Chapter 599 Bidding Goodbye

• Michael had done his research beforehand—Tanya remarried to the head of the Clark Family and assumed the identity of an expat who had just returned to the country. Quinton had been 16 years old when that happened. The Clarks didn’t know about the relationship between the two of them, and Hope changed his name to Quinton, turning himself into a son of the Clark Family after Tanya married the family head. Until today, the Clarks were still unaware of Tanya and Quinton’s actual identities. When the two of them disappeared together, the Clarks assumed that they had been kidnapped by Phantom Wolf. Yet, they received only a single urn of ashes when two people had gone missing.
• Quinton’s funeral was hosted on a warm, sunny day in the middle of spring. A good number of students and lecturers from Bayside University attended the funeral. In their eyes, Quinton was nothing more than a typical man and an outstanding teacher; he was a noble soldier who had sacrificed himself for the sake of his own students. The last status he had posted on his social media was: ‘The world is huge; I just want to step out and take a look.’ He wanted to travel the world, yet he decided to settle as a supporting teacher in the mountains. He once said, “Humans are the highest form of animals; we often seek for greater pleasures once our stomachs are full. Some of us crave for physical pleasures while others seek for spiritual awakenings; to each its own dream.” For the sake of saving his own student, Quinton volunteered to be held hostage and eventually sacrificed his own life. Naturally, Jackson mourned the death of his stepson whom he had treated like his own child. “Although Quinton isn’t my own child, I’ve always treated him as mine. He once told me to make sure that his funeral was done on a sunny day if he passed away. He said that those who attended the funeral were all people who cared about him, and he wanted these people to feel a little better with the sun shining on them.”
• Standing in the middle of a weeping crowd, Sophia was oddly calm as she found herself zoning out while glancing at a photo of Quinton. When the funeral had ended and everyone was leaving, she came back to her senses and realized that her entire face was soaked with tears. Perhaps this man, the one who insisted on having his funeral on a sunny day, was the actual Quinton Clark. Perhaps there was a hint of beauty hidden within his dark, evil spirit. He wasn’t born with much of a choice but to taint his soul with darkness for the sake of keeping himself alive, but deep down, there seemed to be a part of him who hadn’t given up on the tiny ray of light that he had tried his best to protect. After the funeral ended, only Quinton’s clothes were buried at the tombstone. His young face, as seen on the tombstone at the newly dug grave in the cemetery, carried a mix of desolation and helplessness. Jackson gave it a long, thoughtful stare before he left quietly.