Chapter 90: Paternity Test

"President Gu, according to our investigation, little Meng Xin Qiao has been living abroad all these years. Her mother—is Miss Meng Shutang."

Qin Zheng stated firmly.

The man's entire blood seemed to freeze in an instant, yet in the next second after hanging up the phone, it surged wildly.

He got up, picked up Song Yilin, and left the gallery. In the mall elevator, he called Meng Shutang. "Where are you?"

Meng Shutang replied coolly, all business. "President Gu, today is the weekend."

The man's tone was absolute. "The neighborhood entrance?"

After a moment's thought on the other end, as though making some decision, she said, "Come over."

Gu Yunci hung up the phone and rushed to Qingluju at lightning speed. As soon as he got out of the car, he handed Song Yilin to Qin Zheng.

He stumbled over to Meng Shutang, his eyes brimming with red he couldn't suppress, and asked hoarsely, "Xin Xin... is she my daughter?"

Meng Shutang had mentally prepared herself, but she never expected him to ask that the moment he opened his mouth.

A flash of panic swept through her eyes.

Gu Yunci saw it and smiled with delight.

He grasped Meng Shutang's hand and pulled her into his arms, tightening his hold inch by inch, as if wanting to press her into his very bones and blood.

"I knew it. You couldn't bear to. That's our child—how could you!

Tangtang, we have a daughter.

For a brief moment, Meng Shutang's heart was warm.

They had met at fourteen. Gu Yunci was like that star hairpin from her childhood, warming a passage of her life.

Once, she had desperately longed to have a child with him.

But all of that came to an abrupt halt the moment he forced the divorce agreement onto her lap and ordered her to stop her mother's medical treatment fees.

She didn't struggle, just let him hold her, yet every word carved into his heart.

"You've got it wrong. She is not your child."

The tear tracks pressed against her neck turned cold bit by bit. The man stood frozen there. After a long while, he slowly rose.

His red eyes fixed on Meng Shutang, his throat seemed to be violently blocked by something, and he couldn't utter a single word.

Meng Shutang looked at him, her expression so calm it was nearly cold, every word clear and cruel.

"She was born one year after our divorce. She is my child with my previous ex-husband."

Gu Yunci shook his head. "Impossible."

How could she have aborted their child, then quickly married and quickly gotten pregnant? The Meng Shutang he knew was as cool and clear as the moon—she couldn't be someone like that.

"Why is it impossible? If Bai Cixian can be three months younger than me, what else in this world is impossible?"

After saying that, she turned and left.

The man stared fixedly at her, feeling the world spin around him.

After a long while, he turned to look at Qin Zheng. "Do a paternity test."

Qin Zheng nodded. "Understood, President Gu. After sampling, we can get the results in as fast as two hours."

After Qin Zheng left, Gu Yunci sat back in the car, planning to drive to the hospital.

He looked up and saw Xin Xin at the neighborhood entrance.

Auntie Li was buying her cotton candy, and the little girl clapped her hands happily.

In an instant, Gu Yunci's heart softened.

Did he really want to cruelly take her to the hospital to draw blood, all for the sake of a truth?

Never mind drawing blood—if she were his daughter, so sensible and cute, he would ache to tears just pulling a single hair from her head.

She was so small—how could he bear to hurt her!

No, he couldn't be that cruel.

Even if he wanted to do a paternity test, he had to wait until after he had investigated and confirmed he could find no results.

Not now, in such a frantic rush!

Watching the men in black approach, cruelly separating Auntie Li and Xin Xin, Xin Xin wailing in fright, Gu Yunci felt he was no human at all.

For the sake of that trivial obsession, he was no different from an executioner.

"Stop."

He could watch no more. He got out of the car and called out to halt them.

The men in black saw it was him and pulled back, retreating.

Auntie Li, seeing this, was overwhelmed with gratitude toward him, scooped up Xin Xin, and left.

Qin Zheng saw this. "President Gu is sure about giving up? This is the fastest and most authoritative method!"

How could he not know!

The man's head felt like it was splitting. He furrowed his brows deeply. "Investigate first. If that really doesn't work, then do this."

The thought of hurting Xin Xin made his heart ache and suffocate. Having truly decided not to do the paternity test, he actually felt a bit better.

The man slowly turned around. "Take the young master home. I'm going to the cemetery."

The weather had been fine when he arrived. He had barely stood still before Chu Fu's grave, placing her favorite hibiscus flowers before the headstone, when the sky took on a hint of rain.

