Tong Xi’s heart tightened at his glance, and her ears began to burn again.
She bent down, holding her son carefully as she sat into the car.
The space inside the car was more spacious than she had imagined, the leather seats soft yet supportive.
As soon as she sat down, she felt as if she were wrapped inside a quiet, sealed cocoon.
Uncle Fu closed the door for her, and the moment it shut, Tong Xi’s eyelids twitched along with it.
She didn’t dare look to the side, but Fu Yanqin’s silhouette filled her peripheral vision.
He lounged in his seat, posture relaxed, long legs crossed, one hand resting on the armrest.
She told herself: It’s fine. Just a forty-minute drive. He’ll mind his business, she’ll mind the child. No interference.
But Fu Yanqin didn’t seem inclined to let her off that easily.
“When Jingxi drinks milk, which side do you usually use?”
Tong Xi’s mind went blank for a moment.
She slowly turned her head to meet Fu Yanqin’s calm, unreadable eyes, unable to tell for a moment whether he was asking seriously or teasing her.
“…I switch. Left and right, taking turns. Otherwise… it gets engorged.”
Fu Yanqin hummed in acknowledgment, his gaze falling on Fu Jingxi in her arms. The little baby was sleeping soundly,
his cheeks puffed out in a small curve, a trace of dried milk still clinging to the corner of his mouth.
His gaze lingered on that soft, pink little face for two seconds.
“He eats quite a lot.”
He added.
Tong Xi didn’t know how to respond, so she just hummed and pulled her son closer to her chest.
The car fell quiet for a moment.
The scenery outside the window shifted from open countryside to suburban streets, buildings growing denser along the roadside.
Traffic increased, the car slowed, and occasionally pedestrians passed by—
through the dark-tinted windows, they couldn’t see inside.
Tong Xi secretly breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that conversation was over.
But Fu Yanqin seemed especially… at leisure today.
“You studied medicine in university?”
He asked.
Tong Xi was startled. “…Yes. How did you know?”
“The way you changed the dressing last night—that wasn’t a novice’s hand.”
There was no praise detectable in Fu Yanqin’s tone.
Tong Xi pressed her lips together and said nothing.
She hadn’t expected him to notice such details, let alone deduce her academic background.
“You studied medicine, so why become a wet nurse?”
Fu Yanqin’s gaze fell on her face a second time.
Her throat tightened.
She had prepared an answer for this question long ago, but now that he was asking it to her face,
all those prepared words suddenly felt thin and flimsy—like a sheet of paper, ready to tear at the slightest touch.
“I… had some trouble at home and needed money urgently. This wet nurse job—good pay, room and board included—for me, it was… the most suitable option.”
Fu Yanqin didn’t press further. He tapped lightly on the leather armrest, the rhythm slow but carrying a heavy sense of pressure.
His gaze, dark and deep, locked onto her face, piercing through her carefully constructed calm, reaching straight into the depths of her heart.
“Needed money urgently?”
He let out a low scoff, his tone cold and thin, laced with a mocking awareness of everything,
“So that makes it acceptable to pull these underhanded tricks?”
Tong Xi’s heart jolted. She looked up, bewildered:
“Mr. Fu, I don’t understand what you mean.”
Fu Yanqin leaned forward slightly, the suddenly shortened distance thinning the air around them to nothing.
A cold darkness veiled his eyes, every word sharp as a blade.
“In the middle of the night in the nursery, with your collar wide open and your charms exposed, you did it on purpose for me to see—wasn’t it to seduce me?”
Tong Xi frantically shook her head:
“I didn’t. I thought only the young master and I were in the room. The young master was hungry, so I habitually fed him. It wasn’t on purpose!”
“Whether it was on purpose or not, you know clearly in your own heart.”
Fu Yanqin cut her off, his voice deep, hoarse, and forceful, leaving no room for argument.
“Take off your clothes.”
Those four short words stabbed viciously into Tong Xi’s heart.
She looked at the man before her in disbelief, humiliation and embarrassment filling her chest.
“Mr. Fu!”
Her voice trembled, carrying a suppressed choke. “How can you humiliate me like this? I truly have not the slightest intention of seducing you! I have never thought of clinging to you in the least!”
Fu Yanqin’s expression did not change, the darkness in his eyes deepening, his test hidden beneath the icy surface.
Ever since that one night with the woman at the hotel, the Love Gu had been awakened,
flaring up from time to time. He had thought he would be ruined by that one woman for the rest of his life,
but during this period, he had developed an uncontrollable obsession with this new wet nurse.
He was determined to test it, to verify whether the Love Gu would still react to another woman.
