PAMPERED BY MY THREE BROTHERS: THE RETURN OF THE NEGLECTED HEIRESS
Chapter 1702: The Zoren they didn’t know

Chapter 1702: The Zoren they didn’t know

In the trance...

The study room of Zoren’s home in Skyline Plaza was quiet and dim. With barely any lights on, the desk lamp cast a soft glow over the files. Zoren stared at Penny’s case files.

He sat there, almost slightly confused.

"This..." he whispered to himself, pressing his lips into a thin line.

As he reached out to Penny’s file, where his profile was clipped to it, a faint, low growl echoed to his ears. He turned, catching sight of his huge black panther idling in the corner of the dim room.

"Renny," he whispered, furrowing his brows as he noticed one of the panther’s eyes was shut.

Instead of checking the case files first, Zoren pushed himself away from the chair. He approached the black panther. Renny stayed idle in the corner, just watching him approach.

The black panther let out a low growl the moment Zoren got too close.

"..." Zoren paused, eyeing it.

After a breath, he squatted down and studied Renny. Earlier, he noticed one of Renny’s eyes shut because only one glowed in the dim space. But now that he was up close, he could see the large scar across Renny’s eye.

Renny had lost one eye.

"What..." he whispered. "... did I do?"

His chest moved heavily as he stared at the panther that stared back at him—not with the same affection as it used to, but rather, it stared back at Zoren with the same distance, like a soldier to his commander.

The longer they stared at each other, the clearer Zoren’s cold reflection was mirrored in its eyes.

Zoren narrowed his eyes at his own reflection until his breathing stopped for a moment.

There, crouching down before Renny, was him. However, it didn’t carry the same worry one might expect. If anything, his own pair of dark eyes were darker and more emotionless.

His own reflection looked back not with care, but more like assessment.

"That’s..." he whispered.

"Renren?"

Suddenly, Zoren heard Penny’s voice. However, it was distant, and he almost couldn’t hear her. Instead, Zoren kept staring at his own reflection through Renny’s eyes, until the different emotions in his eyes merged with those in the panther’s reflection.

"Renren?" Penny’s voice called out again, but this time, it was even more distant. Her voice tried to reach him once more, but this time, he didn’t hear her anymore.

Zoren’s expression grew colder, now fused to relieve the nightmare of a life he had.

"..." He remained silent until he pushed himself up.

Turning on his heel, he walked away from Renny and toward his desk.

Meanwhile, the black panther kept its one eye on Zoren, watching him from there. It didn’t move, nor did it try. It just stared at Zoren and followed his every movement with that single eye.

---

[In reality]

Penny pressed her lips into a thin line, checking the pulse monitor and then looking at Zoren.

Just now, her husband had been panting heavily, as if he had seen something horrifying. He seemed to have panicked, but now, he had calmed down again.

"Renren?" she called again, but he didn’t respond anymore. "Shit."

After a breath, Penny walked away from the chair and picked up the heart monitor device. She scooped it up and brought it next to Zoren. She should’ve done this earlier, and she didn’t know why she didn’t.

Carefully, she pulled up his shirt and placed the electrode on a different location on his chest. She checked the device, but there was nothing. It was normal.

She looked back at Zoren, her brows furrowing.

"Renren?" she called. "Can you still hear me?"

Nothing.

Zoren didn’t answer anymore, but his vitals were all normal. Even his breathing was calm, almost like it was calculated.

Penny leaned back, her brows knitted.

’There’s only one reason why he’s not responding,’ she thought, worry flickering in her eyes as she kept her gaze on him. ’He’s... already in it.’

Not just what they planned for him to take a peek from another perspective. But rather, Zoren was pulled into that memory where he needed to watch everything through his own lens.

In other words, reliving the memory as if it were happening the first time.

---

[Back to Zoren’s Memory...]

Zoren sat down in the chair and moved it closer to the desk. Just as he propped an arm on the edge of the desk, he glanced at the antique clock on it.

It was already past midnight — three in the morning, to be exact.

However, he didn’t budge as he set his eyes on the documents he had asked Mark to compile and send to him. It wasn’t that he felt sleepy. In fact, it had been a full two days since he had a four-hour nap. And he was growing used to this insomnia.

"Penelope Bennet," he whispered, lifting the first page of the profile before his eyes.

The photo Penny had in there was her mugshot. Her eyes were swollen and almost bloodshot, probably from crying.

’She did cry a lot,’ he thought, recalling how she begged and sobbed, the entire nation to believe her. It was almost humiliating just watching it, but he understood.

Not dwelling on it, he picked up a handful of papers and leaned back. Keeping them in one hand, he propped his jaw against his elbow. The first part was just everything about Penelope Bennet: her name, age, information about her, and what she was arrested for.

Nothing special.

The next part was just a paper with police reports about the case, the evidence, the crime, etc. Then, after that, the defense team’s plea and their argument.

Zoren spent just a short hour and a half skimming through the unnecessary parts, focusing on the highlighted ones. In that hour, he had a verdict.

"Penelope Bennet... is not innocent," he whispered, moving over as he placed the handful of papers to the side. "... or so, what the court would conclude."

The evidence against her was strong, and the defense team was incompetent. Thus, he said she was not innocent — or rather, she wouldn’t be in the court of law.

There were more papers to read, but he didn’t bother anymore. He already saw the problem, and he already knew how to fix it. After all, even if the court would deem her guilty once the trial began, Zoren still believed Penny.

That was all that was important for him.

Zoren pulled out the drawer, picked up the phone in there, and leaned back. He dialed a number and placed the phone to his ear, listening to it ring three times before it was picked up.

"Mister Pierson?" a man’s groggy voice was heard.

"Penelope Bennet," Zoren said in his usual cold and distant tone, without indulging in formal greetings at three in the morning. "I want you to pick up the case and get her out of there."

With that, Zoren ended the call as his order was already delivered. He tossed his phone back and leaned back against the chair. Cocking his head back, he closed his eyes.

"Problem solved," he whispered. "And her case made me sleepy."

He kept his eyes closed, his body not moving the slightest to welcome sleep, which had become rare for him nowadays.

Little did Zoren know, the problem had yet to be solved. In fact, the order he had just given to one of his most trusted and competent lawyers in Anteca to pick up the case was just the pin of the grenade being pulled.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.