Nan Xin had not taken what happened that day to heart.
It wasn’t as though she had wanted to humiliate herself in the first place. Besides, in her current condition, she couldn’t possibly leave the hospital.
What she hadn’t expected was for Fu Beichen to be so ruthless.
After taking a walk, Nan Xin returned to her room to rest. Suddenly, a group of men in black barged in.
The leader was Fu Beichen’s secretary, Sun Wei.
“Secretary Sun, what do you mean by this?”
“President Fu sent me to invite you to Miss Nuan Nuan’s birthday party.”
“And this is how you invite someone?”
Nan Xin stared sharply at Sun Wei.
Sun Wei raised his chin slightly, his tone as disdainful as ever. “Madam, I advise you to cooperate obediently. After all, in President Fu’s heart, you aren’t even as important as a strand of Miss Nuan Nuan’s hair.”
Everything Sun Wei was doing had Fu Beichen’s tacit approval.
Nan Xin pursed her lips. “I can go, but surely you don’t expect me to attend a banquet dressed like this?”
Sun Wei looked her up and down. After making sure that, given her current physical condition, she couldn’t cause any trouble, he nodded.
“You have three minutes. I’ll come back for you then.”
With that, Sun Wei led the bodyguards out.
The moment the door closed, Nan Xin immediately grabbed the phone hidden beneath her pillow and quickly typed out a distress message to her best friend, Shen Zhixia.
Because she was in such a hurry, she failed to notice that she had entered the wrong number. Instead of sending the message to Shen Zhixia, she accidentally sent it to another number.
Three minutes later, Sun Wei pushed the door open.
“Let’s go, Madam.”
Afraid that Nan Xin might escape, they kept a close watch on her the entire way.
They didn’t stop until they arrived at the hotel.
By the time Nan Xin entered the banquet hall, it was already filled with distinguished guests.
Yet her gaze was uncontrollably drawn toward a family of three surrounded by the crowd.
Fu Beichen was dressed in a white custom-made suit. The cold, ruthless aura he usually carried in the business world had disappeared, replaced by a warm smile that softened his handsome features.
At that moment, he was holding a delicate little girl in his arms. Her features looked remarkably similar to the woman standing beside him—Nan Yu.
Nan Yu wore an ivory-white mermaid gown, her long hair elegantly pinned up. She looked as gentle and beautiful as the moon.
She leaned intimately against Fu Beichen, the two of them looking like a genuine married couple.
“President Fu, you’ve really kept this hidden! You have such a beautiful wife and daughter, yet you’re only announcing them now.”
The teasing voices around them came one after another, filled with envy.
Fu Beichen lowered his eyes tenderly toward Nan Yu, his voice filled with a kind of affection Nan Xin had never heard from him.
“I wish I could announce it to the entire world, but Ayu prefers to keep a low profile. I respect her wishes.”
“Daddy loves Mommy and Nuan Nuan the most!”
Four-year-old Fu Nuan Nuan nestled in Fu Beichen’s arms, lifting her little face proudly with an adorable, smug expression.
“Nuan Nuan, don’t say things like that.”
A faint blush spread across Nan Yu’s cheeks, but her eyes were filled with a blissful smile.
Seeing the warm and harmonious scene of that family of three with her own eyes felt like an ice-coated blade suddenly stabbing straight into Nan Xin’s heart.
A wave of nausea surged into her head. Her vision went black, and her body swayed uncontrollably before she bumped into a passing waiter.
Clang!
A silver tray crashed to the floor. The crisp sound of wine glasses shattering abruptly cut through the lively atmosphere of the banquet hall.
Everyone’s attention was drawn toward them.
The smile on Fu Beichen’s face instantly froze. He strode over, grabbed Nan Xin by the arm, and glared darkly at her prominently swollen belly.
“Why didn’t you get rid of the baby?!”
She had clearly heard that phone call. How could she possibly have kept this bastard child?
Nan Xin hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from Fu Beichen. She struggled desperately.
“Fu Beichen, let go of me!”
“Beichen!”
Nan Yu, along with Nan Xin’s parents, hurried over.
Nan Yu wrapped her arms around Fu Beichen’s arm. A flicker of anxiety and malice flashed across her exquisitely made-up face.
Nan Xin’s father went to calm the guests, while her mother stayed behind. However, the look she gave Nan Xin was anything but kind.
“You ungrateful brat! Did you come here deliberately to cause trouble?”
Her mother’s fingertips dug hard into Nan Xin’s arm. Lowering her voice, she threatened viciously, “Today is Nuan Nuan’s birthday banquet. If you dare cause trouble, don’t expect me to acknowledge you as my daughter!”
