17 A Baby Boy

The doctor moved the transducer against the warm gel on her exposed stomach. Her heart was beating in excitement while looking at the screen in front of her.

"Do you see here?" the doctor pointed to a small dangly rounded shape on the screen, "This is a male genital, which means that you're having a boy."

Yanyue didn't know why, but tears started to trickle down her cheeks when the doctor told her that she was having a baby boy. It was as if she was both grieving a loss and welcoming a gift. She had never felt such complicated emotions before.

Ultimately as a mother, it didn't matter which gender her baby was because she would love her baby despite their gender or differences. What she wished for them was good health.

"He's a strong boy, probably a little stronger than your first one," the doctor suggested with a smile.

Yanyue's eyes enlarged, and her heart seemed to have done a backflip on a trampoline with the after-effect still reverberating there long after the stunt.

"My first one?" she asked, her voice trembling a little.

"Yes, this is your second pregnancy isn't it?" inquired the doctor casually.

Yanyue slightly shook her head. "I've never been," she hesitated for a second, "pregnant before this."

The doctor put her hand on her chin as if she was contemplating an interesting fact. She said, "Hmm, is that so? I must have been wrong about your abdomen scar..."

"The scar on my stomach..." Yanyue repeated. She touched the four inches scar below her medium bump.

The doctor moved her head up and down, "Right, I thought it was an incision from a C-section surgical procedure. The doctor who performed the surgery must have been a skilled one to make such good stitches too."

Then, the doctor looked through the forms on the desk and then raised an eyebrow, "But, if it's not a C-section procedure, then what surgery did you do there? I don't see anything about it in your medical chart."

Yanyue said with little confidence, "...I got the scar four years ago when I fell off my horse."

The doctor was surprised. "I see," she thinned her lips, "that must have been quite a fall to require such a big surgery."

"Yeah, I guess so..." Yanyue said awkwardly. To be frank, she didn't remember much from the accident, so she couldn't assuredly confirm the pain.

"Well, there is no need to worry. Your baby is healthy, so that won't be a problem at all when you're due because we probably don't need to do a C-section. Just a natural birth will suffice."

"That sounds good," Yanyue said.

After explaining the caution that she would need to exercise during the second trimester, the doctor left Yanyue with more questions than before. Many were in regards to the faint scar on her abdomen.

When she woke up from her coma, the scar was already there. She asked Lily about the scar, but that girl didn't know anything about it either. She did consider the possibility that Lily was lying to her, but she looked so genuine at that time.

So, Yanyue had been thinking that the scar must have been a result of hitting something when she fell in the lake.

Otherwise, what could it have been? She was not pregnant before this, so it was unlikely that the scar came from a pregnancy surgery. Furthermore, her first experience was with Beichen so it was even more impossible that she had a baby before this.

As she put the bizarre thought away, she found herself wanting to visit Lily. After she moved out of the mansion to her apartment for work, she barely got to see that girl. Then, she got married soon afterward and heard that Lily went back to her hometown in the north to take care of her ill mother.

Throughout those years at the Shen mansion, Lily was the only person who had truly treated her well. All the other maids and servants would ignore her behind her father's back.

Her stepmother had the authority when it came to managing the maids and servants, so they treated her poorly because her stepmother ordered them to ignore her. They never physically abused her, but the mental abuse was just as painful.

After moving out could she feel a little alive, but now things were back to how they were in the Eastern Palace. At least at the Shen mansion, she had the bright and cheerful Lily to accompany her, however, she was all alone in the Eastern Palace. Grandma Lu would often visit her, but it wasn't the same as living together.

The doctor suggested that Grandma Lu stayed in one location for a better result, thus the old lady would go back to the Moon Palace during the night because that was where her treatment for her heart condition was done.

Recently, Grandma Lu had ceased her visit to the Eastern Palace quite a bit because she wanted to take her treatments seriously. She wished to get better so that she could see her grandchildren in the future.

So, Yanyue was alone most of the cold nights. Before, Beichen would only come when he wanted to sleep with her. She loved him unconditionally, so she looked forward to his appearance on those nights despite that his purpose was to humiliate her.

However, now that she was pregnant, she barely saw the man, and she could only endure his absence because the person he loved wasn't her. She couldn't force a person's feelings to change, especially not Beichen who she "stole" from her sister.

Alas, it was only fair that she suffer from his indifference. And the most miserable part of everything was that she knew, but she wouldn't be able to quit loving him. That wasn't an option at all.

Sometimes when he hurt her, she wished that someone would cut out her heart to see if it would still beat for him if she wasn't alive anymore. But, when he made her feel that he cared for her, such as that time at the hospital and those times when he made love to her like she was the only woman in the world, she would forget about the anguish that he caused her.

