being rescued. He couldn’t make out the faces of the grandfather and granddaughter because, at the time, the poison had already rendered him completely blind. He could only rely on his fading hearing to listen to their voices.

"Grandpa, I don’t think he’s injured. It looks like he’s been poisoned. This poison is incredibly potent—not only is he blind, but his skin is even starting to fester."

"So I wasn’t just blind at that time, but disfigured too... Tsk, I must have looked hideous," the floating Nathaniel thought to himself.

Judging from the girl’s voice, she was probably only fifteen or sixteen years old. "With such severe poisoning... should we take him to the hospital? But this place is so remote, an ambulance can’t even get in here. Do you think his enemies dumped him here?"

The grandfather beside her sounded much more composed. "We cannot send this man to the hospital. To think we’d end up saving someone on a trip to the mountains. Since it’s fate, we might as well see this through."

The girl seemed confused. "What do you mean by seeing it through?"

Her grandfather remained silent. After a long while, he finally said, "You said it yourself—he was poisoned by his enemies. If we send him to the hospital, not only is it uncertain whether he’ll survive the trip, but...

"The clothes he’s wearing are exceptionally expensive, and the watch on his wrist is worth a fortune. He clearly looks like a young master from a wealthy family. The ones who poisoned him likely did so because of some wealthy family feud. Making a big fuss about sending him to the hospital would probably end up getting him killed."

The girl nodded. "You make a good point, Grandpa."

She went to brew some medicine. When she returned, carefully holding the bowl of medicine, she saw her grandfather looking at the young man on the bed with eyes full of familiarity and guilt. Thus, she asked, "Grandpa, what’s wrong?"

Her grandfather turned around abruptly. "It’s nothing. Seeing him just suddenly reminded me of an old friend. I treated that child like my own daughter. It’s a pity she passed away far too young. This young boy looks a bit like her."

The girl was speechless. So, how exactly did her grandfather manage to look at a completely disfigured face and say they "looked alike"? How could he possibly tell?!

Nathaniel experienced his return to ten years ago through this dream. He suddenly felt that the things he hadn’t quite figured out back then were finally starting to make sense.

Did this elderly man know him? But there was no such old man in his memories. And he had said that Nathaniel "looked like" an old friend of his...

The old man said he treated that friend like his own daughter. Furthermore, this old man was the grandfather of the young girl, who appeared to be only about two years younger than Nathaniel himself. Therefore, it could be deduced that the age of this "old friend" was roughly the same as that of Nathaniel’s parents.

He had found it baffling before, but now, a theory was forming in his mind.

Why did the old man go to such great lengths to save him? Why did he look at him with such sorrow? Why did he say Nathaniel resembled an old friend?

The person this old man knew probably wasn’t Nathaniel, but rather Nathaniel’s mother, Miranda Lancaster!

When Miranda used the alias Mr. Lynch, she did indeed have a friend across generations—Estelle Lockwood’s grandfather!