Chapter 12

Watching Jiang Jie's departing figure, Bai Bai Ziling said no more, yet her gaze burned with an unyielding heat.

Sima Sima Xingchen had more free time than Xia Zhen and Chang Chang Weiwei, and Lan Bowei hoped she would live a relaxed life, not needing to get involved in the "Accounts Receivable Company" matters; she only needed to recover her health and prepare to bear a child, so she spent her days merely eating and waiting to give birth. Today she had arranged to meet Bai Bai Ziling for coffee, partly to kill time and partly to care for her friend.

The Bai Bai Ziling of now was truly different; on her feet were MIUMIU shoes, in her hand was this year's most in-style peach-colored PRADA bag, and the whole person looked fashionable and trendy.

"Bai Bai Ziling, how much of your one million five hundred thousand is left?" Sima Sima Xingchen was partly reminding her and partly mocking her.

"There is still a lot," Bai Bai Ziling said with a brilliant smile.

"Money can be spent until it runs out."

"I am very frugal, and I am also calculating."

"Bai Bai Ziling, you can get by with one less handbag, but if a heart is wounded until it is riddled with holes, then..." Sima Sima Xingchen stopped short.

"Sima Sima Xingchen, I am fine!"

"Are you still like 'roommates'?" Sima Sima Xingchen asked with concern: "You two, a lone man and a lone woman..."

"Jiang Jie is not home much; he only comes back to sleep. To him, I might not even be as good as his bed," Bai Bai Ziling admitted frankly. "So there is no need to worry that he will hurt me; even if I wanted him to hurt me, he seems uninterested."

"Bai Bai Ziling, he is neither gay nor a Liu Xia Hui; a woman as beautiful as you still cannot stir his heart, which is really hard for me to believe," Sima Sima Xingchen said doubtfully.

"He may truly not want any entanglement with me," Bai Bai Ziling said self-mockingly.

"Is he really only after his grandfather's inheritance?"

"It seems so."

Stirring the iced coffee with a straw, Sima Sima Xingchen sincerely hoped Bai Bai Ziling could also find happiness, but she also always believed love was more important than wealth; a man who would love you was more precious than a rich man.

"Sima Sima Xingchen, you really need not worry about me; there are still more than two months, and the situation could change at any time!" Bai Bai Ziling said confidently.

"You are truly optimistic."

"My conditions are not poor, are they?"

"But this Jiang Da president is no ordinary person!"

"Right! But he is still a man, isn't he?" Bai Bai Ziling smiled. "I just don't want to use my natural female assets; otherwise... a man is a man."

"Bai Bai Ziling, don't go messing around," Sima Sima Xingchen cried softly.

"I won't!"

"One must have integrity."

"I know! Otherwise, I would have already drugged his coffee and created a 'fait accompli'," Bai Bai Ziling said madly. "Or I could take a cleaver and hold him hostage; as long as the raw rice is cooked into cooked rice..."

"Bai Bai Ziling, do you want to make me laugh myself to death?" Sima Sima Xingchen almost choked; it was the twenty-first century now, and there were still people who did things like this?

"So I said I would do nothing; I won't let him look down on me." She still had that much backbone.

"Men are like this: a wife is not as good as a concubine, a concubine is not as good as a stolen one, and a stolen one is not as good as one that cannot be stolen."

"Playing hard to get?!" Sima Sima Xingchen asked.

"Governing by doing nothing," Bai Bai Ziling thought of Laozi's philosophy.

"But this three million you earned easily; in the future... how will you return to simplicity?" Sima Sima Xingchen glanced again at Bai Bai Ziling's designer bag. "Do you know the feeling of being trapped in quicksand with no way out?"

"It's not that terrible!"

"It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to return from luxury to frugality."

"Sima Sima Xingchen, is this now the time for idioms?"

"I fear that in the future you will no longer want to buy cheap goods."

Bai Bai Ziling was still drinking black coffee, but she suddenly seemed to have an epiphany. "Sima Sima Xingchen, I can drink coffee with sugar too; I'm just more used to drinking it without sugar, so if after more than two months I have to carry a pile of credit card debt again, facing days where I don't know where my future lies... I can do that too!"

