The Inheritance - Book 1
Copyright© 2026 by Arise
Chapter 45
Richard felt his heart skip a beat when he heard the cry for help.
He hastily rushed over.
The moat was pretty desolate as there were no parks or anything else nearby.
The woman was crying and she was drenched from head to toe.
When she saw Richard, she almost collapsed to her knees. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Please help save my daughter!”
The woman was beautiful and appeared to be wearing a lot of fine jewelry. It seemed as though she was quite a figure.
She hurriedly pointed at the river and Richard could see a young girl flailing about in the water.
Her daughter had obviously tripped into the water. The woman tried to rescue her daughter but she could only plead desperately for help as she didn’t know how to swim.
Richard watched in horror as the young girl’s body slowly stopped moving and started sinking.
He knew that it would be way too late if he did not act upon it now.
Without thinking twice, he dove into the river at an accelerated speed.
Richard’s family used to live in a village in a small county town. There was a river by the village and Richard learnt how to swim ever since he was a young child.
Fortunately, the water in this moat was not too deep.
Thankfully, the young girl knew some basic swimming skills which made it easier for Richard to save the young girl, but the experience she went through was simply daunting, though without any serious mishaps.
After he carried the young girl up, the child choked a little and her face was flushed red.
Her mother was so distressed and she kept patting her back gently. She kept thanking Richard profusely.
“Call 120 first!”
“Yes, the child is too young. Oh! What kind of mother are you? How can you allow your child to come to the water all by herself?”
Several citizens ran over as soon as they heard the commotion.
Some were making phone calls while several older women started criticizing the young mother.
“Don’t accuse my mom. Uncles and aunties, please don’t scold my mom. Tessa is the one who insisted on coming here to release my wishing boat. This has nothing to do with my mom!”
As soon as the young girl heard her mother getting ridiculed, she cried out in defense as she tried to explain herself.
“What an obedient child!”
“Yes, she is really a good young lady. Ma’am, you have to take good care of your child. If this man did not rush over here on time, the consequences would have been disastrous!”
“This young man is quite amazing!”
A few citizens who were standing at the side looked at Richard who was completely drenched, with a look of admiration on their faces.
The mother hurriedly hoisted a weak Tessa over as slowly walked over to Richard.
“Young man, thank you so much. What is your name? Where do you live?”
She asked for his address as she wanted to thank Richard.
It was too obvious for Richard to not know the intention of her query. All he did was save a person. Richard believed that most people would have done the same to save a person in such a situation.
He simply waved it off.
“It’s alright. You should take your daughter to the hospital quickly!”
Richard turned around to leave as he replied.
“Big brother, will I see you again?”
A weak Tessa asked.
She felt as though she was this close to death and was shaken to the core.
But there Richard was, who jumped in to save her without any hesitation at all. This was the sole reason why she wanted to see him again.
“Yes!” Richard did not want to let the young girl down. After smiling at her, he ignored the young mother who was still calling out to him and he left right away.
This was probably one of those once-off encounters anyway.
Richard hurriedly ran back to the side of the road.
By now, more than twenty minutes have already passed.
Mila should have already bought her milk tea a long time ago.
When he got to the side of the road, Mila was nowhere in sight.
Hmm?
Shouldn’t she have already bought the milk tea after such a long time?
He quickly took out his cell phone and glanced at it. It was dripping wet as it had been completely soaked in water. The cell phone had also been turned off.
Could it be that Mila already went back to the car shop since she could not reach him on his cell phone?
Richard went to the milk tea shop and looked around but he could not find her there.
He had no choice but to return to the car shop first, but attempted to switch on his phone before that. Thankfully, it worked.
Wilson suddenly called him at the same time.
He wanted to tell Richard that his car had already been repaired.
It was not difficult to replace all the damaged parts of the car, under the intensive care of a few experienced technicians in less than forty minutes.
“By the way, Mr. Wilson, did the girl who came with me just now return to the car shop?”
“Ahh! No? She didn’t come back here again after she left with you. Is there a problem, Mr. Crawford?
Did something happen? Just let me know if something happened.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wilson. No worries, everything is fine.”
Richard felt a little puzzled after hanging up. This was strange. Where could Mila have gone?
It was impossible for her to go home. She would not have gone home alone just because she could not find him.
She wasn’t anywhere nearby to be found and she was not at the car shop either.
Where could she have gone?
Richard looked around everywhere but he could not find her at all. Plus, his phone had died again.
In just about an hour of searching, he was now drenched in sweat.
Mila came out with him. Could something have happened to her? Richard had already ruled out all of the possibilities and had already been waiting around the area for such a long time.
But he still couldn’t see Mila anywhere at all.
The more he thought about it, the more Richard started to break out in cold sweat.
Richard decided to return to the car shop to see if he could get his cell phone to turn on.
After fiddling with it for a while, he finally managed to turn on his cell phone.
As expected, Mila did indeed make many phone calls and sent many text messages to him.
However, his cell phone had been turned off at that time.
Richard hurriedly returned her call but he realized that Mila’s cell phone was already turned off.
What was happening?
Richard couldn’t remain his composure any longer.
He tried calling Mila’s house but he noticed that she did not go home either.
Something definitely had happened.
Richard suddenly raised his head.
Things seemed to be a little suspicious.
“Mr. Wilson, do you know the manager of the milk tea shop? I want to take a look at the surveillance camera recording! We need to hurry!”
Richard immediately got up.
Wilson stuck by Richard the entire time after he came back to the car shop.
When he realized that Richard’s girlfriend might be in trouble, he was constantly on his toes.
Wilson nodded as he exclaimed that he knew the manager. He quickly led Richard to the milk tea shop.
After looking at the recording of the surveillance camera, Richard starting figuring it out slowly.
Everything happened about two hours ago.
After Mila bought the milk tea and stepped out of the shop, she realized that Richard was gone.
She then hurriedly tried to call Richard but discovered that Richard’s cell phone was turned off.
Mila was very anxious.
She squatted by the roadside as she waited for ten minutes, but Richard did not come back at all.
During those few minutes, a black Passat suddenly stopped right next to Mila.
A young man with a cap stepped out of the car.
“Are you Mila?” the young man asked with a smile.
Mila nodded slightly as she said, “And you are?”
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