[ Author's note: Story starts 3 years before the Epilogue of Be My Strength ]

In the city center of Imperial City, Callum Shenlong Xun was driving while his beloved "wife", Luo Guangying [1], glared at him. He had messed up again when he got too friendly with a young woman at the party they went to earlier.

With a pout, Callum kept one hand on the steering wheel while he poked his "wife" with his other hand, "My dear boss, as I said, she came onto me first. I didn't even touch her or look at her. I can't do anything when I have the look of a supermodel and that women just flock over to me. Besides…"

His "wife" Guang Ying stared angrily at him as he asked gruffly, "What now?"

Callum shrunk a little and placed both hands back on the steering wheel as he murmured, "At the very least, only women hit on me… I saw you earlier! You were hit on left and right, by both men and women! I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the woman whispering in your ear!"

Guang Ying raised an eyebrow at him and asked in a threatening tone, "So it's my fault now?"

Callum gulped and knew that he had said the wrong thing again. He always did it unintentionally whenever he was nervous or upset. So, he sighed and with an apologetic look, he glanced at the rearview mirror as he said in a pleading tone, "Don't get angry anymore, please… I'm sorry."

Guang Ying glanced out the window. He did not really want to talk anymore. However, that hand that was creeping up his thigh was starting to annoy him.

Just as he was thinking whether or not he should break the hand, he heard Callum asked, "So, what do you think about the woman that we saw yesterday? You haven't given me your opinions yet.

For more than one year, Callum had been talking about finding a surrogate mother so that they would be able to have a child. Both of them loved children so this seemed to be a great idea.

However, even though Guang Ying eventually agreed to find a suitable surrogate mother, he was still worried that his genes would be passed on. He considered his genes cursed and did not want it to be passed on to anyone.

The problem was Callum. He did not want a 100% chance that the child was his. He wanted both of them to be the donors at the same time, and once their child arrived, they would not dispute on their child's genes. The child would be theirs, period.

They had been going through meetings with potential surrogate mothers that Callum had found for them. However, Guang Ying did not like any of them.

"Too fat."

"Too thin."

"Not smart enough."

"I don't f*cking like the way how she looked at you!"

"That's obviously plastic face. Do you want our kid to be someone who cares so much about their looks that they would go under the knife? NO!"

Above was all Guang Ying's comments after he met all of the surrogate mothers. As for the latest one, he had one comment, "Not tall enough."

"She's a woman," said Callum before he pulled his car to a stop at the red traffic light.

Guang Ying scoffed. "What if we've got a son? What if he inherited her short genes? He's gonna get bullied!"

Looking at the man he loved more than anything in this world, Callum sighed. "But we'd still love him, right?"

"Yeah, but…"

Somehow sensing where Guang Ying was coming from, Callum reached over and took his hand before he asked with a serious tone, "Guang Ying, are you really ok with a surrogate? You don't have to worry about him."

Guang Ying hesitated for a moment before he said softly, "I just… I'm really worried. I don't want my genes to be passed on."

Hearing the tone in Guang Ying's voice, Callum thought about everything that his lover had been through, and he knew that Guang Ying's fear was justified.

However, he still leaned over and placed a kiss on Guang Ying's cheek before he said, "You're a great man, my dear violent lover. Ye Tian's nature is not bad as well. It was only because of his past that he grew up to be warped. Out of the 3 children that your useless father produced, only one was truly evil. So, if we're the one raising our kid, he won't be that bad."

"I don't know…" Guang Ying looked out the window. He did not feel comfortable with it yet. His half-brother, Luo Yin, committed atrocities to dozens of women around the world. Sharing his blood did not mean that Guang Ying could escape Luo Yin's cruelty.

As he glanced at his scarred left hand, Guang Ying clenched his teeth. Because of the action of his half-brother, Guang Ying had to live with the pain for the rest of his life.

Callum noticed that Guang Ying was looking at his own left hand, and he knew what the latter was thinking about. Ever since they got together, Callum had tried to search and to talk to the best doctors in the world, but none of them gave him a satisfactory answer.

No matter what, Guang Ying's hand was too far damaged to ever regain the same mobility as before. Each of them agreed that it was good enough that Guang Ying could see do basic stuff like holding a spoon.

Looking at Guang Ying's handsome face, Callum sighed. Every time his lover had that complicated expression on, it meant that he did not want to talk anymore. So, Callum merely dropped the matter as he said, "Let's just keep looking for now…"

He noticed that the traffic light had already turned green, so he started the car. However, just as he hit the pedal, a kid suddenly ran across the road and right into the front of his car.

THUD!

"F*ck!" Callum cursed as he braked.

"Did you hit him?" asked Guang Ying worriedly as he removed his seat belt and got ready to exit the car.

"I don't know!" replied Callum as he too removed his seat belt and got down from the car to take a look.

When both of them went down from their car, they saw the kid lying unconscious right in front of their car.

