A Call That Changed Her Entire Life

"How can you be so stubborn? Emily really cares about you. She's just too proud; or else she would not have asked me to call
you inside. She's afraid that you'll get sick in the rain..."
Said Debby, when suddenly Jack sneezed loudly, "Ahchoo!"
Debby sympathized, as if she were speaking to her own son, "See? You've already caught a cold. Go and take a hot bath, and
I'll boil some ginger soup for you to dispel the cold."
Jack nodded politely and said, "Thank you, Mrs. Bai. But I would like to see Emily first..."
"You kids! I can feel that you really love Emily..."
Emily happened to see this when she walked out of her room.
Jack stood inside her house, pale-faced. He was soaking wet; his wet hair stuck to his head in an unkept manner and the water
dripped from his clothes to the floor. Jack looked like he had just been fished out of the water.
While Emily's father and mother stood side by side and welcomed him in warmly.
"Mom, why did you bring him in?"
Debby winked at her and said, "Emily, it was you who asked me to bring Jacky in, right?
Emily sneered, "Ha, you're already calling him 'Jacky' now?"
Emily never thought that her own mother could be so double-faced. Out of sympathy, she asked her mother to bring Jack an
umbrella, but to her surprise, she went so far as to bring him in.
"Emily......" Jack looked at Emily with his deep, charcoal black eyes. His eyes were shining.
For some reason, he reminded Emily of the abandoned dogs she used to see near the dustbin when she was a child. Jack
looked at her with the same puppy dog eyes, as if begging her to hold and caress him.
'Stop!'
Emily hurriedly interrupted her thoughts and returned to her room. "Bam", she shut the door behind her.

Jack's eyes were filled with disappointment, to which Debby hurriedly said, "This child is still at odds with you. Anyway, don't just
stand there. You are wet all over. Go and get a hot bath."
Indeed, It was uncomfortable to have wet clothes on. Hearing this, Jack dragged his soaking body to the bathroom.
Besides, since he was already in Emily's home, he set aside his worries and decided to take it easy.
While Jack was taking a bath, and Emily's parents were busy elsewhere, Emily slipped out of the house with an umbrella and her
suitcase.
After a nice hot bath, Jack came out in Emily's father's new clothes. He started to feel warmer after a nice cup of hot ginger soup.
Soon after, he quickly went and knocked on Emily's bedroom door. He knocked for a long time, but there was no response. He
grew suspicious, so he turned the doorknob, and found it unlocked.
Jack opened the door and went in carefully. His smile froze when he found out that there was no one in the room. "Where is
Emily?"
"Emily!"
Jack looked everywhere in her room. The noise he made soon drew Emily's parents in.
"This, this... Where is Emily?" Emily's father furrowed his eye-brows and shrugged, "How should I know where Emily is?" Jack
glanced at Emily's father coldly. The politeness and courtesy he had exhibited when entering their house had suddenly
disappeared. With raging fire in his eyes, Jack said, "Weren't you outside Emily's room? How could you not see her get out of
her room?"
The storm outside raged on relentlessly... Did she hate being in the same house with him?
Nonplussed, Emily's parents looked at each other. Neither of them dared to utter a word.
Jack ignored them both and rushed out without an umbrella in a hurry.
As soon as he had left, Emily's father locked the door. Immediately, his eyes fell upon the big bag which Jack had brought with
him when Emily's mother invited him in.
"At least, we've got the money."

Emily's parents promptly unsealed the bag to check the money. The bag was waterproof so the money inside the bag was
unaffected by the rain.
They looked at each other, and smiled greedily.
......
Jack spent the entire night searching for Emily, but he couldn't find her. By then, Jacob already noticed that Jack had left D City.
Jack couldn't stay in Haicheng City any longer, so he returned in haste.
Emily didn't know what happened later on. She rushed to the airport upon daybreak, and headed to the last destination of her
business trip, Yunshi City, to meet two of her colleagues.
She put all her attention to her work. That was the only way she knew to cope with all the problems and worries in her head.
A week later, the business trip had come to an end.
Emily's two colleagues decided to stay for another day before returning home, which was fine with Emily. Although they said that
they needed the extra day to have a rest, they persuaded Emily to go shopping with them.
While being serenaded by the musical fountain in the square, the three of them felt the ground shaking violently.
"Earthquake! It's an earthquake!" Someone shouted from the crowd, which immediately triggered a wave of panic.
Emily was comparatively calm as she ran towards the open space with her two panic-stricken colleagues. When she looked
back, she saw a little boy, about three or four years old, standing not so far away, motionless and stunned, as if fear had gripped
him firmly.
Right next to the boy was a stone statue, teetering, as if it would fall on him at any moment.
Despite the dissuasion of her colleagues, Emily rushed to the child without hesitation and pulled him to the side, just before the
statue fell down.
"Bang!" The statue fell down and broke into pieces.
The little boy finally burst out in tears, but Emily had no time to comfort him, for at that moment, all she could do was to bring the
child to a safe place first.

From the beginning until the end, the whole earthquake lasted for merely ten more seconds, and by then the shopping mall in the
square had collapsed to ruins. Seeing the devastation around them, the people that had narrowly escaped were still shaken up.
When the boy's mother found them, she couldn't restrain herself from crying, relieved by the fact that her son was safe and
sound.
Emily and her colleagues quickly began to console the mother and the son, even though they were still in shock themselves. The
mother stopped crying and holding her child firmly while repeating her gratitude.
"Emily, you are really brave!" Sue, her colleague, raised her thumb to Emily in appreciation.
Sue thought to herself, 'If it were up to me, I would have never been able to move at such speed with such courage and
boldness to save others.'
However, Emily was a little distracted. She smiled and said, "That's nothing."
At that critical moment, she didn't have much time to think. She acted out of instinct hoping that the boy wouldn't get hurt. In
retrospect, she didn't even know where the explosive force had come from at that moment.
The damage caused by earthquake in Yunshi City was colossal. The traffic had paralyzed half the city. After a brief discussion
amongst themselves, Emily and her two colleagues decided to stay and do their part in the rescue.
What she didn't know was that when the news of earthquake came to Jingshi City, Jacob was in his office, as his usual
emotionless facial expression changed suddenly and he even snapped his pen without knowing it.