He stood there, cold and desolate, his fingertips gripping so tightly they turned white, his deep eyes fixed on his mother's memorial photo, yet his heart was being ruthlessly gouged by those words: "You've got it wrong. She is not your child."

Xin Xin's dimples were just like Chu Fu's—when either of them smiled, it was equally bright and radiant.

But Meng Shutang said she wasn't his child.

His child had been miscarried before she left.

He lowered his eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing violently several times, then finally crouched slowly before the headstone, caressing his mother's cheek in the memorial photo, as though she were gently soothing him the way she did in his childhood.

"It's my uselessness... I couldn't even keep my own child."

Covered in bone-corroding regret and pain, he slowly lowered his head, as though all his strength had been drained by the entire world, his head sinking heavily.

Gu Yunci did not know that in another corner of this cemetery, Meng Shutang was slowly kneeling before her grandfather's tombstone, reverently placing lilies there.

Her grandfather's words from childhood echoed in her ears once more: "With Grandpa here, Tangtang has nothing to fear."

Her grandfather had passed, her mother was ill, her grandmother grew older by the day, and she alone had been holding this family together all these years.

Once it was Gu Yunci who gave her hope, and later he cruelly took it back.

For the rest of her life, Xin Xin would be her hope and reliance; she absolutely could not let Gu Yunci take her away.

All the coldness and composure she had shown in front of Gu Yunci just now shattered to pieces in an instant.

She bit her lip fiercely, refusing to let a sob escape, but her tears struck the tombstone and still bloomed into a small wet stain.

"Grandpa, I miss you so much..."

When Meng Shutang left the cemetery, she unexpectedly ran into Gu Yunci at the entrance.

The two stared at each other for several minutes, then ultimately passed each other by and drove off separately.

For the following week, Gu Yunci did not go to Gu Group at all.

Everyone was shocked, and one after another asked Qin Zheng what was going on.

"Special Assistant Qin, what's wrong with our heartthrob CEO? This is the first time in four years he's skipped work, and for this long at that? Could he have gone on a honeymoon with someone?"

"I don't think so. For someone like President Gu, a high-and-mighty flower on a lofty peak, the person who could catch his eye hasn't been born yet!"

"Special Assistant Qin, don't just stay silent, hurry and tell us what's going on?"

Qin Zheng was shaken dizzy by a crowd of girls. "President Gu is fine, he's just working from home."

After saying that, he shifted his gaze and seemingly casually caught sight of Meng Shutang heading from the lobby toward the first floor, her expression calm and breezy, chatting with someone as she walked.

During his evening work report, he told Gu Yunci about encountering Meng Shutang downstairs. "This morning when I came to work, I saw Miss Meng on the first floor."

Gu Yunci made no sound, listening quietly.

Qin Zheng: "She..."

Gu Yunci's heart suddenly clenched. "What's wrong with her, is she not well?"

Saying that, the man gave a light cough.

He didn't believe Meng Shutang's heart was made of stone, that she wouldn't hurt at all?

Seeing the man's tension, Qin Zheng immediately responded, "President Gu, no need to worry. Miss Meng is doing very well. I saw her chatting with colleagues and even saying she was going to eat hotpot after work."

Gu Yunci's heart was stabbed deeply once again, dug out, dripping with blood, the pain so intense that every breath was a tearing agony.

This woman truly had no heart.

He was already going mad with regret, dying of pain, but she... still had the mood to eat hotpot?!

While he was lost in thought, Qin Zheng's voice sounded again: "President Gu, then..."

Before he could finish, the man interrupted: "No need. I'm going to work tomorrow."

The next day, the man appeared at the Gu Group building in a smoky-gray satin shirt, his figure tall and straight, wearing no tie, the top two buttons of his collar casually undone, his cold aloofness tinged with a touch of effortless languor.

Colleagues greeted the man one after another, and he nodded like a gentleman.

Even he himself hadn't noticed that his deep, dark eyes kept searching for a silhouette.

But from the moment he entered the lobby to the moment he stepped into the elevator, that silhouette carved into his very bones never appeared.

His heart dimmed little by little, and he also began to doubt whether his heaven-destroying, earth-shattering obsession had been a mistake from the very start.

The next second, the elevator was held from outside.

Meng Shutang walked in. Their eyes met, and her expression was calm, as though looking at a stranger.