After five years of a cold marriage, I can no longer hide the child I secretly gave birth to.

Mom, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have eaten with that heartless dad.

Xu Meng walked up to her without her noticing, tugged at her sleeve, and handed her the notebook.

Looking into her innocent eyes, Xu Daikui felt most of her worries fade away, and she smiled.

"Mom, it's not your fault."

【Really?】

Xu Daikui squatted down, thought for a moment, and then asked her, "You really like Zhou Yanci?"

She could tell that she didn't reject the man.

She wasn't opposed to him when they first met, and now that she knows he's her biological father, she's even less opposed to him.

The child is too young to understand right and wrong.

I feel like I'll only follow the family ties that are ingrained in my bones.

Xu Meng paused for a moment, then wrote down a sentence.

Does Mom still love him?

She realized that her mother had just answered Shen Jun's father's phone call in front of her father, and her father seemed angry.

It happened at the hospital last time too.

Surely he's not secretly jealous?

Xu Daikui looked at Xu Meng with a complicated expression. "Mom used to like him a lot, but one-sided love doesn't work out. Mom doesn't like him anymore."

"So you absolutely must get a divorce?"

Xu Meng knew that her father had been missing for five years, so it was understandable that her mother wanted a divorce.

No matter the reason, he couldn't abandon her for so long, ignoring her completely, not even knowing that her mother had given birth to her.

Based on this alone, she will never side with him again.

Xu Daikui nodded. "Yes, but Mom will love you forever. Not all children need a father."

Xu Daikui comforted her.

Xu Meng thought so too.

Then I support you.

She put extra effort into writing those five characters.

...

When Zhou Yanci returned to the company, he found Xu Jiaojiao waiting for him in her office.

"Aci, have you had dinner yet?"

He took off his suit jacket and hung it up. "I've already eaten."

Xu Jiaojiao then noticed with her sharp eyes that he was carrying a warm yellow cake box.

She picked it up casually, "It's been so long since I've had a Yuanzu cake, I could smell it from far away."

"Can I eat this?"

She had already opened the packaging bag when she asked.

She loved it even more when she saw it was mango flavored.

She remembered that Xu Daikui was allergic to mangoes. There were actually people in the world who couldn't eat mangoes. Xu Daikui was born poor and unlucky, and could never enjoy happiness.

Looking at the cake, Zhou Yanci thought of Xu Daikui's mango allergy.

If she's allergic, why does she still eat it?

Or was it simply that she didn't want Xu Meng to eat it?

What exactly is her relationship with Mengmeng?

"Aci, is it okay?"

Seeing him staring at the cake in a daze, Xu Jiaojiao couldn't help but ask again.

Zhou Yanci snapped out of his daze and saw that she had already torn open the packaging box. He said indifferently, "Hmm."

Xu Jiaojiao was overjoyed to hear this, and quickly took out her phone, opened the camera, snapped a picture of the mango cake, and posted it on her WeChat Moments.

After sending it, she took a few more bites before walking up to Zhou Yanci, picking up a document from the table and handing it to him.

"Aci, Dean Zhao said the foundation for the inpatient building has been laid, and now they want to plant some flowers and trees in the yard. Do you think cedars or ginkgo trees would be more suitable?"

As she asked, she pulled out a few more photos to show him.

"There are pictures here, take a look."

Zhou Yanci was in no mood to care about anything related to the pet hospital; he didn't even glance at the papers.

"It's up to you to decide."

It seems that he built that inpatient department really because of a single sentence he made, and it had nothing to do with Xu Daikui.

Otherwise, he would have asked Xu Daikui for her opinion on things like planting trees.

But he didn't even mention that woman.

It's easy to see how low Xu Daikui's position was in his heart; she was long gone.

Zhou Yanci had lowered himself to get close to her before, simply out of curiosity.

She smiled and replied with a satisfied "Okay".

He took the documents and left.

After she left, Fang Qing came in to deliver some documents.

After Zhou Yanci finished signing the document, a young and capable man suddenly walked into the office.

Fang Qing's gaze froze when she saw him.

Wasn't Mu En stationed in the UK all along?

Why did you suddenly return to China?

Could it be that the person Zhou Yanci sent to investigate Xu Daikui was him?

"You can go out now."

Zhou Yanci looked up from the document and at Fang Qing.

Fang Qing left with a sullen face.

After he went outside, his phone rang; it was Xu Daikui.

...

"How's the investigation going?"

Seeing the door close, Zhou Yanci asked in a low voice.

Mu En placed a document in front of Zhou Yanci and said respectfully.

"My wife seems to be in very good health these past five years. I checked all the hospitals in Beijing, and there is not a single record of her making a house call."

"Logically, if she were pregnant, there should be a delivery record, or at the very least, a prenatal checkup record."

Zhou Yanci asked, "Have you been abroad or to other places?"

Mu En shook his head. "No."

"On the contrary, Shen Jun has a cousin who did give birth to a baby girl at the People's Hospital five years ago. According to Shen Jun's mother, after giving birth to the baby girl, Shen Jun's cousin went abroad to settle down. The baby girl had no one to take care of her, and it was Shen Jun and Shen Jun who took pity on her and raised her."

"That girl is Xu Meng."

Zhou Yanci frowned. "Then why is her surname Xu?"

Mu En, "Shen Jun's mother said that Shen Jun still needs to make a career in the hospital, and he is not married yet, so a child of unknown origin cannot take his surname and be registered in his household, otherwise people will gossip."

Then there's only one possibility: the surname is Xu.

Seeing Zhou Yanci's thoughts, Mu En nodded, "Yes, Madam and Shen Jun are acquainted. Shen Jun must have asked her to do so, which is why the child was registered under Madam's household registration."

Zhou Yanci asked in surprise, "You mean Xu Meng is on Xu Daikui's household registration?"

He had always assumed that Xu Meng's guardian was Shen Jun, so her household registration must be under Shen Jun's name. He had overlooked the fact that Xu Daikui would do this behind his back.

"Yes, this is what I found out over the past few days."

"I also visited the People's Hospital, where the nurses said that Shen Jun did bring a woman in her early twenties to give birth five years ago. I checked the delivery record for that day, and the name was Shen Qin, Shen Jun's cousin."

Zhou Yanci had already lost interest upon hearing this.

Xu Meng is indeed a child of the Shen family.

He once hoped that he could have a child like that.

She is intelligent and perceptive, and also quite good-looking.

Thinking back to that passionate night he spent with Xu Daikui five years ago...

The probability of getting it right on the first try is indeed very small, let alone the fact that he took other measures.

Moreover, if she were really pregnant, it's impossible that Fang Qing and Xie Jia wouldn't know.

Seeing the annoyance on his face, Mu En carefully placed a photograph in front of him.