“What’s wrong? Are you tired?” Xuan Yanyu asked gently.

Yan Yunning furrowed her brow. “My stomach hurts.”

Counting the days, it had been over a month since she returned — it was probably her period coming.

The man bent down and scooped her up, striding quickly toward the exit of the hotel.

“We don’t need to go to the hospital. I’ll just rest at home for a bit.” Sitting in the car, Yan Yunning leaned against Xuan Yanyu’s chest, listlessly murmuring.

“Alright. If you feel any worse, you have to say something.” The man’s warm, large palm rested on the girl’s lower abdomen, gently rubbing it.

“Mm.” Yan Yunning nodded obediently.

Xuan Yanyu stared at Yan Yunning and suddenly let out a sigh.

Yan Yunning looked up at him in puzzlement. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re asking me what’s wrong?” Xuan Yanyu looked at her with a grievance in his eyes.

Yan Yunning giggled. “I don’t know~”

When they were taking wedding photos, she had been too exhausted every day to feel like moving — and besides, marks wouldn’t look good in the photos either.

Xuan Yanyu had been looking forward to the engagement, yet today she had a stomachache again, so all he could do was behave himself and hold her for a simple chat.

The man flicked her delicate nose. “I’ll get it back from you later.”

Yan Yunning pretended not to understand, poking her finger at his chest. “There’s only a month and a half before we get married. Don’t you think that’s really fast?”

In her eyes, they had been together for quite a long time — but not in Xuan Yanyu’s. Did he truly not feel that going from dating to getting engaged to getting married was a little too quick?

Thinking Yan Yunning didn’t want to marry him so soon, Xuan Yanyu coaxed her. “Not fast at all. I’ve even heard of people who got married three days after meeting — we’re nowhere near that.”

“What you’re describing is called a flash marriage.”

“Doesn’t matter what kind of marriage it is. The point is, it’s really not fast.”

Yan Yunning: “……”

She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she always had the feeling that Xuan Yanyu was hiding something from her.

The following day.

Online, not only was the video of Xuan Yanyu and Yan Yunning’s engagement causing a huge stir, but news suddenly broke that Qi Qingchen, the former president of the Qi Group, had recovered from his illness and was resuming control of the company.

When Shiyao saw the news, her vision went dark. Two pieces of news, and she didn’t want to hear either of them. Had she known, she never would have broken up with Qi Qingchen.

——

Qi Group.

Shiyao had worked at Qi Group before and had not formally resigned. She swiped her employee badge and made her way, unchallenged, all the way to the president’s office.

Qi Qingchen saw her coming and wasn’t the least bit surprised. The card he had given her — she must have already used it all to compensate Yanyu.

Learning that he had resumed control of the company, she would naturally come in.

“A’Chen, I’ve missed you so much.” The moment Shiyao arrived, she threw herself pitifully into Qi Qingchen’s arms.

Qi Qingchen raised an eyebrow. Unlike before, he didn’t move to soothe her, letting her sob and complain on her own.

“You recovered — why didn’t you tell me? Do you know how worried the baby and I were about you?” Shiyao seemed to have completely forgotten that she had once brought up breaking up with Qi Qingchen.

“A’Chen, why aren’t you responding to me?” Shiyao balled up her little fists and beat them lightly against his chest.

Qi Qingchen lowered his gaze to the person in his arms and smiled with cold mockery. “Miss Shi, didn’t we break up? What do you think you’re doing?”

Shiyao’s eyes turned red as she struggled to hold back her tears. “I was just saying that out of anger. We’re not breaking up.”

“Ha.” Qi Qingchen straightened his tie and pushed Shiyao away from him. “Broken up is broken up.”

Shiyao’s lips tugged down slightly at the corners. “You brought up breaking up with me once, and I brought it up once with you. Doesn’t that make us even?”

“Miss Shi.” Qi Qingchen pulled a termination-of-pregnancy surgical report from his drawer and tossed it in front of Shiyao.

“Miss Shi, you had the procedure done the very day you walked out of the apartment. On what basis do you think I can just let it all go and be with you again without any grievance?”

