Chapter 54
Chapter 54
Su Jin looked at him, a little disappointed. “Don’t you have anything you want to say to me?”
Pei Yuming did not quite understand what she meant. “What do you want me to say?”
Su Jin shook her head. “Forget it.”
Not only were the two people outside the door baffled by this exchange, even Pei Yuming was a little lost. What did Su Jin mean? What did she want him to ask? Could there be anything more important than the test results?
Su Jin found it strange, too. Apart from the results, was he not even the least bit curious why she had kept this child all those years ago?
Or did he actually know perfectly well, but simply did not want to lay it all out in the open? She refused to believe a man could be this dense. Other than playing dumb, she could not think of any other possibility.
An eerie silence fell over the consultation room. Outside the door, Lu Zixuan was about to lose his mind. What exactly had Pei Yuming meant when he said he was not his father’s biological son? Why had he dragged both him and Xiaobei here for blood tests today? Could it be that he suspected…
Lu Zixuan glanced at Pei Xiaobei, who looked just as bewildered, and a bad feeling flashed through his heart.
“What is it?” Pei Xiaobei felt creeped out by the way he was looking at her.
Lu Zixuan’s face had gone pale. With difficulty, he said, “Have you thought about why your dad would use both our blood for a test?”
Pei Xiaobei bit her lip and said quietly, “Maybe he found out I’m pregnant?”
“What? He knows?” Lu Zixuan could not help frowning. This seemed more complicated than he had imagined.
“Probably,” Pei Xiaobei said. “But he didn’t get angry. That’s what was weird.”
That bad feeling grew stronger. Lu Zixuan took Pei Xiaobei by the hand and started walking out. “If it was because you’re pregnant, he could’ve just tested your blood. Why did he need mine too?”
Pei Xiaobei blinked several times in quick succession and avoided Lu Zixuan’s gaze. “How would I know? Maybe he wanted to confirm whether the baby is yours…”
Lu Zixuan cut her off. “They shouldn’t be able to test that yet, right?”
“And your dad looks down on me that much. If he really knew about us, could he be this calm?”
“He does know!” In the end, Pei Xiaobei did not tell him what her father had asked her. Although her father rarely cared whether she lived or died, no one knew a daughter better than her father. With just a casual guess, he had somehow figured out the reason she had agreed to be with Lu Zixuan.
Of course, judging by his personal qualities, Lu Zixuan was actually quite outstanding. Unfortunately, ever since she was little, she had been pursued by all kinds of handsome guys with looks and money, and Lu Zixuan was not among the best of them.
She had agreed to date him only after he said he would support her dream of pursuing music. And of course, it was not just verbal support. Lu Zixuan had said that if her father refused to pay her tuition because she changed majors, then he would cover all four years of her university tuition.
Those words had no real legal force, but judging from how generous he usually was with money, Pei Xiaobei decided to believe him.
“He knows?” Lu Zixuan was even more confused. “But he hasn’t even brought it up. Do you think that’s normal?”
Pei Xiaobei shook her head without hesitation.
The more Lu Zixuan thought about it, the colder his heart became. He clenched his fists and said through gritted teeth, “No. I have to ask him what’s going on right now!”
“Hey…” Pei Xiaobei tried to stop him, but he had already turned and strode away. She could only chase after him.
Just as he reached the door of the consultation room and raised his hand to pull it open, the door opened from the inside. Lu Zixuan immediately saw that his mother’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his resistance toward Pei Yuming grew even stronger.
He was an adult now, no longer a clueless child.
Although the vague, half-spoken exchange between the two of them just now had not revealed anything outright, one thing was certain: his mother’s relationship with Pei Yuming was nowhere near as innocent as they usually made it seem.
Su Jin glanced at her son, lifted a hand to touch the corner of her eye, and instructed, “Take Xiaobei and wait in the consulting room. Uncle Pei and I need to step out for something.”
Lu Zixuan shot Pei Yuming a dark look, then lowered his head and gave a quiet, “Mm.”
The two had barely left when Pei Xiaobei tugged Lu Zixuan along and followed them.
Their destination was obvious: the Laboratory on the fourth floor.
Xiao Ming handed over the printed results and shook his head regretfully. “Whose blood sample is this, anyway? It doesn’t match at all!”
Su Jin had been standing behind Pei Yuming. The moment she heard that, she stepped forward and snatched the report. “Impossible!”
Seeing how agitated she was, Xiao Ming’s eyes widened at once. His gaze darted back and forth between Pei Yuming and his immediate superior, those expressive eyebrows of his practically writing a melodramatic scandal in his head.
But this result was indeed melodramatic, whether for Pei Yuming or Su Jin.
“Well…” Xiao Ming slowly prepared what he was going to say next, clearly eager to pry something out of them.
But Pei Yuming saw through him first. He reached out and patted Xiao Ming on the back. “Lao Xiao, I’ll treat you to a meal on your day off sometime. I’ve got something to deal with today, so I’ll head out first. You get back to work.”
After saying that, he ignored whatever expression Xiao Ming had and pushed the stunned Su Jin toward the exit.
Each lost in their own thoughts, the two returned to the consulting room together. They did not even remember to wonder why no one was inside.
“Impossible,” Su Jin murmured. “Zixuan is your child…”
“But Lao Xiao wouldn’t have made a mistake.” Pei Yuming looked rather embarrassed. Thinking back on the previous misunderstandings, he felt truly foolish. How could he have taken it as fact based solely on someone else’s word?
Still, this was fine too. Xiaobei would not be hurt by this matter now. As long as they dealt with the child in her belly and he cared for her more from now on, he believed the relationship between father and daughter would definitely ease.
Pei Yuming was completely immersed in thoughts of making it up to his daughter. A relaxed expression that had not appeared on his face in a long time even surfaced there. He had not even remembered that he would ultimately still have to return to the interrogation room, and that his daughter had already been poisoned to death by the killer tonight.
But Su Jin could not accept this result. Since the matter had already been brought into the open, she had to make Pei Yuming know the truth. Otherwise, what would he think of her?
“I know you definitely won’t believe me without proof,” Su Jin said, a clear trace of resentment in her voice. “After so many years, having something like this dragged into the open will indeed affect both our families. But Yuming, whether you acknowledge Zixuan in the end or not, I still have to let you know the truth. Lao Xiao may not have made a mistake, but can you guarantee there was no mistake with Xiaobei’s parentage either?”
“What do you mean?” Perhaps he had never expected Su Jin, who had always been dignified and considerate, to speculate about someone else so viciously. Pei Yuming looked at her in astonishment.
Su Jin bit her lip and went on. “Back then, I was already pregnant before I married Lu Dong. No one knew about it except my parents. Before that, you were the only boyfriend I’d ever had. Zixuan is your child. There is no question about that. But the result Lao Xiao gave us says the two people’s genetic loci don’t match at all. That means one of those two is definitely not your child. Don’t you understand?”