“Have you ever acknowledged me as your daughter?”
Nan Xin’s arm hurt terribly from her mother’s grip, but she stubbornly met her mother’s eyes.
“You and Dad knew all along that Nan Yu and Fu Beichen were together. They even had a child. Yet not only did you help them keep it from me, you watched me walk straight into this pit without saying a word! Are you really my biological parents?”
Back then, Nan Yu had gotten pregnant before marriage. She refused to reveal who the father was, no matter what. She claimed that having an abortion would damage her health and was terrified of bringing shame to the family, so she spent every day crying at home.
Her parents sighed and lamented constantly, and that was why Nan Xin had softened and given her study-abroad opportunity to Nan Yu.
Fu Beichen had already established himself in his career at the time. Even now, Nan Xin couldn’t understand why her parents, who knew the truth, had remained silent and allowed their younger daughter to marry Fu Beichen.
If she hadn’t married him, she wouldn’t have given up that identity either…
“What nonsense are you talking about!”
A trace of guilt flashed through Nan Xin’s mother’s eyes, but she quickly concealed it.
She glared at Nan Xin. “How many people dream of becoming the wife of the Fu family? If your sister hadn’t gone abroad to improve her credentials, would your in-laws have ever looked favorably upon her? They would’ve treated her just as badly as they treated you.”
Nan Xin froze.
“So my existence was only to hold the position of Mrs. Fu for Nan Yu?”
“Don’t make it sound so unpleasant. Didn’t you enjoy being treated as Mrs. Fu for three years?”
Her mother rolled her eyes as though Nan Xin had received an enormous favor.
How ridiculous!
At that moment, Nan Xin felt that her very existence was nothing more than a joke.
Her mother’s voice was kept low, so Fu Beichen hadn’t heard any of their conversation.
His expression had already returned to its usual calmness, but his tone was firm and commanding.
“Mom, Xiaoyu, I’ll handle this. Go take care of Nuan Nuan. Don’t let this little incident affect her birthday banquet.”
“All right. We’ll do as you say, Beichen.”
Nan Yu obediently nodded and led Nan Xin’s mother away.
“Why didn’t you get rid of the child?”
Fu Beichen stared at Nan Xin’s prominently swollen belly, feeling as though a huge stone were lodged in his chest.
He had only wanted to disgust Nan Xin, yet for some reason, he now felt inexplicably irritated.
“Why should I get rid of it?”
The grievances and despair she had suppressed for three years finally erupted.
Her voice suddenly rose, becoming hoarse and breaking as she shouted, “Fu Beichen, isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”
The entire banquet hall instantly fell silent.
It was so quiet that even a pin dropping could be heard.
“Bad woman! Don’t yell at my daddy!”
Fu Nuan Nuan broke free from Nan Yu’s arms and charged toward Nan Xin, clutching a magic wand in her hand.
Nan Xin instinctively stepped aside.
With that single movement, Fu Nuan Nuan suddenly slipped and fell onto the carpet.
The next second, a heart-wrenching cry erupted through the banquet hall.
“Nuan Nuan!”
Fu Beichen’s expression changed drastically.
Without the slightest hesitation, he shoved Nan Xin aside. She was sent crashing hard to the floor.
Trying to protect her belly, Nan Xin instinctively braced herself with her hand, only to land on the shattered glass. Sharp shards sliced into her palm, and blood immediately began to seep out.
Fu Beichen carefully lifted Fu Nuan Nuan into his arms and gently patted her back. When his gaze fell on Nan Xin, his eyes were filled with murderous intent.
“If anything happens to Nuan Nuan, I’ll make sure you wish you were dead!”
Seeing that Fu Nuan Nuan was unharmed, Nan Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did she extend a concerned hand toward Nan Xin, her voice gentle and seemingly innocent.
“Xin Xin, are you all right? Get up quickly. There’s broken glass all over the floor…”
“Get away from me!”
Nan Yu sighed, looking at her with an expression of helpless tolerance.
“Xin Xin, if you like your brother-in-law, you could have told me. I would’ve given him to you. Why make such a humiliating scene?”
Nan Xin stared at Nan Yu in disbelief.
Yet this time, in the eyes of the sister who had always been gentle and understanding, she saw a trace of triumph.
She had done it deliberately!
The murmurs among the crowd suddenly erupted.
“I can’t believe the second daughter of the Nan family is so shameless. She’s actually after her own sister’s husband!”
“Her belly is already that big, and she’s still out here seducing men. How disgusting!”
“Could the child in her belly be President Fu’s?”
Someone finally said it.
The crowd fell into an eerie silence.