*

Yanfeng was already gone by the time Yanyue was done with the checkup. He had sent a message to her before he went running his errand.

As she walked along the corridor, she saw the two people from earlier exiting a VIP ward.

It seemed that he was successful in coaxing her sister.

Even though Yanyue could turn a blind eye towards her husband hugging and holding her sister, she still couldn't entirely repress the sadness and oppressive feelings that were surging up from the deepest corner of her heart.

From afar, they were the perfect couple. The man was handsome and the woman was beautiful. The nurses around them stared at the woman in his arms with envy. They wished that they were as lucky as her.

Yanyue didn't want to encounter these two at all, especially not when they were so intimate with each other. But it was too late to avoid them completely, so she could only turn her back away from them.

The couple passed by her. They didn't notice her at all because they were chatting with each other and looking at the sonogram on Wanyue's hand.

After they were gone, Yanyue stuffed the sonogram in her hand into her bag. She felt as if she was a piece of dust on the road. That was how unimportant she was in Beichen's heart.

Even though she understood her non-existent position in his heart, she would never be able to fall for another person. He was all she had known since a child.

She sighed deeply in her heart. If only he could remember as well...

The driver drove her back to the Eastern Palace.

Beichen was in the room upon Yanyue's return. He was observing the outfit on the mannequin that was in the middle of the room. He knew that she only designed women's fashion, but from the messes on the table, he concluded that the male suit on the mannequin was something she created.

He perceived that the woman loved him to some extent even though she had many men before him. But, he had made his heart clear to her that the only person he would ever love was Wanyue. He thought that she would listen and back away, but who knew that they would end up having that one night stand together, which changed the course of their lives.

He smirked arrogantly. It was a good feeling, though, to have her obsessing over him till the point that she would venture out of her boundaries and secretly designed this outfit for him. After all, she was his property, so anything she created would be his as well.

"Your Highness..." Yanyue earnestly greeted Beichen from the door. It seemed that he came straight home from the hospital as well.

"You've seen me naked multiple times, but it seems that your observation skills are not good enough," Beichen paused, "the size is too small."

Yanyue saw that Beichen had uncovered the mannequin. Her face flushed red because she was not used to him inspecting her work so intensely. She quickly picked up the cloth from the floor and recovered the mannequin.

She cleared her throat, "T-this is for Jason, so it's going to be a little small..."

Beichen was in a good mood, but when he heard that the outfit was meant for his brother, his good feelings were replaced with madness.

"For Jason?" he asked. His voice was as cold as ice that Yanyue felt chills running down her spine.

Yanyue nodded her head, "It's for his Actor Award's acceptance speech tomorrow night."

Beichen's eyes became dark and he could feel his blood running wild.

"You even seduced your brother-in-law too?" he pinched her chin, "How many times do I have to remind you that your body belongs to me?"

Yanyue's heart was beating fast. She mustered, "I know that my body belongs to you, but I'm only making this outfit for him and nothing else."

"Nothing else?" he sneered, "Who knew if you guys have slept together?!"

The woman's eyes stretched in disbelief. She shook her head with tears welling up in her gleaming orbs, "I don't mind if you say that I'm a slut, but how could you slander your own brother? We are innocent!"

He disregarded her defense. "Have you seen an adulterer say they are an adulterer?"

Then, he jerked her chin away and walked over to the table where Yanyue put her sewing materials and easily found the shears.

Yanyue's eyes widened in horror as she noticed what he had grabbed. She sped over to the mannequin in an attempt to seize the outfit before he could do anything to it, but he halted her movement with his bare hand grasping tightly on her arm. And then, with his other hand, he cut the outfit into pieces.

The sparkly and flashy suit that Yanyue had spent months working on was destroyed just like that right before her eyes. Only she understood the loss.

"You should know better what you should and shouldn't do," he remarked as he watched her speechless expression, "Remember this: Your everything belongs to me and only me. This is what you signed up for on that contract and when you chose to marry me."

Beichen left the room after that. Yanyue was still jarred by what just happened. She couldn't believe that he wouldn't even let an outfit go.

She lingered by the fallen pieces and stayed still for a long time.

It was only when her phone vibrated crazily from her bag that she finally came back to reality.

"Yueyue!" Jason spoke cheerfully from the other side.

Yanyue wiped away the tears that she had silently shed.

"Jason, I-"

The young man on the line intercepted, "Tomorrow is my acceptance speech. I can't wait to see my outfit!"

His excitement made Yanyue felt even more regretful. She said weakly, "Jason, I have something to tell you... the suit is not," she paused, "I mean the suit is ready and I will send it to you personally tomorrow."

"Really? Okay, that's a promise!"

She smiled, "Yes, it's a promise."

After the call ended, she walked over to the closet and took out an elegantly sewn suit that was hidden away from sight.