<h4>Chapter 369: Chapter 369: My Heart Seemed to Stop Beating</h4>


    Before leaving, Ian Dous’s repeated instructions were something he dared not forget.


    After a brief moment of hesitation, he quickly ran into the forest, following the path that Matthew Saxon had just taken.


    The soil was soaked with water, making the ground slippery and dirty. Every step felt like walking through mud.


    The expensive shoes werepletely covered in mud; the muddy water seeped through the shoe seams and filled the inside with quite a bit of sludge.


    Matthew Saxon wiped the rain off his face and, upon spotting a certain fire pit, swiftly moved toward it.


    "Scarlett Yates." He stood by the fire for a moment, then turned to search around nearby, shouting Scarlett Yates’s name loudly while trudging and searching with difficulty.


    The air seemed to carry a faint scent of blood.


    A very light scent, indistinguishable if one didn’t carefully discern it.


    Strands of the bloody smell were blown by a gust of wind into Matthew Saxon’s nostrils.


    His body stiffened, and his face abruptly changed, and he immediately sped off in the direction from which the wind hade.


    He was moving so urgently and quickly that an entire foot sank into a soft patch of ground, the rain-soaked earth copsing under his weight, enveloping his footpletely.


    As he pulled his foot out from the mud pit, it brought up great clumps of mud, seeming as if a heavy stone was bound to his foot.


    At this moment, he couldn’t afford to worry about anything else.


    No time to clear away the sludge, he continued forward, dragging arge mass of mud along.


    After walking a while longer, the scent of blood became increasingly pronounced.


    The previously uncertain smell now was starkly clear.


    His expression darkened further, his pace quickened urgently, until he reached a deep and dense thicket and came to a halt.


    "Scarlett?" Matthew whispered toward the thicket, his hand hanging by his side clenched into a fist, his rain-washed face slightly pale.


    The thing that had been haunting his mind for so long, the thought he dared not delve into, seemed to be happening right before his eyes.


    For a moment, he didn’t dare to step inside.


    All around was silent, except for the sound of rain and his breathing.


    He parted the bushes obstructing his view.


    In an instant, his face turned ashen white.


    Even long after, Matthew would never forget seeing Scarlett Yates lying lifeless in the mud at that moment; it felt as if all the blood in his body froze, stopping its flow, and a chill ran through his system, from his head to his toe.


    What kind of feeling was this?


    If he were to describe it in detail, it would be beyond the reach of words.


    Yet for the rest of his life, he would never want to experience it again.


    His heartbeat seemed to stop, his body stiff as a block of icy stone.


    As if trapped in a nightmare.


    The scene he least wanted to imagine was urring vividly right before his eyes.


    "Scarlett." He moved his rigid legs forward.


    At that moment, his legs felt like heavy lead, every step requiring immense effort.


    "Scarlett." He squatted down, slowly reaching a hand to touch her nostrils.


    He had considered the worst possible oue.


    But he didn’t want to face it at all; he’d rather it just be a nightmare, no matter how terrible, as nightmares are only dreams, and upon waking, he could return to reality.