"Oh co on, Nancy, spill everything out at once! You’re giving a heart attack here!" Joanna felt her chest tightening as she nervously turned to the old woman once more.
"My father may have been a great doctor, but he has rather odd ways. The recipes he concurred up on his own aren’t accepted within us traditional doctors. That’s why I was hesitant in using his thods..." Nancy furrowed her eyebrows, visibly perturbed.
"What is it? What do you an odd? Tell ."
"All my father’s recipes require a special ingredient..." Nancy then whispered into Joanna’s ear, revealing the ingredient to her.
Joanna remained silent for a short while, then responded, "It’s okay. If you need any, then go ahead. I can provide you with it."
"But it’d be harmful to you. Is that heartless man really worth it?"
"He beca this way because of . I’m even willing to sacrifice my life for him, let alone this special ingredient."
"Alright, I understand, you don’t want to owe him anything."
As the two ca to an agreent, they turned all their focus onto nursing Ace’s body.
Ace was oddly ’obedient’ as well, as he consud every single dish Joanna gave.
After about a week, the injuries on his body had healed rather quickly. Moreover, when Nancy checked his pulse the second ti, she no longer looked as solemn as she did before, and grinned happily.
"Mr. Moran’s pulse has finally stabilized, and his blood circulation has improved drastically. Just two more treatnts and we’ll be able to focus on curing his eyes."
Joanna’s eyes lit up, rejoicing. "That’s amazing! Our efforts didn’t go to waste!"
Her voice was soft, as she was obviously quite frail. Her face was as white as a sheet, and there were dark circles around her eyes. Despite all that, her genuine smile was still quite a beautiful sight to behold.
Seeing her state, Nancy felt heartbroken. "Miss Joan, let’s stop using the special ingredient for the next few doses of dicine. Your life might be in danger."
She was starting to regret using her father’s thods. It did help cure the patient at a rapid pace, but... the person providing the special ingredient had to suffer instead.
"If the dicine is working great, then keep using it, or else we’re just going to lose all the progress we made!" Joanna smiled as she turned to the man’s room. "Like you said, I didn’t want to owe him anything. This is my karma, so the more I have to give, the better I can forgive myself."
"Oh and... you must keep this secret ingredient thing just between us. Don’t let him find out, okay?"
"Miss Joan, you may excel in everything, but you’re too much of a hopeless romantic. He doesn’t even rember you now. Even if you do cure him, you’ll just have to watch him marry Miss Murphy later on. It’s simply foolish..."
"Well, you know what they say, ignorance is bliss!" Joanna smiled optimistically.
Ace’s health started improving day by day, and he was slowly growing more comfortable with Joanna as well.
At the ti, the two were enjoying the fresh air in the garden behind the sanatorium. The pavilions and terraces surrounding them made the atmosphere seem quite picturesque.
However, it was a sha that Ace couldn’t see anything, no matter how beautiful the scenery was.
On the other hand, Joanna was lost in her thoughts as she silently gazed at the blooming azaleas. She even found breathing rather exhausting at this point.
"You’ve been acting a little strange lately." Ace, who wasn’t usually all that talkative, suddenly spoke up.
Joanna snapped back to reality and took a deep breath, trying her best to sound energetic. "How so?"
"You’ve been rather quiet lately, like you’ve beco a proper lady," Ace teased lightly. Although he had not spent much ti with the woman, her incessant chattering had long made an impression on him. However, for the past few days, she had been unusually quiet. Most tis, they rely sat together in silence, not saying a word to each other. Her voice was starting to sound quite weak as well, as if she were a willow in the breeze.
’This is odd. Almost too odd!’
"That’s because I am a proper lady," Joanna replied, her voice exceedingly soft.
"Mmm, a proper lady who knows how to fight a bear. Now I’m really curious as to what you look like." Ace smirked, his expression plastered with a hint of affection that he himself didn’t realize just yet.
For so reason, despite having no mories of her, the days he spent with her beca rather natural, as if they had known each other for a long ti. Such comfort and ease made him feel happier than when he was with Seraphina.
If he had stayed initially to find answers, he was now staying with her for absolutely no reason. He simply wanted to follow his heart now.
"Soon, you’ll be able to see what I look like." Joanna stared at the man, who looked much more lively now, and her heart filled with hope.
’This is nice, that confident and dignified man is back.’ She was especially happy to see the loneliness and despair fade from his eyes.
As the warm sunlight enveloped the two, and as the clouds drifted by lightly, they had already spent half their day away.
Suddenly, the woman’s eyelids grew heavy. She didn’t think much of it, and figured she just hadn’t slept well last night.
"I’m going to make so coffee, would you like so?" Joanna stood up from her chair and asked.
"If you’re brewing so yourself, I’d like to have a taste." The man seed more than willing to try, acting as if they were rather close to each other. In fact, he even listed a bunch of requests. "I’m actually quite picky. It’s best if the coffee isn’t hotter than 58 degrees celsius, and I only want two teaspoons of sugar. It should be hand-ground as well, so that it maintains its original flavor..."
"Sure, hold on." Joanna responded, sohow listening to the man’s words with a level of patience she had never shown in the past.
She thought to herself with a smile. ’Oh Ace, you’re still as difficult as ever!’ However, despite not having many culinary talents, after being his wife for so many years, her coffee brewing skills were absolutely unmatched.
Besides that, she had always made coffee with the sa type of coffee beans, the sa temperature, amount of sugar and coarseness in the way he liked. Hence, she was confident that he would be impressed by her coffee once again.
As she arrived at the kitchen in the west wing, Joanna took out a small jar of coffee beans from the drawer. After that, she opened the lid to the coffee grinder and placed so beans inside, grinding them thoroughly.
Unlike an automated machine, this was a manual wooden coffee grinder. Grinding even a single bean would require a lot of strength, but the powder it produced would best preserve the ’original flavor’ that Ace was especially fond of.
Bzz bzz bzz...
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