Grace was taken aback, looking at the man in confusion.
Pierre ignored her and turned to walk toward the roulette table nearby. Grace hurried after him.
At the table, she saw the man staring intently at the roulette wheel, as if he were calculating something. After a few rounds of betting by others, he finally spoke:
Grace quickly placed a few chips on the corner.
As the dealer spun the ball, everything unfolded just as expected—they won!
When the dealer pushed the winnings over, Grace was still in shock.
She looked at the man in amazement and said,
"We... we actually won?"
With that, Pierre turned and left, leaving the woman a little dazed.
Watching the man walk away, Grace’s blue eyes widened as she murmured at his retreating figure,
"He just... just left like that..."
He didn’t even ask for my name!
Staring at his receding back, Grace was left with only one thought—questioning her very existence!
Wait, wasn’t he just looking at me a moment ago?
Wasn’t his gaze on my...? She glanced down at the swell between her V-neck, and her confidence took another hit.
"That damn man... he was looking at my necklace just now!"
At that moment, another blonde woman walked up to her and asked,
"How was it, Grace? Did you have fun?"
If Pierre were here, he’d definitely say—what a coincidence! This stunning blonde wasn’t anyone else but the woman he’d met in Havana, who had also returned her ticket to her girlfriend on the train to Washington.
After leaving the casino’s VIP room, Peggy came to the main hall to look for her sister, and happened to see her standing at the entrance, pouting in frustration.
She glanced wistfully at the entrance, then her gaze fell on her sister’s neck. Grace then asked,
"Sis, tell me, between me and a diamond, which would a man choose?"
No sooner had she finished speaking than Peggy burst out laughing.
"Haha, Grace, my dear sister, every man knows that choosing you is the same as having a diamond! Do you even need to ask?"
Peggy said as she linked arms with her sister.
"When I got married last year, Dad gave me a million-dollar dowry. Ever since then, everyone’s called us the ’Kelly family’s million-dollar babies.’ Darling, why would you even ask such a question?"
Their father, Jack Kelly, was a three-time Olympic gold medalist who started his own business with a $7,000 loan and eventually built a construction company worth tens of millions. As a multimillionaire, he never stinted on his children. A million-dollar dowry is a huge sum even in today’s America. It landed Peggy on the news and earned them the nickname "million-dollar babies."
Glancing toward the casino entrance, Grace said a little wistfully,
"I was just saying..."
Her sister’s plaintive look made Peggy pause.
She glanced at her little sister beside her with a half-smile, and said with a laugh:
"Grace, could it be that you’ve met a man who makes your heart flutter?"
At these words, Grace’s eyes widened. She waved her hands repeatedly and said,
"How could that be? Impossible! How could I have feelings for him?"
Instantly, the smile on Peggy’s face grew even wider. A woman’s curiosity was immediately piqued.
"Who is he? Tell me, Grace, dear... Tell me, what kind of person is he..."
"There’s no ’him’..."
"All right, sis, let’s hurry back to the room and check on Jason."
"No way, you have to tell me—"
While the two sisters were giggling and bickering at the entrance of the casino, Pierre had already returned to his room, completely unaware of the impact he’d had on others—so much so that it made them question their very lives.
At this moment, he was holding a telegram delivered by the hotel front desk.
Although the content of the telegram was extremely simple, faced with this message containing only a handful of words, Pierre found himself a little unsettled.
"Want to go to Tokyo?" ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɴoᴠel Fɪre.nᴇt
The telegram was from Truman. What did this telegram mean?
Looking at the telegram in his hand, Pierre couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement.
It must be to bomb Tokyo!
In fact, just as in history, the B-29 bomber groups still took off from Chengdu’s airfields in June and bombed Kyushu in Japan. After all, the airfields had been paid for by the Americans—four hundred million dollars.
Historically, during the war of resistance, China had advanced more than fifty billion fabi to the Americans, but after the war, the U.S. delayed and refused to settle the accounts with all sorts of excuses. By 1946, they insisted on settling at the severely devalued currency rate, and in the end, they used a few hundred million dollars’ worth of leftover supplies from small Pacific islands to write off the debt, as if tossing scraps to beggars.
This time, having been "stabbed in the back," crippled Roosevelt personally issued a presidential order requiring the Treasury Department to settle the advances. After accounting, the numbers were enough to bring tears to the eyes: from July 1942 to May 1944, including U.S. purchases of tungsten ore, expenses for American troops in China, and airfield construction, China’s advances totaled 45 billion yuan—equivalent to $2.25 billion. Meanwhile, China had actually received less than $200 million in material aid from America.
Public opinion immediately exploded. Before, it had only been Dewey’s one-sided claims, but now the facts were written in black and white: this was how the White House fought the Japanese—by draining China, who was actually fighting Japan, of its wealth, and then using it to aid the British and Russians.
Facing public criticism, Roosevelt hurriedly instructed the Treasury to settle the advances and ordered that future advances be settled and paid monthly.
This could be considered a good thing, at least the hard-earned money of the Chinese people was not siphoned off by their so-called ally. With over $2 billion in hard currency, the government could finally buy back excess currency from the market and stabilize the value of the yuan.
Of that money, the single largest expenditure was the $400 million spent on building airfields. Since so much money had been spent, there had to be some results. So, just as in history, dozens of B-29s took off from Chengdu and bombed the Japanese homeland.
Two years later, news of the bombing of Japan’s home islands once again ignited American enthusiasm, and at last, crippled Roosevelt managed to scrape by. But... if Roosevelt wanted to defeat Dewey and secure a fourth term in the White House, he’d have to do something big!
And what was that big thing?
It was bombing Tokyo. Ever since that day in the White House screening room, when he had shown Roosevelt and others the concept of aerial refueling, and explained that with it, Tokyo could be bombed, Roosevelt had been fixated on the idea. After all, bombers taking off from Chengdu couldn’t reach Tokyo, and what the American public wanted to see was... Tokyo reduced to rubble!
Truman’s telegram was clearly telling him—they were ready!