Chapter 44: Gu Fengyan's Parents Learn of Xin'er's Pregnancy

After Yu Feifei left, Su Ruanruan stood in the ladies' room in a daze for a while.

What a melodramatic novel world this was!

Someone was actually pirating her face!

It wasn't until a man in a silver-gray suit came in to look for her that Su Ruanruan snapped back to reality.

"Why did you come in here again? You're going to be mistaken for a pervert!"

She grabbed Gu Jinzhou's hand and hurried away.

A muted smile played at the corners of Gu Jinzhou's lips. "Baby, when are you going to break this habit of zoning out in the restroom?"

Su Ruanruan felt a bit awkward.

She didn't know when she had picked up this bad habit.

Probably during a period when Gu Jinzhou had been too strict, refusing to let her eat any snacks, leaving her with no choice but to hide in the restroom to secretly devour a few bites of treats smuggled in by friends and family.

Yet she couldn't eat too much either.

If there was any lingering taste in her mouth, or if her appetite at dinner shrank, Gu Jinzhou would immediately pinch her mouth open to inspect.

-

The Maybach drove back to Silver Lake Manor.

Nanny Liu immediately came forth with a complaint: "That Young Master Qi refuses to leave; he's been staying in the sunroom the entire time."

Unlike the elegant and majestic sunroom at the Gu family estate,

the sunroom here was awash in pinks and tender hues. The sofa was shaped like a soft cloud, the delicate rose-gold chairs stood like refined young ladies, and the oddly shaped storage cabinets looked as though they had just leaped out of a fairytale. Resting upon an elegant black walnut round table were drinking cups shaped like muscular Barbie dolls...

In short, Qi Siyan had been inspecting these bizarre oddities for ages, yet still hadn't managed to examine them all.

Seeing Gu Jinzhou and Su Ruanruan return home, he gave a faint nod. His cold, dark, and gloomy aura only grew more intense in the sunlight, showing not the slightest sign of melting.

Gu Jinzhou narrowed his deep, narrow eyes. "Would you like to taste Nanny Liu's cooking?"

Qi Siyan answered, "No."

His slender, pale fingers tapped against an unfinished piece of embroidery, and his detached, indifferent voice asked in puzzlement, "Is this a duck?"

The little fairy standing quietly by Gu Jinzhou's side puffed out her snow-white cheeks, her crisp voice snapping angrily, "Those are mandarin ducks!"

"What kind of eyesight do you have?"

"You're the duck! A wild duck! An ugly duck!"

Clutching the embroidery that was "suspected to be a duck but actually was a mandarin duck," Su Ruanruan stormed upstairs in a huff.

Qi Siyan's handsome face instantly turned pitch-black. "I'm ugly?"

Gu Jinzhou remained noncommittal. With a cigarette pinched between his slender, noble fingers, he exhaled smoke from his handsome, scholarly face, radiating a fatal, world-class sex appeal.

His thin lips slowly curved upward, and for some inexplicable reason, he was in a very good mood.

Ruanruan the little fairy was proficient in everything from the zither and chess to calligraphy and painting, but embroidery was her sole weak spot—yet she was utterly in love with it. You could say her dancing wasn't good, but you could never say the mandarin ducks she embroidered were ducks.

-

5:00 PM.

Su Ruanruan emerged from the dance studio bathed in sweat. After taking a shower and changing into a shimmering white slip dress, she slipped her feet into pearl-embellished sandals and headed to the sunroom.

Gu Jinzhou was on the phone.

Upon seeing Ruanruan, the man's typically pure and cool brows and eyes softened with a smile.

After hanging up, he pulled her into his arms for a lingering, tender kiss.

"My baby smells so good. Mmm, you washed yourself clean and dressed up so prettily—you delivered yourself right to my doorstep for me to devour, didn't you?"

"No." Maintaining the cool and aloof demeanor of a fairy, she rejected his advances, unwilling to take another bath.

Gu Jinzhou let out an indifferent hum, pinched her delicate, fair chin, and kissed and nibbled on her lips for a good while. "I need to go to my second uncle and second aunt's place. If you're sleepy, go to bed; don't wait up for me."