“I……” Shiyao’s heart lurched. She picked the report up off the floor, tears falling silently. “A’Chen, there was something wrong with the baby. I didn’t want this either, but I had no choice.”

Qi Qingchen smiled with cold contempt. “Shiyao, I deeply regret ever meeting you.”

Shiyao’s pupils contracted, her mind buzzing with a deafening ring.

“Qingchen, are you done with work? Once you are, let’s pick up Youyou from kindergarten and all go eat together…… Oh, Miss Shi is here too.” Jiang Jin, who had just walked into the office, smiled at Shiyao.

Seeing Jiang Jin, Shiyao felt ready to explode with fury. “A’Chen, you said you would marry me — why are you back together with Jiang Jin?”

“Miss Shi, please don’t say such things.” Jiang Jin explained helplessly. “I’m Youyou’s mother. Youyou just wants her dad and mom to have dinner with her together.”

Qi Qingchen pinched the bridge of his nose, stood up, and said, “Since you happened to come to the office, you may as well process your resignation.”

“I won’t.” Shiyao ran to Qi Qingchen’s side, wrapping her arms around his and refusing to let go. “I want to come back to work.”

Qi Qingchen pushed her aside without a moment’s hesitation. “Absent for three days without notice counts as voluntary resignation. Shiyao, telling you to process your resignation is me doing you a courtesy. Why don’t you understand that?”

“A’Chen!” Shiyao’s eyes swam with tears.

Qi Qingchen, without softening, called security up and had them drag out the unwilling, wailing Shiyao.

Jiang Jin cast a leisurely glance at Qi Qingchen and remarked dryly, “Your taste really is terrible.”

Qi Qingchen touched the tip of his nose, unable to bring himself to argue back.

“Let’s go. Pick up Youyou.” Jiang Jin tilted her head toward the door.

“Ah, Yanyu’s hosting a get-together tonight. Do you want to come along?” Qi Qingchen invited.

Jiang Jin raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

Qi Qingchen laughed. “Then let’s go — we’ll pick up Youyou on the way.”

Jiang Jin glanced at him and walked out of the office. Qi Qingchen followed right behind her.

——

Thrown out of the office, Shiyao tried contacting Ye Jian again.

Ye Jian saw the incoming call and his brow twitched sharply. He pressed the silence button and chose to ignore it entirely.

Shiyao, unwilling to give up, called several more times, but no one answered. Her eyes flickered, and with some unease, she pressed Xuan Yanyu’s number.

The call connected quickly. Shiyao’s breathing tightened, and she spoke carefully. “Xuan Xixi……no, Mr. Xuan, I want to see you.”

Yan Yunning, on the other end of the phone, was completely thrown. She had answered without checking the caller ID, afraid it might be something important — and the first words out of the caller’s mouth were: “Xuan Xixi, I want to see you.”

“Mr. Xuan, you……could you, for the sake of what we had before, agree to see me? I’m really hurting right now.” Shiyao deliberately softened her voice, and Yan Yunning didn’t quite recognise who was on the line.

So she asked directly, “Who are you?”

The Shiyao on the other end of the call startled and hung up in a panic.

The last thing she wanted was to provoke the real Yan Yunning directly. She had called precisely because she was banking on the fact that Xuan Yanyu would never dare be honest with Yan Yunning. She didn’t want to be exposed — if she was, Xuan Yanyu would never let her off.

Yan Yunning pressed her fingers together, doing her best to suppress her anger. She looked up at Ye Jian, keeping her voice as even as ever. “May I borrow your phone for a moment?”

Ye Jian frowned slightly. His boss’s fiancée — not even his girlfriend — what did she need his phone for?

But he didn’t have the nerve to refuse. He unlocked his phone and handed it over.

Yan Yunning took it, opened the call log, and saw three missed calls marked in red with no saved contact name — yet the number was identical to the one that had called Xuan Yanyu’s spare phone.

The reason she wanted to look at Ye Jian’s phone was that he had just spotted the incoming call, glanced at her strangely, and then pressed the silence button on his ringing phone.