Chapter 100 - The Pool (2/2)

Halia sat down on one of the sun lounges and gasped in amazement as she looked at the view.

”You're really lucky today,” Emerson said as he sat down beside her. ”Hong Kong can get quite smoggy, but the view is clear today.”

Halia turned to Emerson with a smile, ”Thank you for bringing me here.”

Emerson looked at the woman's smile and felt his heart race. It had been 12 years since he last saw her, but she was as beautiful as he remembered, if not more.

At that moment, Halia's smile suddenly disappeared as she looked at something just above his head. Emerson looked up and noticed a branch from a tree.

”Is that a plum blossom tree?” Halia asked. It was hard to tell since it wasn't the season for the tree to bloom (it was just a bare tree with branches) but, Halia felt like she had seen it before.

”Yes,” Emerson replied. ”Do you remember it? You tried to pick a blossom off it before and fell into the pool. I wasn't allowed near the pool unsupervised after that incident.”

Halia looked at the man in confusion as she glanced back at the pool. There was obviously a fair distance between the pool and the tree, how did she fall in?

”We rebuilt the pool a few years back and moved it closer to the edge of the cliff,” Emerson explained. ”The old pool use to sit right under this tree. I think you were 12 or 13 then.”

Halia looked up again. She then scanned her eyes around the garden and finally recognized the place. No wonder she felt a sense of deja vu. A lot had changed since she last came here. Not just the pool, but a lot of the landscaping had been redone.

”That's right, I came here before,” she exclaimed. ”This place has changed a lot.”

”I had a fear of water after I almost drowned that time,” she laughed. ”My father even forced me to take swimming lessons to overcome it. Gradually, I learned how to swim and put the incident behind me. But, every now and then, I still had nightmares about that day. I remember struggling to breathe and everything going dark but I couldn't pinpoint the location of where it happened. So, it was here...” Halia said in amazement as memories started flooding back.

At that moment, she suddenly paused and looked at Emerson, ”Do you remember who saved me that day?”