Chapter 234

Chapter 234

The priest hurriedly retreated.

In the guest seating area, commotion and murmuring spread through the crowd.

Catherine ignored everyone around her. She turned to Philip, wearing a mocking smile.

"Philip, do you think you've won?"

Philip's heart sank.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is," Catherine pulled out a small voice recorder and several folded papers from a hidden pocket in her wedding dress, "the wedding game is over. Now, it's judgment time."

She pressed the play button on the recorder.

"We must get our hands on the Winters Group's cancer drug formula."

"Don't worry. When have I, Terry, ever let you down?"

"But the chairman of the Winters Group is a tough one to deal with."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?"

"Fine."

Then came James's voice.

"It was my dad. He and Philip planned it together: the Winters family's cancer drug formula. After it's finished, we will split the profits fifty-fifty. My dad said as long as we do it cleanly, there won't be any problems."

The recording was short, but packed with information.

The church instantly erupted!

Philip's face turned deathly pale in an instant.

"You...you knew everything?"

"Yes, I knew everything."

Catherine smiled, but tears rolled down her cheeks.

She unfolded those papers—detailed accounts of Nova Pharmaceuticals conducting profit transfers with Terry through offshore shell companies.

"To get my family's formula, you planned everything. Terry was just a knife in your hand. You used him to eliminate my parents, swallow up the Winters family business, and you reaped all the benefits!"

"You kept me by your side, watching me like a fool, grateful for your fake tenderness. Did that give you a sense of accomplishment?"

"You controlled my life, used my hatred, turned me into your caged bird, a beautiful trophy! Philip, what gives you the right!"

Tears streaming down her face, she poured out years of accumulated pain and the despair of falling in love with her enemy, all in this moment.

Philip completely panicked. He tried to step forward to grab her, to explain.

"Catherine, it's not like that. Let me explain..."

"Explain what? That you didn't mean it? That you only wanted the formula and never meant for my parents to die?"

Catherine stepped back, looking at him with a smirk.

"You had people kill them, you destroyed my family! And now you tell me you love me? Philip, your love is too twisted!"

Her accusation left him speechless. He knew that no matter how he explained, he couldn't change the fact that he had indirectly caused the Winters family tragedy.

He looked at her tear-filled eyes, yet wearing a crazed smile.

At that moment, he finally understood the meaning behind all her strange behavior.

This wedding, from beginning to end, had been a carefully prepared trap for him.

"Philip," Catherine looked at his anguished face and sighed softly, "I hate you so much, but I also...love you with all my life."

"This love makes me sick, makes me wish I were dead. So, let's go to hell together!"

After saying this, she removed what looked like a decorative bracelet from her wrist.

It wasn't a bracelet at all.

It was a small detonator.

As Philip's pupils suddenly contracted, Catherine didn't hesitate and pressed it down.

The scene erupted in screams and chaos.

Time seemed to stretch out in the instant she pressed it.

Philip's brain surged with immense joy when he heard Catherine say "love you with all my life," but the next second, that phrase "go to hell together" threw him violently into an ice cellar.

Love and hate, heaven and hell.

He watched her resolute action, watched the liberating smile on her face. No time to think, not even time to feel his heart breaking.

His body's instinct was faster than any thought.

One second before the explosion's flames lit up, he lunged forward.

A deafening blast.

The dome above the altar instantly collapsed in the explosion.

Huge stones and wooden beams rained down like a storm.

The pain and death Catherine had anticipated didn't come immediately.

Instead, there was a heavy yet warm embrace.

Philip shielded her tightly, using his own body to block all the deadly impacts and falling debris.

In the tremendous explosion and flames, Catherine's mind went blank.

She could feel the body pressing down on her violently shake.

She could smell the acrid smoke mixed with an increasingly strong scent of blood...

A huge beam crashed down. Philip let out a muffled groan and held her even tighter.

Warm liquid dripped onto her face—his blood.

Catherine's eyes stared blankly, looking at the face above her, twisted in severe pain yet still desperately protecting her.

Why?

Why didn't he dodge?

Why...did he save her?

Amid the roaring sounds, she seemed to hear him whisper something unclear in her ear, using his last bit of strength.

The voice was too soft, drowned out by the explosion, inaudible.

It might have been "I'm sorry."

Or it might have been "live on."

Then, the weight pressing on her suddenly grew heavier.

He stopped moving.

He used his life to give her the most absurd and cruelest ending.

She had won.

And lost completely.

When rescue workers arrived, the scene was already in ruins.

They spent great effort to find Catherine, who had been tightly shielded beneath Philip under layers of collapsed debris.

She was completely unharmed, only unconscious from shock.

But Philip had indeed lost consciousness, his back mangled and bloody.

On the verge of death.

After Philip was sent to the hospital, they worked to save him for seventy-two hours.

In the end, his life was saved.

But due to severe brain trauma and serious spinal damage, he became a vegetable.The day after he fell, Cecil, together with capital tycoons, launched an unprecedented financial attack on Nova Pharmaceuticals.

Leaderless, Nova Pharmaceuticals, beset by internal and external troubles, retreated steadily, its stock price plummeting.

Half a month later, Cecil completed the acquisition of Nova Pharmaceuticals' core business.

The Foster family, which had once stood at the pinnacle of commerce, invincible, collapsed.

Catherine had gotten her revenge.

But her face never showed even a trace of a smile again.

One year later.

In the VIP hospital room, it was so quiet that only the regular beeping of machines could be heard.

Philip lay in the hospital bed, tubes of all kinds attached to his body, maintaining his vital signs.

He slept peacefully, his handsome face showing no expression.

Catherine sat by the bed, skillfully wiping his face and hands with a warm towel.

She looked at his peaceful sleeping face, no longer showing hatred, only confusion.

She muttered to herself.

"You see, you calculated everything, treated everyone as chess pieces, but never calculated that in the end you would protect me so recklessly..."

Her fingers gently brushed over his closed eyes.

"And only this way could you make it so that even my hatred can't be pure."

This was the cruelest revenge.

With his life, he drew a cage she could never escape from.

She simultaneously lost the support of hatred and the possibility of love.

The remaining long years held only endless torment and self-punishment.

Several more years passed.

One dusk, by the beautiful seaside.

Catherine pushed a wheelchair with the sleeping Philip sitting in it.

The sunset's afterglow painted the sky and sea a gentle orange-red, the sea breeze gently blowing through her long hair.

She stopped and just stood there quietly, watching the sunset with him.

Seagulls flew overhead, letting out long, drawn-out calls.

A tear slid from Catherine's hollow eyes, silently dried by the wind.

(The End)