Chapter 4 An Astounding Beauty

• After a bath, Ben lay down on the only bed in the room. He was so exhausted that it barely took him a minute to fall asleep.
• He slept soundly until nine o'clock the following morning. Since he usually rested in the morning, he had nothing much to do during this time.
• Thus, he washed up and had some toast for breakfast before calling the number the BMW woman gave him last night. Five hundred was a considerable sum to him, and he needed the money to repair his tricycle and replace damaged equipment.
• The call connected after a few beeping tones.
• "Hello." A woman's voice sounded from the other end. Ben recognized the voice and knew she was the BMW woman from last night.
• "Good morning, madam. I'm the person you knocked down last night. The one with a barbeque stall." Ben went straight to the matter.
• "Good morning, I… I'm in the middle of something at the hospital and cannot leave yet. Can I meet with you this afternoon or tonight?"
• Ben considered and replied, "I have to work at my stall in the afternoon and evening. I'm not free then. What about this? You tell me the name of the hospital and the room number. I'll meet you there."
• "Sure, that's fine too. Sorry for the trouble. I'll reimburse your costs for traveling here." Then, the woman informed Ben of the hospital's name and the room number.
• After hanging up, Ben went to the rack and took down his drying coat to search for the woman's ring in its pocket. However, he was dumbfounded after searching all over the coat twice. The ring was nowhere to be found.
• "Oh god, please stop kidding me. I can't afford to lose it."
• Ben began to panic and searched all over his shirt. He remembered he had put the ring in his shirt pocket, but he could not find it anywhere in his shirt. Then, he searched his pants pocket, his whole room, and even the tricycle parked outside.
• "Oh no. I'm doomed." Ben sat dazed on his bed and smoked a cigarette. He had searched everywhere and still could not find the ring.
• "I must have dropped it while saving the person trapped in the fire. That must be it." Ben recalled what he did last night and immediately ran out of his room. He ran all the way to the apartment that was burning last night. However, he was dismayed as soon as he arrived. There was no longer an apartment but a heap of burnt rubble. The old apartment could not withstand the fire and collapse in the end.
• Ben looked at the burnt rubble and slumped onto the ground. He took out another cigarette, sat beside the flower bed, and stared blankly at the rubble. He remained stunned for a long time and smoked one cigarette after another.
• "Oh god, are you trying to ruin me?" Ben mumbled to himself.
• Then, he gritted his teeth, stood up, and walked toward the bus stop.
• In the end, Ben came to the hospital the BMW woman had told him about and headed to the patient's room she specified.
• The door was opened, so Ben could see many people gathered in the room. There were a few doctors, nurses, a middle-aged woman, and the BMW woman. They stood around the bed and were in the midst of a discussion.
• It was Ben's first time seeing the BMW woman's face clearly. He could only vaguely see her face shape and figure last night, and it was too dark to see her facial features. When he saw her face, he could not help but be mesmerized. Beautiful! She is gorgeous! Ben could not help but gulp.
• He had been living in London, an international city, for a few years. Thus, he had seen many beautiful women, but none were as beautiful as this woman before him.
• The BMW woman wore a simple but professional skirt suit that nicely outlined her lovely curves. The suit jacket not only revealed her figure but further accentuated it. She was simply flawless. Although many other women also wore a similar style of the skirt suit, none could appear as elegant and dignified as her.
• The woman was quite young. Ben estimated that she could not have been more than thirty years old and was likely around twenty-eight years old. However, she had an air of maturity about her. Her cold and strict demeanor gave him the impression of a powerful president of a company.
• Ben was so in awe of her beauty for the first time that he found it hard to breathe.
• Since the doctors and nurses were there, Ben felt it was not the right time for him to enter the room. Thus, he stood outside and waited. Once the doctors and nurses left, he finally knocked on the door to alert them of his presence.
• Only the BMW woman and a middle-aged woman were left in the room. After knocking on the door, he walked into the room and noticed a little girl lying on the sick bed. She had equipment measuring her vitals next to her. She also wore oxygen tubes below her nostrils and had her wrist attached to a drip.
• It seems the woman wasn't lying. She was rushing because her daughter had been hospitalized. Ben thought to himself.
• "You're here. Let's talk outside." The BMW woman noticed Ben entering and spoke to him calmly. Then, she walked toward the door to head out, and Ben followed her.
• They had just reached the door when the little girl said, "Daddy, don't leave."
• The BMW woman turned around in panic and looked at her daughter.
• Meanwhile, Ben looked around the room curiously and saw no man.
• "Daddy, it's you, right? Daddy, have you come to see me?" The little girl sat up on her bed and looked expectantly at Ben with her large round eyes.
• Ben glanced left and right before pointing to himself and asking the pretty little girl, "Are… Are you talking to me?"
• "Daddy, I knew you would return to see me. You won't abandon me, right?" The little girl's eyes welled up with tears as she looked at Ben. They looked so pitiful that they melted Ben's heart.