Chapter 411: Looking for Someone

Brandon Jacobs hadn’t turned off his phone, nor was he hiding. He had gone looking for someone.

Elsa’s sudden death not long ago had dealt him a huge blow.

He suffered from insomnia every day. He couldn’t eat or sleep properly, his mind completely filled with the sound of her voice and her smiling face.

The pain was heart-wrenching. He had never suffered such a devastating blow; he even felt the urge to follow her in death.

To make matters worse, his parents didn’t understand and chose that very moment to force him into a marriage.

Unable to bear their pestering, Brandon Jacobs simply left Veridia.

Back when Elsa was still alive, they were once lying in bed chatting. He had asked her where she liked to go when she traveled, and Elsa had said the seaside.

She loved to swim, to dive, to be in the ocean. The clear water gave her a sense of serene, boundless peace, allowing her to quiet her mind.

And so, Brandon Jacobs came to Seacliff.

Seacliff was beautiful, but being unable to share such a lovely view with the person he loved was a special kind of torture.

Instead of improving, his emotional state only worsened.

Just then, a diving instructor making sales rounds at the hotel caught his attention.

Bored and looking for a distraction, Brandon Jacobs started taking diving lessons.

He kept at it for more than half a month.

Having something to keep him busy, a small goal to work toward each day, seemed to bring a little bit of interest back into his life.

He treated it like a real class, arriving for practice punctually every day.

One day, as he was waiting at a red light, a familiar figure suddenly caught his eye.

So tall and slender, with an air that was so refined, so cool.

’Elsa?!’

As if in a trance, he drove his car, following the figure all the way to the fashion wholesale market.

This was Seacliff’s largest wholesale clothing market. Retailers from all over the country came here to stock up, so the foot traffic was immense.

The woman rode an electric scooter to the entrance of the market, parked it, and went inside.

Brandon Jacobs swerved to the side of the road, about to follow her in, but a security guard stopped him.

"No parking here! There’s a lot over there, and one underground. Move it!"

By the time Brandon Jacobs returned after parking his car, she was nowhere to be found.

The fashion market wasn’t massive, but it wasn’t small either, spanning a total of six floors.

It was a chaotic jumble with no clear organization. Shops for children’s, men’s, and women’s clothing were scattered everywhere.

In front of every womenswear shop—but not the ones for children or men—was a round, foot-high platform. On top stood one, two, or even three or four models, displaying the latest styles for the retailers who had come to buy inventory.

A dense crowd of men and women was squeezed in front of each platform.

’With her figure and presence, she must be a model here.’

Brandon Jacobs forced himself to be patient, meticulously searching one shop after another.

But after searching from the first floor all the way to the sixth, looking at countless faces until his vision blurred, he still hadn’t seen her.

Then it dawned on him. ’Who’s to say she’s a model? Maybe she’s a shop owner!’

So, Brandon Jacobs started his search again, this time going from the sixth floor back down, entering every single shop along the way.

He finally spotted her on the third floor.

She was indeed a model, busy on the platform changing from one outfit to the next. He must have missed her earlier because of the thick crowd.

From that moment on, Brandon Jacobs was like a man possessed, his eyes fixed on her, unable to look away.

In truth, they didn’t look very much alike.

Aside from being tall and thin like Elsa and sharing that same cool temperament, their facial features were completely different.

Having grown up abroad, Elsa’s aesthetic was very Western.

Big eyes, a high nose bridge, full lips, and dark, arched brows. That, combined with her fluent English, made her look a lot like Anne Hathaway—a cold kind of beautiful.

But this woman was unequivocally Chinese.

She had long, straight black hair and skin as white as snow. It was hard to tell if she wore any makeup; her overall look was completely natural. Though she also had large eyes and a high-bridged nose, her mouth was small and delicate—an understated sort of coldness.

Two different kinds of coldness, two completely different feelings, yet this woman still had Brandon Jacobs utterly captivated.

Because from the back, she still looked so much like Elsa.

Brandon Jacobs missed Elsa so terribly that even knowing the person before him wasn’t her, he could stand there and watch her fixedly for hours on end.

People came and went, but Brandon Jacobs just leaned against a wall, staring at the model until her shift ended. He stared so intently that she eventually noticed.

He was too tall and handsome, standing head and shoulders above the crowd of retailers. After he stood there, motionless, for several hours, it would have been difficult not to notice him.

Their eyes met. Brandon Jacobs didn’t look away in the slightest, and the girl was the first to break eye contact.

But her expression showed neither fear nor pleasure. It was calm, as if being stared at by so many people had long since made her numb to it.

Brandon Jacobs stopped going to his diving lessons. Every day, he was the first to arrive at the market and the last to leave, leaning against the same spot, watching her endlessly.

They never spoke a word, but the girl was aware of his presence.

It even became a habit for her; the first thing she did after stepping onto the platform each day was to glance in his direction.

Brandon Jacobs had finally started to find some peace. Then his mother called. His father was seriously ill and had been hospitalized. He had to go back.

Even so, the next morning, as if to say a silent farewell, he went back to the fashion market before leaving for the airport, wanting to see her one last time.

As it happened, when he got there, the girl was being harassed.

It was the same round platform, with the same crowd gathered around, watching her as she constantly changed into new clothes and struck poses for them.

Brandon Jacobs stared at her face with a deep sense of longing, wondering if he would ever return to Seacliff, and if she would still be here when he did. Suddenly, a man in the crowd reached out and groped her leg.

The girl, who had been concentrating on her pose, jumped in fright.

She let out a small cry and shrank back, but no one in the crowd came to her aid. Instead, they erupted in a wave of mocking laughter.

It was as if she weren’t a model, but a clown meant to amuse the masses.

Seeing that his actions had drawn laughter from the crowd, the man felt emboldened.

"Hey, you’re a real looker! Such long, pale legs... C’mere, let me have another feel!"

Another roar of laughter erupted from the crowd.

"What are you hiding for? You stand up there every day in scraps of cloth for us to look at, don’t you? Stop playing innocent! Get over here!"

Unable to endure the man’s harassment or the crowd’s ridicule, the girl’s face went cold. She jumped off the platform and rushed into the shop behind her.

His boarding time was approaching. The story between him and the girl had to end here.

When he returned to Veridia, Faye Fisher had already moved into the Jacobs family home.

His parents were exceedingly pleased with her.

In the days his father had been sick, she had cared for him with the utmost dedication. His parents now ordered Brandon Jacobs to marry her immediately, threatening to disown him if he refused.

Brandon Jacobs had no intention of agreeing, but to his surprise, Faye Fisher came to his room that very night and proposed a fake marriage.

In order to placate his parents, Brandon Jacobs agreed.