Love Began with the First Meeting

Maggie shut her eyes and held her breath out of instinct. All around her the landscape went silent again, cold and stuffy air permeating her nostrils. Suddenly, gunshots cracked into the air again, as loud as thunder, and her prickled skin relaxed, telling her that she wasn't dead. She squinted her eyes open in confusion to find herself surrounded by several men pointing their guns at the killers. Before any of the killers who had pointed their guns at her could react, one by one, bodies started dropping on the floor like lifeless bags of flesh and blood. The man who had pointed a gun at her moments ago was now falling to the ground. The leader of these killers, upon realizing that the situation was going south, quickly rushed towards Maggie, intending to take her hostage. Unfortunately, he had underestimated Maggie, who was in fact, not as weak as she looked.

She grabbed the part of the leader's hand between the thumb and the index finger and exerted strength with her wrist, quickly turning him around into a chokehold. With one arm out, the hapless soldier was quickly disarmed, then dispatched by a chop across his neck. Maggie had done all this in one breath. As a result, the man who had attempted to take her as hostage had turned into a hostage himself.

"Stop! Don't move!" Maggie threatened, looking at the other killers with an unfaltering determination. "If anybody moves, I will kill him!" Their leader's gun was now in her hands. A quick look into her bloodshot eyes with their dilated pupils confirmed her resolve. She wouldn't hesitate to draw blood if it came to that.

When the men looked at one another, not knowing what to do, they all turned to their leader, who was hinting at them with his eyes. Immediately, everybody knew what he meant. Unfortunately, before they were able to act, all of them were shot to death one by one by the group of men just in the nick of time.

The sight of so many human lives withering away in the blink of an eye shocked Maggie, even though she knew that they all deserved death. Gritting her teeth to restrain her emotions, she watched a man walk towards her. The man cast a glance at her and then squatted to look at Edgar. "Bring him to hospital," he ordered his men.

Several other men more than willingly obliged and brought in a stretcher for Edgar. The man then turned to face the leader and gestured at his subordinates with his hands. Without hesitation, two men came in and pulled the leader away from Maggie's grip. "Who are you?" Maggie asked, looking up to the man's face in puzzlement, "Is Uncle Three going to be okay?"

"Uncle Three?" The man looked confused, and then he lowered his head and chuckled, "The name suits him right." His slow smile widened into a broad grin that crinkled the sun-wizened features of his face, "Did you give him that nickname?"

On the alert, Maggie locked her gaze on the man, while she took a step backwards. She started to assess her surroundings and how she would deal with the situation at hand if the man turned out to be the enemy. "Who on earth are you?" she asked again. As she took another step backwards, her foot touched Edgar and the moment she looked at him, a sharp pain shot up through her heart.

The man noticed her agony as he looked at Edgar as well and said, "He's not going to die. And I'm not your enemy." After saying that, he turned to his men and ordered, "Be careful with him. Have somebody clear this place."

Dawn had arrived just then. The sun peeked over the mountains, each blade of grass already feeling the soft warming rays. Fortunately there weren't any civilians in the area. The fight lasted for a short period of time, even though it felt like centuries to Maggie. "I want to be with Uncle Three," Maggie said while gazing at the man with eyes wide open.

The man responded to her with a simple nod of the head. Maggie got in the Humvee and sat in the back seat, resting Edgar's head on her lap as they drove away leaving behind several men to clear the scene. It was not until now that she realized that they hadn't appeared by accident. As a matter of fact, they had been on standby in a nearby location. When they found out that she had completed her mission, they came over to provide assistance.

"I'm guessing Mr. Brian Long sent you here?" Maggie asked the man sitting in the front passenger seat.

Without turning his head around, the man casually answered, "Yes." After taking a short pause, he continued, "Mr. Brian Long figured that you two would not be enough to handle the mission, so he arranged for some people to help." "Then what took you so long?" Maggie didn't hold back her anger.

The man didn't mind. He only took a slight glance at Edgar and said, "If you had acted more quickly by one or two minutes, this would not have happened."

He sighed, and then explained considerately, "Don't worry. He's got Lady Luck on his side. Fortunately, his bullet-proof vest took out most of the impact from the bullets. He's going to be in a lot of pain when he wakes up, but he's going to make it." 'Are you a doctor? How can you be so sure whether he's going to make it or not?' Maggie rolled her eyes at him and remained silent the rest of the way. She excused his harsh response because she knew that she was the one who attacked him first.

The vehicle ran at a high speed and soon arrived at the private hospital of Dragon Empire Group, where they had the best medical equipment and the best medical personnel in the entire country. In just a few minutes, a medical team came together as doctors along with paramedics took up their stations and wheeled Edgar into the operation theatre. Nurses and doctors ran in and out, while Maggie tried to maintain quiet in the waiting area.

All of sudden, she heard footsteps echoing from the other end of the corridor. Maggie raised her weary eyes to look to the direction of the sound and saw Brian and Molly striding over towards her with a middle-aged man in a doctor's coat. Maggie couldn't restrain her emotions as her eyes glazed over at the sight of them. She was blaming herself. Perhaps the man who had rescued them was right by saying that Edgar would not have gotten injured if she had acted a little more quickly. Molly grasped her hands and consoled her. "Don't worry. We have the best medical staff in there. We've inquired about Edgar's condition. He will be all right!" After taking a short pause, she took a slight glance at the operation room and said, "You must have gone through hell. Get some rest first and let the doctors do their job. Okay?" Maggie hesitated, shaking her head in refusal. Molly looked at her assuringly and said, "Edgar will need somebody to take good care of him after the operation. If you're not well-rested, how are you going to look after him?"

Maggie stood there without a response. She knew that Molly was right, but she didn't want to leave Edgar.

Judging from the expressions on her face, Molly was able to guess what she was thinking. Taking Maggie's hand into hers, she pulled her towards the ward while saying, "Set your heart at ease. He is going to be fine." Taking a pause, she pushed open the door of a ward and pushed Maggie onto the bed. "The one and only thing you have to do at the moment is to get a few hours of sleep so that you will be able to take care of him later."0000