As Eleanor passed the front desk, a cheerful receptionist quickly asked, "Dr. Sutton, is that your boyfriend? He's so handsome!"

"Yeah, Dr. Sutton, is your boyfriend in the military?" another one chimed in.

Eleanor just smiled at them, not offering an answer.

But in the receptionists' minds, her silence was as good as a confirmation.

Mansfield got into his car, his sharp gaze sweeping over to a black SUV. The same vehicle had followed him to the restaurant, and now it had followed them back to the lab. Something felt off.

Had Eleanor gotten into some kind of trouble? Mansfield frowned, a sense of alarm rising within him.

Eleanor hurried back to her office, put on her lab coat, and pressed the intercom. "Which conference room is Dr. Windsor in?"

"Conference Room Three."

When Eleanor arrived, she found York Windsor, whom she hadn't seen in a while, deep in conversation with Smith. "Mr. Windsor, welcome," she said with a warm greeting.

"I heard about your breakthrough with the blood disorder and thought I'd stop by to chat and catch up," York said.

Smith added with a laugh, "Ellie, you might not know this, but York and I go back more than a decade. Before I joined the lab, York even served as a consultant here!"

Eleanor looked at York in surprise. "Mr. Windsor, you used to work at the doctor's lab?"

York chuckled. "That was a long time ago. Back then, my main role was to provide guidance on gene sequencing." It was clear he didn't want to dwell on the past.

Smith sighed with nostalgia. "Speaking of which, you even helped us with our global search for donors back in the day. We were practically old colleagues."

York just smiled again. "Let's talk about your current breakthrough. No need to bring up the past."

Eleanor keenly sensed there was more to the story. Had this lab been established even before Smith arrived? And Mr. Windsor had been a consultant? Who, then, was the lab's original founder?

Her thoughts drifted back to the locked file lan had, the one that seemed to hide some great, unknown secret.

Half an hour later, Smith had to leave, leaving Eleanor to discuss brain-computer interface technology with York His achievements at Stärnova Group were considerable, and his collaboration with Goodwin & Co. was going smoothly.

Eleanor couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Windsor, can you tell me about your time as a consultant at the lab? Who did you work with back then?"

York paused, and before he could answer, Eleanor asked another question. "Was it my father?"

She remembered that in the six months before lan's coma, her father had been in Drexford. She had never asked what he was doing that year, but now she wondered if it was related to the founding of the blood research lab.

After lan fell into the coma, her father had traveled back and forth to Drexford many times, always looking exhausted. Thinking back, was it possible he was working at the lab then?

Had lan asked her father to research blood disorders? She recalled her father's notebook, filled with notes on rare blood diseases, which proved he had been involved in this research.

She also remembered Smith saying he had worked with her father for a year.

York nodded, not denying it. "Yes, your father and I worked together at the blood lab for a year."

"What was my father's research project back then? Can you tell me?" Eleanor asked, her gaze sincere.

York looked at Eleanor and sighed softly. "It was also related to blood disorders. Initially, your father was focused on leukemia research."

Eleanor was stunned. She remembered the contents of her father's notebook-the pages filled with dense data and formulas definitely pointed toward leukemia research Was he conducting routine

medical research, or was Ibere

another reason?

But she was convinced lan must have gone to her father, hoping he could find a cure for Gina's blood disorder.

So, what was lan hiding in that locked file? Was it a video of her father's research? Why wouldn't he let her see it?

"Ellie, that's all in the past. There's no point in asking about it now. What's important is that you take good care of child. If you ever yourself and your need anything, you can always come to me for help," York said,

comforting her.