Su Ruanruan lifted her damp, fair little face, her eyes hazy with desire and tender as flowing water, still unable to snap out of the lingering aftershocks of the deep kiss.

"Did Second Uncle and Second Aunt find out about Xinxiner's pregnancy?"

"When you called Third Brother, he was having dinner with Second Uncle and Second Aunt. An adopted son who is usually so modest and gentle suddenly flies into a rage—anyone would find that suspicious."

"I'll go with you."

"Mu Xinxiner isn't even going; if you go, you'll just be sitting around bored. Be a good girl and stay home to play."

After dinner, feeling bored at home and learning that Mu Xinxiner had no one to keep her company, Su Ruanruan drove to the hospital.

Mu Xinxiner hadn't dared to tell her family, and Gu Fengyan had gone back to negotiate with his parents. Lying alone in the hospital bed, her pale face wore a look of helplessness and bewilderment; her former nonchalance and cheerfulness seemed to have been completely shattered into dust.

After her rebirth, Su Ruanruan had resented Rong Xiu, but that resentment had more or less been laced with a lingering desire for him to mend his ways.

Now, she just wanted to kick Rong Xiu right off the planet—scumbags deserved to vanish on the spot!

Seeing her arrive, Mu Xinxiner put down her tablet, the screen of which displayed baby clothes.

"Xinxiner, I'm staying here to keep you company tonight," Su Ruanruan said. Staring at Mu Xinxiner's belly for a few seconds, she broke into a serene and gentle smile. "And keeping the little baby in your tummy company, too."

Mu Xinxiner chuckled. The alluring tear-jerk mole beneath her eye made her look even more like a sickly, peerless female demon who needed to drain a man's vital essence just to return to full health.

"Overnight stays are dull and boring. You don't need to accompany me; the Crown Prince of the Gu family will probably be heartbroken to death."

"Humph, he went out and stirred up peach blossoms on his own; leaving him hanging for a night is getting off easy."

"What happened?"

Su Ruanruan recounted the whole story from beginning to end. It wasn't the sort of thing she could casually bring up to Gu Jinzhou, as it would make her look petty and jealous, but venting to her best friend was entirely stress-free.

Mu Xinxiner patted the back of her hand. "Did the Gu Crown Prince have nothing to say about it?"

"We were talking in the restroom, so he didn't know."

"You should still make things clear with the Gu Crown Prince; don't let it turn into a knot in your heart." Mu Xinxiner sighed, smiled sheepishly, and then spoke with utter candor, "Do you know why I got intimate with Third Brother Gu for a whole night?"

"Wasn't it because you were stressed out over your thesis?"

"It was my birthday that day, and Rong Xiu had a last-minute emergency and couldn't come. He sent a red envelope to make up for it. My feelings at the time were very complicated; perhaps subconsciously, I felt that our relationship had hit a snag, so I drank a few extra drinks at the bar to numb myself. Third Brother Gu must have recognized me, so he rented a room for me to rest. And poor, innocent Third Brother Gu was ravished by a female alcoholic like me."

Su Ruanruan slowly raised her thumb in a gesture of profound respect.

Suddenly, Mu Xinxiner's expression turned solemn. "Ruanruan, do me a favor."

"I went to see Rong Xiu today to discuss postponing the engagement banquet, but I never expected to end up in the hospital."

"Today's matters shouldn't be left for tomorrow. Mom, Dad, and Third Brother Gu have all said that procrastination is bad. Help me invite Rong Xiu over; I want to make things clear with him and call off the engagement banquet."

-

After finishing his talk with his parents—having demanded their promise not to interfere in Mu Xinxiner's life—Gu Fengyan rushed to the hospital without even properly finishing his meal.

So much had happened today that the gentle and modest Gu Fengyan carried a touch of biting coldness and severity far beyond his usual demeanor.

Seeing this Third Brother made Su Ruanruan feel a bit frightened. Yet, upholding the principle of "my best friend steals a man, I stand guard at the door," she planted herself at the entrance of the VIP ward, using her frail and delicate little frame to block Gu Fengyan from catching the adulterers.

Gu Fengyan narrowed his cool, clear eyes and demanded in a low voice, "Who is inside? Rong Xiu?"