Chapter 4
Chapter 4
But if you asked whether Lu Heran truly felt nothing for me over those five years…
All I can say is, I don’t know.
He only looked like a reckless playboy, flirtatious at every turn. In reality, there were plenty of things he simply never took to heart.
Like how every holiday gift he ever gave me was bought by his assistant, and how the restaurants for our dates were always picked at random. But on the rare occasions I ran into trouble on set, he didn’t mind stepping in personally to back me up.
In the five years I stayed by his side, he also spent enormous sums more than once to tailor-make leading-lady dramas for me.
He invited Best Actors to play supporting roles and hired award-winning directors to helm them.
It looked like the height of indulgence, but he never once considered that my image wasn’t suited to strong female-lead roles.
So every drama I acted in flopped.
I flopped so hard that even people in the industry found it unbelievable.
One time, I even won a Golden Broom Award. A rising actress from the same cohort mocked me for my poor acting, and I was so upset I cried in his arms all night.
Back then, perhaps he had been trying to mold me into Shen Lan.
But that was precisely where I was least like Shen Lan.
At the time, he probably found it funny. There was even a teasing glint in his eyes. “It really is pretty bad. Not nearly as sincere as when you cry in bed.”
After all these years, I was probably the first investment project that had ever made him lose money with no return.
He had drunk a little that day.
Maybe it was because he was in a good mood, or maybe because he simply didn’t care.
He pinched my cheek with great interest, then called the organizers right in front of me and had them give that rising actress a Golden Broom Award too.
It sounds childish, but people are always moved by tiny, childish things like that.
Just like how I agreed to have a child for him.
The person drunk that evening was clearly him, yet the one bewitched into saying yes was me.
At the time, his father was critically ill. The children from every branch of the family were busy sealing off the news and fighting over the inheritance.
As the youngest and most favored son, he naturally couldn’t avoid being targeted from every side.
For several months, he didn’t come to see me.
During that time, a big shot in the industry assumed I had been dumped and started getting handsy with me, asking if I wanted to be with him instead.
I refused him again and again, as tactfully as I possibly could, but still managed to displease him.
After one dinner, he flew into a rage from humiliation and cornered me in the hallway, tearing half of my dress.
Fortunately, my agent rushed over at the last moment and stopped the farce from going any further.
After that, people on set began tripping me up one after another, and even the wire rigs kept having accidents.
Until word finally reached Lu Heran’s ears.
He deliberately carved out time to pick me up from set after work.
On an evening when the sunset filled the sky, a black Maybach appeared outside the set, abrupt and silent.
The moment I got into the car, I smelled the strong scent of alcohol. Vodka.
He must have drunk quite a bit. A large, alluring flush stained his neck.
His collar hung open loosely, and that striking red spread down to his cool pale chest, brighter than the sunset glow.
“You’ve lost weight.” He pulled me into his arms, his long fingers kneading the soft flesh at my waist. Beneath his languid voice was a trace of exhaustion. “No one was watching you, so you stopped eating properly, didn’t you?”
My nose stung. My voice came out soft and light. “No. The new role needs me to look a little thinner…”
He held me like that for a while, then said, “For the next few days, Lao Wen will take you to and from work. If anything happens, call him anytime.”
Lao Wen was his personal driver.
To people with impure intentions, that counted as a warning in disguise.
I sniffled and said, “Okay.”
Actually, I wasn’t the only one who had lost weight. He had lost quite a lot too.
This was probably the first time in all these years that I had ever seen him so gloomy and exhausted.
So when he said he wanted a child…
I froze for a very long time.
It wasn’t the first time he had brought up children.
But the previous two times, he had smiled lazily and said he was bored, that he wanted to raise a kid for fun.
This time, he didn’t smile.
There were always too many disputes in wealthy families. If something hadn’t happened, perhaps he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to have a child.
“Will you, baby?” He stroked my hair, the smell of alcohol still lingering in his breath. “Give birth to our child.”
It was only a child.
People had to pay some price for such an easy road.
That was the excuse I found for myself.
I gently pressed my forehead to his. My long lashes trembled, and as our eyes met, I answered softly but earnestly, “Okay.”
I said, I’ll give you a child.