chapter762

Luke gently held Lydia back. "I'm really fine here.

Lydia turned to look at him. "You have three options. Stay in the school dorm, let me find you a new place, or transfer to another school. It's up to you."

At first, Lydia had wanted Luke to live on campus. The final year of middle school was intense, and living at school would have made things easier for him. But Luke didn't want that. He said he'd rather find his own place off-campus. Lydia hadn't forced him. She'd been busy with military training and hadn't had a chance to check on him.

Now that she was here, she could see things weren't going well.

She hadn't expected Luke to run into anyone from Lakeview Town at his new school. She could already guess the rumors about him had been spreading. She couldn't even imagine what he'd had to put up with these past two weeks.

In just that short time, Luke seemed even quieter than before. Lydia was worried he might be on the verge of a breakdown again.

After a long pause, Luke finally said, "I'm not transferring. I didn't do anything wrong."

Lydia nodded, totally supporting him. "Exactly, it's their fault, not yours. For now, just come home with me. We'll figure out where you'll live tomorrow."

Luke nodded. "Alright."

Connor was about to call Aiden to ask the kitchen to make extra food for Lydia and Luke that night, but Lydia stopped him. "Not your place tonight. We're going to mine."

At first, Connor was confused. He thought she meant the Norwood family home, but that place was always crowded and Lucinda was there, which just made things worse. So he asked, "You mean the Norwood house?"

Lydia raised her eyebrows just a little. "No, come with me."

Connor was surprised. So she had her own place in the Capital and hadn't told him all this time?

Actually, Lydia had places in a bunch of cities, even overseas. She was just really low profile about it, so barely anyone knew.

They biked for about twenty or thirty minutes, ending up at Golden Imperial Mansions, right in the heart of the Capital's business district. It's the most expensive spot in the city.

Funny enough, the whole area belonged to the Jefferson Group Connor had even made sure one of the villas was kept for himself, just in case. He never expected Lydia's place would be here too.

They stopped in front of Villa 9 and Connor glanced at the empty Villa 8 next door.

So he and Lydia were neighbors?

Lydia didn't notice the look on his face. She barely stayed here herself, only using the villa when she had business in the Capital.

The outer gate had a regular lock, but the main doors inside had an iris recognition system. Lydia stood in front of it, and a robotic voice chimed, Iris recognized. Welcome home."

As soon as the doors opened, a round, snow-white robot rolled over to greet them. It had a little antenna on its head and looked adorably chubby.

When it saw Lydia, it squealed with excitement, "Lydia's home! Lydia's home! Marshmellow is so happy!"

Connor and Luke stared in surprise. They definitely weren't expecting something so cute in Lydia's house.

Lydia bent down and patted its head. "Be good and bring us two glasses of water."

"Okay!" Marshmellow replied in a sweet, childish voice and happily rolled off to get drinks for Connor and Luke.

Luke was amazed. He'd seen plenty of robots before-tech was really advanced these days-but most of them felt stiff and lifeless. This little round guy seemed lively and full of personality, like actually understood what people said.