"You must be crazy for money!" Ji Zimo trembled with anger, feeling as though someone was choking her.
She wasn't unaccustomed to being controlled by others. During her three years abroad, she was always careful with her words and actions, but being outmaneuvered by Ji Yao made her especially furious.
"I don't want money, I want you?"
As Ji Yao spoke, she glanced outside the hospital room. "Your second spring has returned."
Ji Zimo's heart tightened, and she pricked up her ears. Sure enough, she heard the sound of the doorknob turning. In an instant, it felt as if her soul had scattered. "One million, I'll give you one million. Give me the recording pen!"
"Transfer it."
Ji Yao calmly edited her account information and sent it to her, while Ji Zimo was frantic.
Unfortunately, with her big belly, it was clearly impossible to gain any advantage over Ji Yao.
Hurry up, hurry up!
She urged impatiently through clenched teeth, copied the account number, accessed mobile banking, made the payment, all in one smooth process.
"Give it to me!"
Ji Zimo already heard footsteps entering. She reached out to grab it.
However, Ji Yao was meticulously counting zeros - one, two... six zeros.
"Little bastard, don't go too far..."
Ji Zimo squeezed out the venomous words through her teeth, and only then did Ji Yao hand over the recording pen. "What's the rush? I'm much more honest than you are."
"What are you talking about?" The man's magnetic voice was deep and cold, his gaze sweeping over Ji Zimo and Ji Yao.
Ji Zimo felt a chill over her body and hurriedly stuffed the incriminating evidence under her pillow.
Ji Yao flashed a light smile. "Talking about making a fortune today."
Such nonsense!
Lu Jincheng didn't look at her again. He sat on the edge of the bed but suddenly caught sight of Ji Zimo's swollen wrist. He asked with abrupt concern, "How did this happen?"
Ji Zimo instinctively withdrew her hand. Her panic made Lu Jincheng think of something, and his icy gaze pressed down on Ji Yao.
Ji Yao played innocent. "She burned herself, it has nothing to do with me."
"She burned herself?" Lu Jincheng was somewhat skeptical.
Ji Yao tilted her head, a hint of amusement in her tone. "Sister, what do you say?"
"It's true..." Ji Zimo's palm clutched at the cold sweat within it.
Lu Jincheng felt an odd tension in the air. He pressed the nurse call button beside the bed and said, with an air of nonchalance, "You'd better behave, and don't try any tricks!"
That remark was obviously directed at Ji Yao, who understood it very well. She raised her chin slightly, a look of dissatisfaction in her eyes. Ji Zimo's alarms went off, and suddenly she wrapped her arms around the man's waist. "Jincheng, I need some peace, I'm feeling a little dizzy."
"All right." Lu Jincheng's long fingers brushed through her hair, and then, with a hawk-like shadow in his eyes, he glanced coldly at Ji Yao. "Aren't you leaving?"
Ji Yao tightened her grip on her phone, her lips curving into a polite smile, she even gave a ninety-degree bow. "Of course, I hope the child is born soon, I'm clocking out now."
She adopted her role quickly, really seeing herself as the nanny.
As he watched her petite figure leave, Lu Jincheng's dark eyes grew even colder.
Not long after Ji Yao left the hospital room, she saw the chief physician hurry towards Ji Zimo's room.
It was easy to imagine that the medical care Lu Jincheng arranged for Ji Zimo must be top-notch.
Ji Yao forlornly opened her mobile wallet. This should be enough for the next three months' worth of special medicine...
She turned to head towards another hospital building. Her mother had been living there for three years now.
Between the two buildings, the bright sunlight transitioned, glaringly intense.
Ji Yao raised her hand to shield her eyes and unexpectedly, her vision went dark, and she collapsed.
"Miss, are you alright?"
"Someone help, there's someone who's fainted here!"
In a daze, Ji Yao heard the noises around her merge into a confused clamor.
By the time she awoke, she was already lying in a hospital bed…
She wasn't harboring some contagious disease, was she? Did this count as an occupational injury?
Otherwise, she had always been hearty and robust, barely even catching a cold once a year, so how could she suddenly collapse?
The nurse, smiling as she set up the IV, unraveled her confusion, "Miss, you really are laid back, aren't you? You're nearly two months pregnant and still not resting enough, you've got hypoglycemia, don't you?"
She could understand hypoglycemia, but a child she could not!
"A child, what child?!"
Ji Yao's face was grave.
Her last period had gone AWOL, and she had thought it was just a simple delay.
"You don't have a boyfriend?"
The nurse's skepticism wounded Ji Yao's pride. She threw off the covers and got out of bed, murmuring, "I don't have a partner, but I have a husband."
Speaking of which, two months ago, the night Lu Jincheng got drunk, indeed…
As Ji Yao caressed her flat belly, she felt like she had knocked over a jar filled with mixed emotions. Their agreement stipulated that theirs was a contractual relationship.
The fetus in Ji Zimo's belly belonged to someone else, yet Lu Jincheng couldn't care less.
Probably even if Ji Yao told him that he was about to have his own flesh and blood, he wouldn't spare her a second glance.
Uncertain, he might even ask her to abort it, not to interfere with his and Ji Zimo's past relationship getting rekindled…
Sigh…
Such karma!
Sigh…
As she let out a heavy sigh, the clouds above changed, and she unwittingly found herself outside the sterile ward.
Through the glass wall, she could clearly see the old woman lying in the hospital bed, over fifty years of age, with white hair, wearing an oxygen mask, fast asleep.
"Miss Ji," the fully attired doctor stood beside her, handing her a prescription list, "The special medicine can only prolong the patient's vital signs, you see?"
The doctor didn't finish his sentence, but Ji Yao knew that her mother was afflicted with a genetic mutation sepsis, a fatal disease that most would choose to forgo treatment for.
"I have money," Ji Yao said hurriedly. "I've heard that there has been academic research abroad on curing sepsis recently. Doctor, could you make an introduction for me?"
"Are you sure? That's a hefty medical bill."
"Sure!"
Ji Yao's tone was unwaveringly determined; she would scrape the pot and sell the iron, live on chaff if she had to, just to see her mother recover.
Yet looking at the bank balance, Ji Yao felt nervous.
Although the agreement with Lu Jincheng promised her a fixed two million every month, it was nearly all spent on the special medicine.
Now, with less than ten million left, she wondered if that would be enough.
The more, the better...
As night fell, the lights of Guli Bar were just turning on.
Amidst the clinking of glasses, Ji Yao sat uneasily with her design drafts, casting glances over the laughing and crying crowd around her.
She had been working for the Ji Family since she was twelve, taking on the responsibility of providing for her mother, never having the time or spare money to visit such places.
Feeling nervous, Ji Yao looked toward the plump middle-aged man seated next to her, "Director Chen, do we really have to do the transaction here?"
The man had already scrutinized Ji Yao from head to toe; she was wearing a short sleeve top and a skirt, not overly tall, but slim and well-proportioned.
Her pale, delicate face could break at the touch, and wisps of hair framed her forehead in a delicate arc.
He pushed a glass of wine toward her, "Miss Ji, coming here is to relax, don't be so tense."
"I don't drink."
Ji Yao declined, but the man moved closer to her.