Chapter 5
Jiang Xingluo stared at him in disbelief.
“Fu Tingchen, I told you I didn’t do it. Why can’t you believe me just once? I’m carrying your child. How can you treat me like this?”
He simply turned, took Shen Zhixia’s hand, and headed upstairs.
“Precisely because you’re carrying my child, you should set a good example! If you do wrong, you face the consequences!”
Jiang Xingluo shook her head fiercely and turned toward the exit.
“No! You have no right to do this to me!”
But the moment she turned, the Fu family’s bodyguards rushed over. One on each side, they restrained her and forced her to her knees outside the gate.
One of them warned her,
“Madam, you’d better keep still. We wouldn’t want to hurt the baby by accident.”
She froze, not daring to move again.
One by one, the Fu family members left the house. Each cast her a contemptuous glance and made a few cutting remarks as they passed.
She did not know how long she knelt there. The wind had long since dried the tears on her face.
The cheek they had slapped was badly swollen, and her lips had cracked from thirst. She could scarcely have been more wretched.
Her belly kept tightening. She looked pleadingly at the guards watching her.
“Please tell Fu Tingchen my stomach doesn’t feel right. I need to go to the hospital.”
One guard looked at her swollen belly and called him.
Soon, Fu Tingchen’s indifferent voice came through the phone.
“Jiang Xingluo, wrongdoing has to be punished. Don’t think you can use the baby to soften me up.”
He hung up immediately.
The guard looked at her and said coldly,
“Stay on your knees.”
She had no choice but to keep kneeling.
Only she and the two guards remained at the gate.
The night wind cut like a knife through her thin pajamas, making her shiver all over.
Her knees felt as though countless ants were gnawing at them. The pain was unbearable.
Her vision darkened in waves. Unable to hold on any longer, she pitched forward.
When she woke again, she was in the hospital.
Fu Tingchen sat beside her bed, his fingers resting on her belly.
She instinctively reached for it in panic, and heard him say,
“The baby’s fine.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did the pain in her knees and cheek register.
He reached out and gently touched her red, swollen cheek.
“I only said I’d marry Xiaxia to make you angry.”
“I’ve explained this. There’s nothing between us. We grew up together. I only think of her as a little sister.”
“Why must you keep targeting her?”
There was nothing left in Jiang Xingluo’s eyes but a dead stillness.
She no longer had the will to argue about any of it.
Brushing his hand away, she threw back the covers and got out of bed. Her voice was hoarse.
“Twenty-two days left in the cooling-off period. It’ll all be over soon.”
His face darkened horribly.
“Jiang Xingluo, you’re still trying to threaten me with divorce?”
“With your background and your looks, I’m the best catch you’ll ever get. And you’re carrying my child. Who would want you after a divorce?”
She limped toward the door, her voice cool.
“My affairs are no concern of yours, Mr. Fu.”
He flew into a rage.
“Jiang Xingluo, this is your last chance! If you dare walk out today, I really will marry Shen Zhixia! When you regret it, even begging on your knees won’t help!”
She kept walking and disappeared from the room, without looking back once.