"Zhihao!"

A woman's loud shriek caused both men to turn and looked toward the direction of the sound. A clumsy-looking woman dropped the school bag and a school blazer that she was holding and rushed over to where they were standing.

She knelt down next to the boy and checked on his body. There were some scratches on the boy's palms but nothing serious. However, when she shook him gently, there was no response from him and his body was limp.

"Zhihao!" cried the woman with a worried tone as she checked her son's pulse by placing two fingers on his throat. To her relief, his pulse was fine.

"Miss, you are?" Guang Ying asked.

In an annoyed tone, she snapped angrily, "His mother! Who hit my son!"

She looked as if she were about to take down the two men with her bare fists.

"Let's take him to the hospital first," said Callum, unaffected by her rudeness earlier. He knew that as a mother, it was only normal for her to speak that way to someone who knocked her child down.

When the woman nodded and stepped aside, Callum bent down and carried the unconscious boy up in his arm before he gently placed the boy down inside the backseat of his dark red BMW M5 sedan.

Guang Ying looked at the boy's young mother and said in a comforting manner, "Please come with us, miss. We're near Imperial Hospital."

The woman got onto the car and placed the boy's head on her laps. She kept holding the boy's hand as she muttered softly, "Please don't leave me too… Nothing can happen to you…"

Callum and Guang Ying exchanged glances with each other before Callum started the car. When they arrived at the hospital, Callum immediately carried the boy in while Guang Ying and the boy's mother followed behind him with the boy's backpack and his school blazer.

Once they passed the unconscious boy to the doctor at the children's ward, they waited outside the room while the doctor checked on the boy.

The boy's mother kept pacing around outside the room while she squeezed her fist to calm herself down.

Callum looked apologetic as he said, "I'm sorry, miss. He just came out of nowhere… Erm, what should I call you?"

The boy's mother glared at him. She then looked away as she muttered, "Xiao Lei. My name is Xiao Lei."

"Xiao Lei, don't worry. He'd be fine. There's no bleeding anywhere, and we were barely moving when he ran out."

The woman nodded, but she did not seem to be completely relaxed. In a nervous tone, she asked, "The hospital?"

Callum smiled and said, "This one? It's the best… Don't worry. I'm sure he's fine."

The woman nodded. However, she then asked meekly, "But it's also expensive, right?"

Callum reached out to pat her on the shoulder, but she stepped away from him. He felt that it was weird but he did not say anything about it. Instead, he merely reassured her by saying, "Don't worry. We'll cover it…"

"I-I'm sorry…" said the woman as she looked down at her feet. "W-We can't afford much..."

Guang Ying glanced at her. Obviously, she did not come from money. Her red and white checkered chiffon jacket had better days, and it had been washed so often that the red colors had almost completely faded away.

He then looked at her hands. It seemed rough and did not look like the hands of a woman who worked in an office. There was also a lack of a wedding ring or any kind of jewelry. As he continued to make his assessment of the woman, Guang Ying wondered what her past was.

He thought for a moment before asking, "Ms. Xiao Lei, where's your husband? Should we call him to pick you up? Or if you don't mind, we can send you back…"

There was a moment of silence before she answered him in a small voice, "Erm… My husband… left us."

The doctor, Dr. Phillip, came out at the moment and said, "The kid's fine. He probably fainted from shock. He should wake up after a while."

After she heard what the doctor said, Xiao Lei sighed in relief and bowed at him. "Thank you, doctor."

"Well, I didn't really do anything anyway. The nurse will take him to one of the wards later. Once he wakes up, I'll just do a check up on him. If everything's alright, he can go home straight."

Xiao Lei nodded and thanked him again.

Dr. Phillip then talked to Guang Ying and Callum for a short moment before he then walked away. Since Dr. Phillip was a close friend of Callum's brother, they all knew each other very well.

Once the nurse transferred the boy, Zhihao, onto one of the beds in Ward 610, Callum and Guang Ying waited in the ward with Xiao Lei. They wanted to make sure that Zhihao was completely fine before they left. Even if it was not their fault, they felt bad since the one they hit was a kid. If it was an adult man, both of them would have been less caring.

Xiao Lei tried to tell them that it was OK, but they refused to leave. After a while, she just gave up. As she sat next to Zhihao's bed, she held his hand as she scolded him gently, "You silly boy… Why did you just run off in anger like that? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

Guang Ying watched her movement for a while. He then suddenly asked, "I noticed that the school blazer you carried earlier… It's Imperial Secondary's?"

….

Author's note :

Guys, the pace of the story is a little slow at the beginning, but like BMS, once it takes off, it takes off and it would be mostly cliffhangers. *evil laugh*.

If you would like to read faster, don't forget to subscribe to my PAT REON at < https://www.pat reon.com/luoyeyouling >. Just remove the space between PAT REON. For a small sum, you would get advanced chapters as well as extra some stuff.

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Regards,

Luo Ye