Gold and cash were the most tangible form of wealth.
Few people could resist their temptation.
After seeing Bobby off, Luke returned to the backyard. “Time to go, Dollar. Wake Selina up.”
Dollar obediently followed him into the house. At Luke’s gesture, it put its head on Selina’s bed and washed her face with saliva.
“Dollar!” Selina shouted angrily.
But a moment later, she was playing happily with the dog.
Standing at the door, Luke said, “Do I have to remind you that breakfast is almost ready?”
After he said that, the person and the dog on the bed both stopped and turned their heads.
“Let’s go, Dollar. Time for breakfast!” Luke whistled and drew Dollar away.
Selina shouted anxiously from her room, “Wait for me! Don’t steal my food!”
A few minutes later, looking at Selina who was wolfing down the food and the old dog that wasn’t eating any slower, Luke knew that things really weren’t right.
Finishing off her food in one go, Selina was still unsatisfied. “Hey, I’m not full yet.”
On the floor, Dollar was already licking an empty food bowl. Luke said, “Wait a bit.” He then fetched the Napoleon cake which he had made that morning from the kitchen for Selina.
Dollar looked at him impatiently on the side.
“Wait a bit for yours. Softer dog food is still better for you.” Luke went to the store room where they kept Dollar’s dog food.
When they came back yesterday, he had bought a huge bag of dog food as well as sheep’s milk from the supermarket.
Even though Dollar looked healthy at the moment, Luke didn’t want anything to happen if it didn’t eat properly.
Dog food softened in sheep’s milk was the perfect choice.
Selina was happily enjoying the Napoleon cake when someone suddenly whispered next to her, “I like him.”
Surprised, she turned her head, but except for Dollar, who was still looking impatiently in Luke’s direction, there was no one else.
Selina was puzzled. “Was I hallucinating?”
That was because the voice sounded a little like hers, but deeper and huskier.
Shaking her head, she continued enjoying her delicious food.
For some reason, she was particularly hungry that morning.
Even though she was eating the Napoleon cake now, her stomach was still gurgling, as if it had become a bottomless pit. In the end, Luke had to drag Selina out the door.
She was still holding the Napoleon cake and hadn’t stopped eating. “I still feel hungry.” Luke had already given her a brief checkup just now.
Everything was normal.
Her vital signs were in the normal range even though she said that she was hungry.
As he drove, Luke said, “All the more reason for us to leave early; you can still go to a restaurant at noon, but we’d run out of Dollar’s sheep’s milk and dog food.”
Selina was too busy eating to reply.
Luke drove straight to a cake shop.
Pulling Selina into the shop, he pointed at the cakes and said, “Pick your favorite.”
Selina pointed at the cakes one by one. “This, this, and this…”
Luke interrupted her. “Don’t even think about it. Choose the one that’ll fill you up the most.”
Selina’s finger promptly skipped over the cute little cakes as she pointed to a shelf at the back. “That one.”
Luke nodded decisively and said to the shop attendant, “That one; please pack the whole thing up for me.”
The attendant was stupefied. “Are you sure?”.
Luke nodded again. “Yes, but please cut it into smaller portions.”
Only then did the attendant sigh in relief; they were probably going to share it with a lot of people.
She was busy for quite a few minutes before the gigantic cake was cut into a dozen pieces and packed into individual paper boxes.
The enormous tiramisu which had been on display just now was more than thirty centimeters in diameter. They had been going to sell it by the slice, but Luke had bought the entire cake.
Leaving the shop with a pile of boxes, Luke didn’t even bother to put them in the car’s mini-fridge. Considering Selina’s appetite today, he didn’t think that the cake could survive until noon.
He checked in with Elsa on his own today to show that he was back at work, and picked up a few cases from the backlog.
Putting two boxes of the tiramisu that he just bought on the table, Luke quickly beat it.
They might have taken five days of leave, but adding in the two weekends, it was almost ten days; Elsa must’ve definitely been under a lot of pressure.
Now that he was back, he had better go out right away and investigate cases; it would be a lot better than seeing Elsa’s sour face.
Looking at a certain person who was still eating, Luke helplessly started up the car and drove home.
Dollar was still sitting in the backseat obediently. It wagged its tail happily when it saw Luke, but its eyes were fixed on the tiramisu in Selina’s hand.
“You can’t eat that, you’re too old,” Luke said casually to Dollar. Dollar’s big head drooped despondently, but its big eyes never left the tiramisu.
Heaving a helpless sigh, Luke drove home.
Instead of working on cases, he had to observe Selina for a while longer. It was better to keep her at home and have her read case files today.
On the way home, he got two bags of the best dog food and a huge amount of sheep’s milk for Dollar from the supermarket.
For a moment, Luke felt depressed; having two gluttons at home was a real headache.
Back home, Luke took Selina to the basement. He had examined Dollar the previous night, and it was now its master’s turn.
After a detailed examination, Luke looked at Selina’s data. It only took him a moment to confirm that there was indeed something wrong with her.
She didn’t have a hidden illness, nor were there any signs of a sudden onset of a severe disease. However, she was unexpectedly suffering mild anemia and malnutrition. Her body fat percentage had also dropped.
Women had a higher body fat percentage than men. The normal range was between 25% and 28%. Selina maintained hers between 15% and 17%, which gave her very distinct muscle lines.
This was something that Luke had always been puzzled about.
While Selina did exercise a lot every day, she ate too much. Logically speaking, there was no way she should be able to maintain that sort of body fat percentage.
Her digestive system was working normally too. She wasn’t the kind of person who never gained weight no matter how much they ate only because their body couldn’t absorb nutrition properly.
So no matter how one looked at it, Selina shouldn’t be experiencing anemia, malnutrition, and a drop in body fat percentage.
She was a glutton; it was very strange that she hadn’t turned into a big fatty from all that surplus nutrition.
Luke could only tell her to lie down and give her a shot.
Selina frowned. “An IV? Seriously?”
Luke adjusted the drip rate for her and said, “You’re now suffering from anemia and malnutrition. Eating won’t help you make up for it in a short period of time.”
Selina: “What?” She thought that Luke had to be kidding
Luke nodded. “I think it’s strange too, but that’s what the test results say. So, be good and stay here until this bag is empty. After that, you can read the case files. We’ll stop training for today.”