And so, on the first day of autumn, Arthur, supported by his butler, visited the family plot at the cemetery. Unexpectedly, he found someone bowing before a grave in what seemed like penitence. The figure was— Arthur's eyesight was poor, so he asked the butler to look. "It appears to be a woman," the butler said, squinting. "And there's a child beside her. Oh, that looks like—" "Like who?" Arthur pressed. The butler didn't dare lie. "Looks like the child from the recent scandal online—Mr. Jethro Blackwood's illegitimate son." Arthur immediately knew who it was. His face turned to stone. "Of course she should be here to pay respects," he said with icy sarcasm. "If it weren't for her greedy father, our family wouldn't have suffered such a tragedy! I wouldn't have had to bury his own sons!" Having finished her prayers, Annie patted the boy's head. When she turned around, her eyes met Arthur's. Annie froze, panic washing over her. "Gran—" She almost used her old form of address but stopped herself, lowering her eyes instead. "Mr. Blackwood." Arthur gave a cold snort, his gaze sweeping over her before landing sharply on the child beside her. For just a moment, his stern expression softened. This kid's face? Total Jethro clone! He looked just like little Jethro, no two ways about it. While Arthur was studying Jett, the boy was also curiously looking at Arthur. Then, he blurted out, "Great-grandpa!"Arthur was momentarily stunned. But there was no disgust or rejection in his reaction. More a kind of flustered surprise at hearing the childish voice. Annie quickly covered Jett's mouth. "Don't say that! I'm so sorry. I didn't teach him properly." Arthur waved a dismissive hand, then looked at Jett with a gentler expression. "What's his name?" "Jett Roby," Annie said. Arthur gave a slow nod but said nothing more. "We won't disturb you any longer, Mr. Blackwood. We'll be going now," Annie said, her head still bowed. Arthur stepped aside to let them pass. His gaze lingered on the little boy's retreating figure. A long while later, he sighed quietly to the butler. "Anyway, the child carries Blackwood blood."The butler was taken aback, considering his words carefully before replying, "You're right." At the base of the hill, Annie crouched down in front of Jett and ruffled his hair. From her purse, she pulled out a lollipop, smiling, "Jett, you did very well just now. This is your reward." Jett's eyes lit up. He'd discovered the lollipops here were much better than the ones overseas—not too sweet. "Thank you, Ms. Roby!" he replied politely. Annie stroked his cheek lovingly. "You don't have to call me 'Ms. Roby' anymore. You can call me 'Mommy'." Huh? Call her Mommy? Jett tilted his head, confused. Before coming to Aethelburg, someone had told him that in front of people, he should call Annie "Mommy," but in private, he should call her "Ms. Roby." He'd been following that rule very carefully all these days.Annie's nose tingled, and tears threatened to fall. She leaned her forehead against his. "Jett, we're going to succeed. I know it. After this, we'll never be apart again." Jett didn't really understand what "succeed" meant. He reached out a chubby little hand and wiped the tear from the corner of her eye. For as long as he could remember, he'd seen Annie every week at the children's home. In his heart, he'd already thought of her as his mom. Oh, he forgot to tell Annie—he was actually really happy he could call her "Mommy" out loud now. Mommy—what a warm word. Darcy and her team had been pulling all-nighters recently. Thankfully, their hard work paid off. News finally came from the FinTech Innovation Challenge committee. "Congratulations to Stratagem Tech for making it into the Top 10 of this year's competition. This notice is issued in encouragement."Darcy immediately forwarded the notice to the team group chat. The office erupted. "Wow! Top 10! We're one step closer to that three million dollars!" Before the competition, Darcy had promised that if they won the championship, the prize money would be split evenly among all participating team members. Once they did the math, everyone's eyes lit up. The whole team, excluding Darcy and Zephyr, who had both declined a share, had nine members. That was over 300 thousand dollars each. Holy smokes, that's way better than any annual bonus! The motivation was instant. Now, with victory in sight, just two more weeks of effort stood between them and that money landing in their bank accounts. It was the ultimate goal!They rallied and agreed to volunteer two extra hours a day over the next two weeks to fine-tune the AI model. Seeing this, Zephyr shook his head and texted Darcy, "You sure know how to work them—happy to put in extra hours." Darcy smirked as she typed her reply, "Money talks. No shame in that." Two weeks later, on the day of the competition finals, Darcy went over her product presentation one last time, made a few final tweaks, took a deep breath, and shut down her laptop. "I'm ready. Let's head out." Zephyr uncrossed his long legs and strolled out, easy as ever. Any project Darcy personally led always had an air of effortless competence that made his job easier.