This time, he wore light gray pajamas, wiping his damp not wet hair with his hand, leaving the neckline casually open, revealing his chest muscles.
As he wiped his hair nonchalantly, Lu Beicheng said expressionlessly, "Don't bother, stripping naked won't help."
Lu Beicheng's casual remarks made Gu Nanyan's expression dim slightly.
She slowly pulled up the sheer veil and said calmly, "Lu Beicheng, just cooperate and let's complete the task, and after that, you can do whatever you want. I won't manage or disturb your life."
Then, she added another turn, "If you really don't want to, we could do IVF."
After Gu Nanyan finished speaking, Lu Beicheng slammed the towel on the ground, pinched her chin, and asked with amusement, "Gu Nanyan, do you think I'm a mobile sperm bank?"
A mobile sperm bank?
Facing Lu Beicheng, Gu Nanyan found herself without an excuse.
Their eyes met, and as she saw herself in his eyes, Lu Beicheng's body suddenly leaned closer, getting very close to her.
So close he almost kissed her lips.
As Lu Beicheng drew nearer, Gu Nanyan instinctively struggled a bit.
At this moment, Lu Beicheng suddenly came back to his senses and stood up straight, saying coldly, "Gu Nanyan, dreaming of improving your status through your child, wanting to have my baby?"
Pausing for a moment, he continued, "You're rather unqualified."
Unqualified?
Gu Nanyan felt a sting in her heart.
Because he didn't like her, because their marriage was arranged by both their parents, because their families wanted their companies to join forces.
That's why Lu Beicheng looked down on her in every way.
Immediately after, he lifted his right hand to press down on the back of Gu Nanyan's neck, forcefully pulling her close to him and glaring into her eyes as a reminder, "Gu Nanyan, you have one year left. If you can't get me to have a child with you within this year, you can scram back to wherever you came from."
Having spoken, he turned and walked to the wardrobe, picked out a dark suit to change into, put on the gold-rimmed glasses, and slammed the door as he left.
Bang! The door slammed shut with force, and Gu Nanyan clattered helplessly onto the bed, her right hand supporting her forehead.
She didn't know that Lu Beicheng liked Ye Chu; if she had known this sooner, when Lu Tianyang proposed this marriage, she would have declined no matter what.
Even if it meant never having children, never becoming a mother.
After sitting beside the bed for a while, Gu Nanyan went to the wardrobe and took out a normal set of pajamas.
Although she had grown accustomed to it, every time Lu Beicheng rejected her, Gu Nanyan felt like a failure as a woman. Even with her efforts, Lu Beicheng still wouldn't touch her.
She felt powerless.
——
The next morning, when she woke up, Qin Haiyun's call came through again.
"Mom."
"Nanyan, how did it go with Beicheng last night? Did you two make up?"
Faced with Qin Haiyun's inquiry, Gu Nanyan was at her wit's end.
For the past two years, Qin Haiyun's pressure for a grandchild had nearly driven her insane.
Thinking about wanting a grandchild so much, she should have had a couple of kids herself, rather than pinning all her hopes on Lu Beicheng!
After a long silence, Gu Nanyan replied helplessly, "He left right after coming back."
Hearing that they hadn't succeeded the previous night, and that she had lost another chance to become a grandmother, Qin Haiyun felt a chill in her heart.
She said, "Nanyan, you still need to be more attentive to Beicheng, be more proactive!"
Gu Nanyan thought to herself, she was just short of kneeling to Lu Beicheng, begging him to have some compassion and sleep with her; how much more proactive did she need to be?
Frowning, Gu Nanyan didn't know how to respond, and then Qin Haiyun said on the other end, "You just don't care enough about Beicheng. Go to the company and bring lunch to Beicheng, don't let yourself, the Lu Family's young mistress, be too unseen, don't let others think you can be easily bullied."
The others Qin Haiyun referred to was Ye Chu.
She was acting as Lu Beicheng's secretary at the company.
Despite being really unwilling, with Qin Haiyun's call and advice given, Gu Nanyan found it difficult to refuse. So, she got up, got ready, and drove with the lunch prepared by the servant to Lu's Corporation.
"Beicheng, then do you think this revision is okay? Change this..."
Outside Lu Beicheng's office, Gu Nanyan had yet to knock and enter when she heard Ye Chu's soft voice coming from inside.
The office door was not closed, and Gu Nanyan watched soundlessly from outside, noticing that Lu Beicheng, holding a document, was addressing Ye Chu who leaned over beside him, saying, "This number is not reasonable; it would pose a safety issue in the project."
"And the D section here." At this point, Lu Beicheng suddenly shifted the conversation, "Grab a chair and sit down."
Lu Beicheng's concern caused Ye Chu to flash a smile, and she pulled a chair close to Lu Beicheng to sit down.
From the doorway, Gu Nanyan involuntarily rolled her eyes.
At the moment, she didn't know whether the interaction between Lu Beicheng and Ye Chu was normal, nor if it was normal for a secretary to sit next to her boss like this.
But she knew one thing: since marrying Lu Beicheng, he had never spoken to her so gently.
He never cared whether she was standing, sitting, kneeling, lying down, or even alive or dead.
Last year when she had a car accident, the doctor asked for a family member to sign, she called Lu Beicheng, and he just hung up her call.
After staying in the hospital for several days, Lu Beicheng was still unaware of the incident.
Standing at the door for a moment, realizing the two inside would not finish their conversation any time soon, Gu Nanyan turned with her lunch box and left.
After wandering around the building and passing by a pharmacy, remembering Qin Haiyun's instructions, she turned back towards the company.
Yes! Regardless of whether Lu Beicheng recognized it or not, she was the Lu Family's young mistress, his lawful wife.
What was there for her to hide from? She hadn't done anything wrong.
Thus, when she returned to Lu Beicheng's office, Gu Nanyan didn't think twice and simply pushed open the office door.
Inside the office, Lu Beicheng and Ye Chu, hearing the noise, looked up towards the doorway.