Chapter 673 Finding the Culprit
"Alright, I'll bake you a cake right now. Let's keep it simple tonight and save the fancy stuff for tomorrow, okay?" Calliope finally gave in.
Lila nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
Drugging Emily wouldn't take long, just a minute or two, which was plenty of time.
Once Calliope left, Lila went back to bug Christopher. "Hey, Christopher, remember Emily's doll? The little cat one she used to love?"
"Yeah, I remember," Christopher said, thinking back.
He, Oscar, and Pearl had been out together and passed by a toy store. He'd picked out that doll for Emily himself.
He knew she'd love it, and sure enough, once they brought it home, Emily couldn't put it down.
"The doll's hanging on the upstairs balcony. Why don't you bring it down? Emily might sleep better with it," Lila suggested.
She seemed so thoughtful about Emily now.
No one would suspect that behind that sweet exterior was a scheming mind.
Christopher had no clue that leaving Emily alone would spell trouble. He trusted Lila. "I'll go get it now."
As he turned and ran up the stairs, Lila moved the cushion on the sofa, pulled out her bag, and quickly found the vial of medicine.
She uncorked it and walked step by step towards Emily.
Emily had been asleep, but she woke up suddenly at the noise and started crying loudly. Lila quickly covered her mouth.
"Stop crying! Every time you cry, you bring everyone over," Lila snapped, getting more annoyed.
She raised the vial, ready to pour the liquid into Emily's mouth as fast as she could.
But Pearl was quicker. She grabbed Lila's arm and demanded coldly, "What are you doing?"
"I...I wasn't doing anything," Lila stammered, startled, and her hand covering Emily's mouth loosened.
Emily took a deep breath and cried even harder.
Pearl didn't have time to comfort Emily. She yanked the vial from Lila's hand. "What is this? If I hadn't come over, were you planning to pour this into her mouth?"
Lila reached out to grab the vial, but as a small child, she couldn't reach it even if she jumped.
So she started crying loudly, trying to dodge Pearl's scolding.
The sound of two kids crying pierced through the kitchen door. Oscar quickly turned off the gas stove and rushed out, not even bothering to take off his apron.
Seeing the scene before him, he was confused. "Pearl, what's going on?"
Why was Lila crying non-stop, and why was Pearl so angry, clutching a small bottle?
He knew Pearl well. She was never one to lose her temper easily, and she especially loved kids. Given Lila's sad background, she wouldn't be so harsh unless Lila had done something really bad."You should ask her what's in this bottle,"
Pearl said, handing it to Oscar. "If I hadn't come over in time, she would've poured this into Emily's mouth!"
Pearl shivered as she spoke.
She had considered every possibility, even suspecting that a bad person had infiltrated their home to harm Emily while they were away.
But she had never suspected Lila.
And it turned out that Lila had almost killed Emily.
"What?" Oscar was equally incredulous.
But the evidence was right there in his hand, which was undeniable.
Christopher's reaction was even stronger than the adults'.
He rushed down the stairs with the doll and pushed Lila hard, knocking her to the ground.
Lila's hand scraped against the floor, breaking the skin, and she cried out in pain.
"How can you still cry? Emily is suffering more than you. She's so small, with several tubes in her body, all because of you. Why did you do this?" Christopher couldn't understand.
Their family treated her so well.
Even if there were some imperfections, she didn't need to repay kindness with malice and harm Emily.
Lila said nothing, just hugged her knees and buried her head, crying non-stop.
Seeing her like this, Pearl was filled with anger but had no way to vent it.
If an adult had harmed Emily, she and Oscar would have made them pay.
But the perpetrator was a child, who was a recently orphaned child with no one to care for her.
"Wait, where did you get this medicine? Your father is dead, your mother doesn't want you, and you have no place to stay. How could you get this?" Pearl suddenly realized the key point.
This could only mean one thing: from the beginning, Lila had been deceiving them. The fire, the stampede, it was all orchestrated to push her into their lives.
They had fallen into the trap step by step, bringing her home, almost costing Emily's life.
Lila continued to cry with her head down.
Seeing her like this, Oscar clenched his fists, his eyes filled with rage.
He grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up. "If you don't talk, I'll send you to prison. You'll never see the sunlight again, and you'll be suffered forever!"
These words brought back memories of Lila's past.
When she was first captured by bad people, she lived a miserable life, crying every day until she almost lost her breath, but no one came to save her.
And she didn't want to live like that anymore!
At her age, Lila didn't know about juvenile protection laws or that prison wasn't that scary. So, in extreme fear, she confessed everything, "Someone ordered me to do it. They told me to put the medicine in the water. If I didn't, I'd never see my family again. I had no choice."
"So you decided to hurt Emily?" Christopher's eyes were red with anger.
Lila's encounter with bad people was pitiful, but it didn't justify her doing things for them. Her actions now were no different from those of the bad people.
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