"Then the three of us have worried in vain," Sima Sima Xingchen said, hoping Bai Bai Ziling truly possessed such carefree open-mindedness.

"Tell me about this Jiang Da president; after your half-month of observation, what kind of man do you think he is? Is he worth loving?"

"I'm not clear yet!" Bai Bai Ziling answered truthfully. "We haven't spent much time together; he neither comes back for dinner nor has the habit of eating breakfast."

"What about holidays?"

"He doesn't have that two-day weekend routine; he works on Saturday as usual, and as for Sunday... he only gets up at noon, plays golf in the afternoon, and spends the evening holed up in the study surfing the internet," Bai Bai Ziling said, knowing his schedule clearly.

"You haven't gone out and done anything together?"

"No!"

"You could accompany him to play golf."

"First, he didn't invite me; second, I don't know how to play golf. I don't want to give him the impression that I'm an Octopus; men are very afraid of women clinging and women following," Bai Bai Ziling said; she hadn't had many relationships, but she could gauge men's minds.

"So there is basically no interaction between you two."

"We are 'roommates' with a friendship as light as water between gentlemen."

"If I were you, I would be bored to death!" Sima Sima Xingchen, a person with a stubborn temper, especially when facing men, said. "He... may truly have no interest in you."

"I am not ready to give up yet," Bai Bai Ziling said, her morale high.

"If he had any intention, he would have already..."

"Sima Sima Xingchen, some people are 'slow to warm up'; I still have time..." Bai Bai Ziling said with full confidence: "I haven't truly started yet!"

A phone call summoned Bai Bai Ziling to a private obstetrics and gynecology clinic to meet Jiang Jie, because the "time" was about right; they had been married for nearly a month, so they could test for pregnancy.

The doctor solemnly had her provide a urine sample and draw blood, and she, who was clearly not pregnant, also had to memorize her due date and some prenatal checkup dates; the doctor even told her on which day she had "conceived." Thinking of this, Bai Bai Ziling found it funny; how much money had Jiang Jie paid this doctor? Or was his friendship with this doctor really so good that he wasn't at all afraid his medical license would be revoked?

While Jiang Jie chatted with the doctor, Bai Bai Ziling came to the nursery; through a large expanse of glass, she looked at those newborns. Although every face was wrinkled, looking like little old men and little old ladies, they were so cute and full of vitality. She couldn't help but fill with tears; every little life was a treasure, a perfect gift.

Looking at Xia Zhen, looking at Chang Chang Weiwei... when would it be her turn to be a mother? Suddenly, she also really wanted to have her own child.

"We can go now," Jiang Jie's voice sounded beside her ear.

Bai Bai Ziling turned around and looked calmly at Jiang Jie, wondering in her mind what kind of father he would be. Was he that kind of stern father, or that kind of doting daddy? She really couldn't tell, and more importantly... would he even want to be a father?

"What's wrong?" Jiang Jie asked, looking into her eyes.

"You are going to be a father," she "congratulated" him.

"Bai Bai Ziling, this is fake!"

"And I am going to be a mother," she continued.

"Stop messing around!"

"Do you think our little baby will resemble you more, or me?"

"Bai Bai Ziling, what madness has possessed you?" Jiang Jie, slightly displeased, grabbed her and dragged her toward the clinic exit. "That five hundred million yuan of mine hasn't truly landed in my hands yet; watch your words!"

"Which sentence of mine was wrong?" She suddenly wrenched her hand free. "It is precisely because I am cooperating with you that I am asking this."

"Your tone and expression..."

"Jiang Jie, you are the one who needs to act happier and more joyful; otherwise, people will think you don't actually wish for your wife to be pregnant, or that you suspect the child in your wife's belly belongs to another man." Bai Bai Ziling, overwhelmed by a surge of anger from who knows where, could not control her tongue.

Jiang Jie stared at her, momentarily unable to retort.

"Exactly! You cannot scold me, because I am now a 'pregnant woman'." Bai Bai Ziling stared back at him, fearless and emboldened.