Chapter 314 The Number You Dialed Is Not in Service
When William left the hospital, night was falling.
Benjamin stood by the window, looking down at the courtyard on the first floor.
The daytime bustle had given way to a bleak, cold silence.
Tree shadows stretched across the benches.
The bright streetlights stood there, but there was not a single soul beneath them.
He had been standing there ever since William left.
He was like a stone, and Benjamin truly wished he could become one.
The news William had brought him was too much, too heavy.
As a father, Benjamin couldn't run away, couldn't keep pretending to be unconscious, acting as if nothing had happened.
He spent the whole day sorting through his thoughts, trying to pull himself together.
It wasn't until the nurse came to check on the patients and saw that lonely figure standing by the window that she said quietly,
"Patient in room 406, it's time to sleep."
Benjamin acted as if he hadn't heard her and kept standing there.
But the nurse remembered the director's instructions and quietly closed the door.
Two weeks can change a lot of things.
With William's wealth, if he wanted to change something, he didn't need two weeks; one minute would be enough.
Everyone in the hospital, from the director to the doctors to every nurse, had received Dylan's warning.
First: keep your distance from Benjamin.
Second: don't talk to him about anything unrelated to his medical condition.
No one dared disobey these two orders.
The nurse had only gone in out of professional habit, after glancing through the doorway and seeing that the patient wasn't resting.
But she regretted it the moment she spoke.
Because she suddenly remembered that this room's number was 406.
With the director and head nurse's instructions, she could only quietly leave.
Benjamin stood by the window all night.
When the morning sunlight broke through the darkness, the red sunrise bathed him in its glow.
Benjamin slowly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes showing no trace of fatigue.
He looked at the red sunrise, took a deep breath, and then sat on the bed to wait for the caregiver to arrive.
Originally, William had ordered the caregiver to watch over him twenty-four hours a day.
But after Benjamin woke up, William changed the instructions.
The caregiver only needed to show up during the day.
As for the payment he'd been promised, after two weeks, he would get every penny.
Last night, the caregiver had also received Dylan's warning.
The same two rules: keep your distance from Benjamin, and don't talk to him about anything unrelated to his health.
But Dylan had added one more for him.
Keep everything as normal as possible, and don't let Benjamin notice anything wrong.
This morning, the caregiver brought him a simple breakfast: a sandwich and a glass of milk.
Benjamin didn't touch a single bite. He just watched the caregiver finish his own portion, then slowly spoke.
"Can I borrow your phone?"
"I want to make a few calls."
The caregiver froze. He looked at Benjamin's desolate eyes.
Instinctively, he reached for his pocket.
But remembering Dylan's warning, his hand stopped.
Then, looking at Benjamin, he stammered,
"That's not really convenient."
"I forgot to charge it last night."
"It's only at five percent now. If I give it to you..."
Benjamin glanced at the bulge in his pocket. He nodded, then said,
"Why don't you go borrow a charger, then?"
"If you're worried about the phone bill, I'll pay you back later."
He patted his own pockets as he spoke, but the hospital gown pockets were empty.
His phone and documents had been put away by Isla after the accident.
Finding nothing valuable in his pockets, Benjamin could only look up at the caregiver again in disappointment.
"I promise I won't use your phone for nothing."
"I have money..."
"Mr. Tudor... It's not about the money." The caregiver hesitated, interrupting Benjamin.
"It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just really not in a position to help."
Benjamin didn't understand why borrowing a phone had to be so difficult.
But seeing the caregiver's troubled expression, he didn't push further.
He just walked out of the room alone, then stood in the hospital's long corridor, asking everyone he saw if he could borrow their phone.
He was refused more than a dozen times in a row.
Nurses told him they were too busy, and other patients pretended not to hear him and just walked away.
Benjamin stood in the middle of the corridor, watching all kinds of people pass by, suddenly feeling like he'd been abandoned by the whole world.
"I just want to make a phone call."
"Please, someone, anyone, kind enough to lend me a phone?"
Benjamin knelt on the ground, pleading again and again with the people passing by.
But everyone who passed him avoided him like the plague, staying far away and not daring to come close.
Yet their eyes kept staring at him, as if they were watching a crazy person.
Benjamin didn't care about those looks, didn't care whether his behavior was undignified.
He really wanted to make a phone call.
He didn't believe Isla would really leave him.
Finally, the hospital director saw him, walked over from a distance, took his phone from his pocket, and handed it to Benjamin.
"When you had the accident, most of your personal belongings were damaged."
"I sympathize with what you've been through."
"Mr. Tudor, please stand up. A grown man shouldn't kneel over something like this."
Benjamin's nose stung. Looking at the director, he wanted nothing more than to kneel and knock his head on the ground to express his gratitude.
But the director had already helped him up, then pulled him over to stand by the wall to avoid blocking others.
The director dared to do this because he had already asked Dylan for permission.
When Dylan learned that Benjamin wanted to make a call and was even begging people everywhere,
Dylan asked William for instructions.
William told him, "Let him call, but I want to know what is said."
So the director appeared.
Benjamin said several more words of thanks, then took the phone and dialed Isla's number.
His memory wasn't great.
But he remembered every phone number in the family clearly.
Including those of Isla, Beatrice, Isabella, and even Juniper.
Benjamin entered Isla's phone number.
"Hello, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please verify and dial again..."
The mechanical, cold-synthesized voice came through the speaker.
Benjamin thought he'd dialed the wrong number.
He rechecked the number in the call log, carefully verifying each digit.
There was no mistake; his brain hadn't been damaged in the crash.
It was this number. He couldn't have remembered it wrong.
He thought maybe the signal had been bad earlier and there had been an error.
So he dialed again.
"Hello, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please verify and dial again..."
The same familiar mechanical voice, without a trace of human emotion.
Benjamin stood there in a daze, not knowing what to say for a moment.
The director watched all of this but didn't interfere.
He just glanced at the surveillance camera in the hallway, then went on observing Benjamin.