Jenny Parker: "Damn it, I'm only sixty-eight, still very young, okay! How could I possibly die so early!"

Compared to how she couldn't relax in front of her husband, Alice Grant instantly found her old sense of familiarity with her best friend Jenny Parker. "Jenny, you're already so old..."

Jenny Parker laughed and cried at the same time, squeezing in a reply, "Isn't that nonsense? It's been forty years, how could I not be old? But you, you still look the same, exactly like when you suddenly disappeared back then."

Alice Grant was a little worried her friend might faint from crying at her age, so she asked, "You're not sick, are you? Don't cry so hard you pass out."

Jenny Parker: "...I have a bit of diabetes..."

Alice Grant quickly said, "Then you'd better stop crying."

Jenny Parker exchanged a glance with her overly youthful friend, and suddenly burst out laughing through her tears, still vaguely the same vain and sentimental friend from back then.

She cried so hard she blew a snot bubble.

Alice Grant handed her a tissue, but Jenny Parker wasn't embarrassed at all. She grabbed Alice Grant's hand, "I got a message from Brian Carter yesterday morning, so I rushed back from abroad. My husband came with me. I actually wanted to bring my two sons and my grandkids too, but they're busy with work and couldn't get away, and I couldn't wait, so I came first."

"Did you know, when Brian Carter told me you were back, I was completely stunned. I thought he was lying to me." As Jenny Parker spoke, she started bawling again, her makeup running down her face.

Alice Grant: "...Seriously? You were in such a hurry to see me and you still put on makeup?"

Chapter 5

Alice Grant had so many questions she wanted to ask. She had come forty years into the future, and almost everything around her had changed. But because there was so much she wanted to ask, she didn't know where to start. She had wondered where her best friend Jenny Parker was now, and for a moment almost asked Brian Carter, but then realized that Jenny Parker and Brian Carter were never close; their only connection was her. With her gone, and forty years having passed, it was very likely Brian Carter had long since lost touch with Jenny Parker.

Thinking this, she hesitated, but didn't expect that Brian Carter had already quietly contacted Jenny Parker, and that this long-lost friend actually still remembered her and rushed back to see her so quickly.

Alice Grant sat on the bed and chatted with Jenny Parker for a long time. It was mostly Jenny Parker talking about her life over the years, with Alice Grant occasionally chiming in. The two of them joked around, drifting off topic, almost forgetting the time.

It wasn't until Alice Grant felt hungry that they finally paused the conversation. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, getting ready to go downstairs and fill her stomach.

While Alice Grant was washing her face in the bathroom, Jenny Parker was still chattering at the door about her precious granddaughter. "Look at her photo, isn't she cute? She's thirteen now, can dance, plays the piano pretty well too. And this one, that's my little grandson, only three, chubby as can be..."

Alice Grant thought to herself, My best friend is already a grandma. She couldn't help but feel a bit melancholy.

When they went downstairs, Alice Grant saw a chubby old man sitting next to Brian Carter. She nudged Jenny Parker and whispered, "Is that your old man?"

"Yeah." Jenny Parker immediately understood the hidden meaning in her words, covered her mouth and whispered, "Don't be fooled by his size now, he only got fat in middle age. When he was young, he was a real looker, great figure too."

Alice Grant: No wonder. With Jenny Parker's vain personality, if she was going to get married, of course she'd pick a handsome guy.

The chubby, elderly handsome man was very friendly. He greeted Alice Grant with a smile, and the first thing he said was, "I've heard Jenny talk about you for years. It's an honor to finally meet you today. My surname is Xu, my name is David Reed."

Alice Grant: "Pfft." Got it. He must have been a smooth talker when he was young, otherwise how could he have won over Jenny Parker?

While she was eating breakfast, Jenny Parker sat beside her, showing her old photos she had saved, mostly wedding photos. "You weren't there when I got married. That's the biggest regret of my life. So now I have to show you the photos." As Jenny Parker spoke, she pulled up the photos one by one for her to see. Grandpa David Reed stood beside his wife, occasionally chiming in with a comment or two. It was obvious the two of them had a great relationship.

Alice Grant looked at her best friend in a wedding dress in the photos, listened to her chattering away, and as she listened, she started to zone out. She couldn't help glancing at Brian Carter beside her. He was quietly listening too, not saying a word, who knows what he was thinking.

"We dated for several years, but Jenny just wouldn't agree to have a wedding. We dragged it out until she was thirty-five. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me, that she wasn't satisfied, so she wouldn't marry me. Later I found out, she wanted to wait until she found you before having the wedding. She said if her best friend wasn't there, the wedding would always be a regret." Old Mr. David Reed said with a sigh.

Jenny Parker's eyes turned red. "We made a deal, when I got married you were supposed to be my bridesmaid. Since you weren't there, I didn't have a bridesmaid at my wedding, and I left the spot empty for you."

Alice Grant didn't want her to cry again, afraid something might really happen to her, so she forced back her own tears and smiled as she asked Grandpa David Reed, "So how did you finally manage to win over our Jenny?"