Chapter 2

I didn’t know whether Xie Ting and Su Tao were nervous.

But the phone rang in the bedroom, not in the garden below.

The comments breathed a sigh of relief. [Thank God, he doesn’t have to answer! No one gets to interrupt our girl’s very important first taste of forbidden fruit~]

They’d celebrated too soon.

I pretended to be puzzled and muttered to myself.

“His phone’s right here, so he can’t have gone out. Where would he be in the middle of the night?”

As I spoke, I hummed and walked toward the door, looking as though I was about to head downstairs.

This script really had picked the perfect person to play the “sleeping wife.” I’d been a trouble-loving spectator all my life.

I loved a good spectacle. Indulging my curiosity was how I entertained myself.

There was no chance I’d choose to stay asleep.

But when I reached the ground-floor sitting room, Xie Ting—who should have been in the garden—called out to me.

He sat back on the sofa, completely at ease. His clothes were immaculate, and nothing seemed amiss on his handsome, refined face.

His voice was as gentle and low as ever.

“Pei Xue. Su Tao… isn’t feeling well.”

Intrigued, I looked over. The girl leaned beside him, her cheeks flushed, her slight body still seeming to tremble.

She looked at me with tears glistening in her eyes.

Those two were quick on their feet.

I broke into a smile.

“Oh dear,” I said gently. “What’s wrong, Taotao? Can you walk by yourself?”

Without waiting for an answer, I went straight toward her.

“Don’t be frightened. Mommy studied Chinese medicine with Uncle, you know. I’m very good at reading pulses. I can tell all sorts of things. Give me your hand and let me check?”

The comments panicked:

[Wait, what? Can the wife actually read pulses? Can she tell the female lead’s just had sex?]

I raised an eyebrow and quickened my step.

But… neither of them went pale as I’d expected.

Su Tao blinked, taken aback.

Xie Ting remained composed, his expression unreadable.

My uncle, who fancied himself a gentleman from another era, had once praised his “grace and composure in conversation.”

Personally, I thought he was a poser.

I stopped before Su Tao, lowering my eyes to her face, to that unnatural flush on her cheeks.

By then, however, my thoughts had cooled.

I’d always had a mind of my own. I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions because of some ambiguous comments.

I needed evidence I could actually see.

So I reached for Su Tao’s wrist.

Xie Ting remained relaxed, a smile playing on his lips. He made no move to stop me.

If anything, he seemed almost expectant. Encouraging, even?

What I hadn’t expected was that before I touched her skin, her soft hand would wind around mine like a vine.

Rather than offer her wrist, she grabbed my fingers urgently and pressed them to her forehead.

Her temperature was indeed unusually high.

“M-Mommy…”

Her voice was soft and hoarse, thick with congestion.

As she looked up timidly through damp eyes, there was a barely perceptible flicker of panic in them.

“M-my head’s so hot… I think I have a fever. Daddy saw how awful I felt and was just going to call the driver to take me to the private hospital…”

Xie Ting wore the ghost of a smile. “Mm… a fever,” he added lazily.

He drew out the last word meaningfully.

I didn’t need their explanations. I turned my hand and went straight for her wrist, as though to take her pulse.

“N-no, Mommy! You don’t have to!”

Su Tao reacted astonishingly fast. She snatched back her hand, lowered her eyes, and guarded her wrist, pressing her lips into a tight line.

“I’ll just go to the hospital… Mommy, I’m really fine.”

She looked so guilty, so resistant, as though she was hiding some enormous secret.

I stared at her without blinking.

I was so angry I laughed.

I couldn’t read pulses at all. I only wanted to see whether she had a guilty conscience.

With that thought, I seized her wrist.

“Come back to your room with Mommy. There’s something we need to discuss.”

I intended to strip my adopted daughter and check for myself.