“Take off your clothes. Don’t make me say it a second time.”
His tone was cold and hard to the end, carrying the unquestionable authority of a man in power.
Tong Xi trembled all over, while Fu Jingxi in her arms slept soundly.
Her eyes reddened, and she looked at him with a stubborn yet helpless gaze, her voice carrying a lowly plea:
“Mr. Fu, you hold great power and high status. Looking across the entire capital, what kind of beauty could you not have at your fingertips? Why must you make things difficult for a lowly wet nurse like me?
I only want to earn money steadily, to support the child at home, and to do my duty honestly. I have never had the slightest delusion. I beg you, do not force me.”
The air in the car had congealed into something solid. Fu Yanqin was somewhat annoyed.
Perhaps there was also a bit of anger from a man’s dignity being stripped clean, but more than that, it was a kind of embarrassment he had never tasted before.
The embarrassment of being rejected.
He, Fu Yanqin, the man in power of the Fu family, the one whose favor the entire business circle had to curry—what kind of woman could he not have?
And now he had actually hit a wall with a woman, been rejected by her.
But just when that fury burned to its peak, it inexplicably died out.
Because she was afraid.
Even her shoulder blades were trembling faintly, like a leaf bent by the wind, about to snap with one more shake.
Truly pitiful.
Tong Xi did look quite pitiful. At first glance she still seemed to be holding a taut string, but in truth that string would break at the slightest touch.
Her face was as white as the streetlight outside the window, sliced into fragments by the dark shadows of the car window.
Her lips quivered, even the fine curve of her eyelashes trembled, a thin rim of red blurring around her eyes, as if tears would fall the next second.
It was clearly a posture of keeping others at a thousand miles’ distance, yet the stiff words coming from her mouth were like the bluffing whimper of a small animal cornered against a wall.
A rabbit raising its claws at a wolf, its nails worn blunt, unable to leave even a scratch.
It made one feel it was absurd, and absurd in a way that softened one’s heart.
Fu Yanqin pressed his thin lips into a line, opened his mouth wanting to say something harsh, but the words caught at his lips.
Could he say she was wrong for refusing to take off her clothes?
But to make him admit fault—his pride was harder than iron, unable to bend.
So he could only tighten his jaw, his voice sinking hoarse:
“Get out of the car.”
Tong Xi’s fingertips recoiled. She pressed the car door handle, her legs feeling as if they were stepping on cotton, and landed on the ground.
The moment the car door closed, she threw her arms around Fu Jingxi, her shoulders slumping.
The breath she had been holding in her chest dissipated, and the heat in her eyes finally spilled over.
She had offended him thoroughly.
That was fine too.
…
Uncle Fu sat in the passenger seat, his back ramrod straight, both hands resting properly on his knees.
The soundproof partition was raised tight and flush, so no sound from the back could reach the front.
Tong Xi carried the child out of the car. When the door shut, Uncle Fu watched through the rearview mirror as she hurried toward the nanny van behind them, holding the young master, her steps slightly unsteady, as though her legs had gone weak.
Uncle Fu withdrew his gaze, turned his head, and lowered the partition, saying in a low voice:
“Sir, back to the old residence?”
After a long pause, a voice came from the back seat: “To the company.”
Uncle Fu instructed the driver to go, and the black Maybach merged smoothly into the flow of traffic.
He hesitated for a moment, but in the end couldn’t help himself. He twisted half his body around from the passenger seat and asked in a low voice:
“Sir, that Miss Xi—she’s got a fiery temper. But women, well, they all respond to a soft touch, not a hard one. If you really fancy her, I can go have a word with her on your behalf, name a price.
A girl like that, with heavy burdens at home—there’s no one money can’t move. And if she still won’t agree… then we do it clean and simple. I’ll have someone knock her out and deliver her straight to your bed. Once the rice is cooked, what’s there for her to object to?”
The car went silent for a moment.
Then Fu Yanqin’s voice drifted over from the back, cold and flat:
“Uncle Fu.”
“Yes, sir, go ahead.”
There was no inflection in Fu Yanqin’s voice. “Before nightfall today, every toilet in the old residence—from the main building to the servants’ quarters—scrub them inside and out. By hand.”
Uncle Fu’s expression stiffened.
“S-Sir…”
Fu Yanqin, eyes closed, said airily,
“If you don’t finish, tomorrow you’ll be mucking out the stables at the South Suburb Equestrian Center.”
Uncle Fu opened his mouth, and the old-school, smooth smile on his face finally shattered.
He wisely shut his mouth and slowly turned back around.