Ollie happily picked up his fork and took a big bite, only for the saltiness to almost kill him. Eyes watering, he instinctively grabbed the bottle of water and took a gulp, forgetting it was still piping hot. His face twisted through a series of expressions. He wanted to spit it out, but couldn’t, and forced himself to swallow it.

Having wisely anticipated potential disaster, Mark only took a couple of cautious bites of oatmeal before commenting, “The oatmeal is not bad.”

“Bowen, I know you’re loaded, but that doesn’t mean you have to use the entire salt supply!” Ollie spluttered, his tongue numb from both the scalding heat and overwhelming saltiness. He gulped down several glasses of water before finally catching his breath.

Bowen frowned thoughtfully, picked up a vegetable, and took a small bite. “The oatmeal needs to cool down,” he muttered. “And [it's] over-salted."

Ollie finally caught on. “Hold up, Bowen, what the hell do you mean? So you’re using me as your guinea pig, huh?”

Bowen shot Ollie a disdainful look. “You just realized?” he retorted, completely unapologetic.

Ollie coughed violently, nearly choking. “Damn it, Bowen! What do you take me for? Your lab rat?”

He didn’t need to think hard to guess who could get Bowen to cook. “Great. So Aubree’s precious, and I’m just chopped liver,” he thought angrily.

He said, “Bowen, keep this up and you won’t have any friends left.”

Turned out, Bowen still had friends after all. After his first failed attempt, he carried the dish back into the kitchen. After two more rounds of tweaking, the new salad finally turned out pretty decent.

Having never known such hardship in his pampered life, Ollie “gloriously” became a permanent resident of the bathroom after eating that oversalted and haphazardly thrown-together vegetable salad.

Mark watched Bowen busying himself in the kitchen and asked, “Did you look into Mrs. Wilson before?”

“Alice, you mean?” Bowen glanced up at him, his manner casual and unhurried.

Mark nodded. “Yeah.”

“What’s up with her?” Bowen asked.

Mark replied, “I nearly finished investigating whether Aubree is the person Alvin’s parents saved before they got killed. I got some childhood photos of Aubree from the orphanage, but they were damaged. I sent them to a restoration service. Once the result comes out, we’ll know if it’s her.

“While I was looking into this, my investigation led me to Alice. Turns out, the information you had checked before wasn’t entirely accurate.”

Bowen hadn’t even had time to think about how Mark had been investigating Aubree when that sentence snagged his attention. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“According to my intel,” Mark said, “after Aubree went missing, Alice did appear troubled for a while, but in reality, she only seemed mildly depressed, nowhere near the intense emotional swings your investigation suggested. It wasn’t until much later that her behavior suddenly changed. That’s when the psychiatric hospital diagnosed her with a stress disorder, and only then was Carmen brought back to the Wilson family.”

“I think this should help you. I wanted to dig deeper, but that’s as far as I could get.”

Bowen’s eyelids twitched. “You’re saying Alice faked her mental illness, probably just to bring Carmen back to the Wilson family!”

“I didn’t say that.” Mark shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Oh, by the way, Bowen, are you planning to call Nina back?”

If it were Ollie, he probably wouldn’t have picked up on the subtext.

Chapter 199

But Bowen chuckled with a hint of amusement. “What are you scheming now?”

“Come on, don’t put it like that. Doesn’t what I told you about Alice mean you owe me one? Just let her stay with me for a few more months, right?” Mark said.

Bowen said, “Well, that depends on whether Nina is willing to keep doing this.”

Mark curled his lip, cursing under his breath, “Sly old fox…”

Upon receiving the news, Bowen didn’t think about what Mark was up to. He immediately headed back into the kitchen, prepared a fresh batch of oatmeal and vegetable salad, packed them carefully into takeout containers, and set off for Bree Technology.

Lately, Aubree had been heading straight to Bree Technology after her therapy sessions, so Bowen decided to wait for her there.