Tang Tang sat dazed in a chair at an upscale restaurant.
She had just driven away the blind date her parents had arranged for her. The man, Wei Chenglong, had started off by making a long list of unreasonable demands. She couldn’t accept them and snapped back at him a couple of times. Who knew he’d storm off in a fury without even paying for the drinks?
She had meant to go straight home, but then she remembered the five hundred thousand yuan in debt her father had racked up on the stock market. They were counting on the five hundred thousand yuan in bride price she would receive if her blind date went well to pay it off. Now she’d driven the man away, and she had no idea how she’d explain that at home. So she stayed in the restaurant, staring into space.
Just as she sat there in a daze, her mother called again.
“Tang Tang, I know you’re still studying, and that asking you to go on blind dates now is unfair to you. But our family owes so much money, and your eldest sister is barely keeping her own marriage afloat. You’re the only one we can count on.”
For an ordinary family like theirs, a debt of five hundred thousand yuan was enough to crush them.
Hearing the tears in her mother’s voice, Tang Tang remembered how, after it happened, her father had knelt before her mother to apologize, and her mother had threatened to jump off a building. Her eyes reddened, and she swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue.
“Mom, I know.”
She didn’t want to go on blind dates, and she didn’t want to get married so young, but she couldn’t bear to lose her parents. She was the only one in the family who could help now.
But she’d just driven her blind date away, too. The thought made Tang Tang feel both miserable and afraid.
“Just think of how your father insisted on keeping you when you were little, and help the family this once. Once you bring home the bride price, we can all go back to living as we did before, steady and peaceful. Your father won’t do anything foolish like that again.”
“I…”
Tang Tang summoned her courage and was about to tell her mother what had just happened when her stomach suddenly lurched. She didn’t even have time to say goodbye before hurriedly hanging up and rushing straight to the restroom.
Tang Tang didn’t stop until she had thrown up bile.
She looked at herself in the mirror, her expression stricken and panic filling her eyes. Two months had passed since that wild night. Lately, she had started vomiting and feeling sleepy, and on top of that, her period hadn’t come on time.
Everything pointed to one terrifying possibility—she might be pregnant.
But the next second, Tang Tang dismissed the thought.
She had gone to the hospital for a checkup that morning. She hadn’t received the results yet, but she was certain she wasn’t pregnant. After all, it had only happened that one time. Surely she couldn’t have gotten pregnant from just once.
Clinging to that hope, Tang Tang wiped the memory of that night—and the man—from her mind, then strode out of the restroom.
As she walked, she saw a man standing ahead of her. He was so tall he looked like a wall blocking the middle of the path.
Tang Tang lowered her head, intending to slip past him.
But as she passed him, she suddenly caught a familiar scent. Before she could look up, the man took one long stride and blocked her way, pinning her between the wall and his chest.
The crushing pressure left Tang Tang with barely any room to breathe. She looked up in terror at the man before her.
As her vision gradually cleared, a handsome, stern face came into focus, overlapping with the face from that night two months ago.
It was him… But how could it be him?
Tang Tang’s heart skipped a beat. The next second, the man spoke in a deep voice close to her ear.
“So this is why you haven’t contacted me—you’ve been busy going on blind dates?”