Volume One, Chapter 13: Would Your Mommy Kiss Someone Else?
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“Mr. Su, could you do me a favor?” Lu Xiaoman asked with a smile.
Su Cheng nodded.
“Could you ask Mingqi to come back? We still have something important to do.” Lu Xiaoman looked hopefully at the refined, scholarly man before her.
Su Cheng had rushed back and forth through the hospital earlier without a single complaint. He clearly had a kind heart.
She did not dare face Shang Linyuan alone, so asking someone close to him to pass on a message seemed more appropriate.
Yet this kindhearted man rejected her without hesitation.
“I’m sorry, Miss Lu, but I can’t help you.” Su Cheng pushed up the frame of his glasses and answered honestly.
His employer had taken an unusual interest in the child at the hospital, and the child was so affectionate and easy to get along with. The two of them had been perfectly harmonious together. Naturally, Su Cheng did not dare risk provoking him.
Still, he could not help wondering what exactly the relationship was between this woman and his employer.
Ten minutes later, on the top floor of LR.
The office covered more than a thousand square meters. Apart from the secretary’s work area, the entire space belonged to Shang Linyuan alone.
The decor was simple yet imposing. An entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows framed the city skyline, while the cool marble floor gleamed against the blue-gray walls. Behind the enormous ebony desk, a leather swivel chair radiated an aura that warned others to keep their distance.
Lu Mingqi was sitting in that leather chair, his two short legs dangling above the floor, yet he was not frightened in the least.
Shang Linyuan answered a phone call, then turned and walked to the windows, gazing down at the city below.
Lu Mingqi grew bored. His eyes wandered over the desktop before settling on the drawers beneath it.
He was curious about what might be inside.
But Mommy had once told him never to rummage through other people’s belongings and to respect their privacy.
Lu Mingqi restrained his curiosity and picked up the pen on the desk, spinning it idly in his hand.
A five-year-old boy was making a black metal pen whirl smoothly and rapidly between the web of his thumb and forefinger.
When Shang Linyuan finished his call and turned around, this was the scene he saw.
For a moment, shock and uncertainty flashed across his face.
What shocked him was that the silhouette of the little boy sitting in his office—and even the way he spun the pen—looked astonishingly like himself as a child.
What troubled him was the question of who the boy’s biological father really was.
Yet he knew perfectly well that Lu Mingqi could not be his son.
The previous night, when Lu Mingqi had received the paternity test report, Shang Linyuan had received a copy as well.
The report clearly stated that the probability of a biological relationship between him and Lu Mingqi was zero.
Besides, the woman who had lain beside him that night six years ago had not been Lu Xiaoman.
Shang Linyuan walked over to Lu Mingqi and stopped beside him.
“Open the drawer and take a look,” he said softly.
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Lu Mingqi stopped spinning the pen and happily pulled open the drawer.
Inside lay a sky-blue gift box.
“Uncle, is this for me?” Lu Mingqi asked excitedly, without the slightest embarrassment.
“That’s right,” Shang Linyuan replied with a smile.
Lu Mingqi busied himself opening the box, and his eyes immediately lit up.
The world’s first fully automatic transforming tank robot—Megatron!
He had wanted this robot for a long time, but it was simply too expensive. He did not want Mommy to spend so much money, so he had always held back and never asked her to buy it.
“Uncle, I love him so much! Thank you, Uncle!” Lu Mingqi hugged the gift, his eyes narrowing into crescents as he smiled.
The corners of Shang Linyuan’s lips lifted involuntarily.
After leaving the hospital the day before, he had made a phone call. By today, the gift had appeared in his drawer.
It seemed his guess had been right. The child really did like it.
Lu Mingqi could not wait any longer and began fiddling with the robot in his hands. “Uncle, this Megatron can transform automatically between a tank and a robot. Let me show you…”
Shang Linyuan’s gaze fell upon the child’s soft, rosy face.
His features were so delicate.
And they bore an astonishing resemblance to hers—seven or eight parts out of ten.
His bright, limpid almond-shaped eyes, his graceful brows, his straight nose, and the faint dimple at the left corner of his mouth when he smiled all seemed to have been copied directly from her face.
He tried desperately to find some other trace of resemblance in that familiar face.
But there was none.
After playing with the robot for a while, Lu Mingqi suddenly remembered something and looked up at Shang Linyuan.
“Uncle, could you bend down?”
Thinking the child wanted to tell him something, Shang Linyuan bent over.
Their faces were level, so close that each could see his own reflection in the other’s eyes.
Smack!
The crisp sound of a kiss landed on his cheek.
It was an entirely new experience. Somewhere deep inside, Shang Linyuan felt as though he had been struck hard.
There was a faint ache, mingled with sweetness.
Surprise, threaded through with a trace of reluctance.
“Uncle, Mommy says kisses are the best way to thank someone. You’re the person I want to thank most right now, so I kissed you.” Lu Mingqi grinned mischievously.
Shang Linyuan fell silent.
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Somewhat awkwardly, he raised a hand and touched his left cheek where the kiss had landed, as though he could still feel that soft contact.
“Your mommy… does she kiss you like that too?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse.
Lu Mingqi nodded. “Mommy kisses me lots of times every day. She says I’m a very obedient boy.”
“Then does she… kiss anyone else?” he asked again, an unreadable undertone entering his voice.
Lu Mingqi thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Mommy hasn’t kissed anyone else. Only me.”
What about your father?
Shang Linyuan nearly asked the question aloud, but then suddenly remembered how the little boy had searched for his father on the matchmaking show.
“Have you never seen your father?”
Lu Mingqi looked sad. “Mommy says my father died the day I was born.”
“Then what about a photograph of him?”
“There aren’t any pictures of my father at home. I looked for a very, very long time, and I only found one of you…”
“Lu Mingqi!”
Lu Xiaoman’s shout rang out from beyond the door.
She had not intended to shout, but she had just heard the words she feared most in this life.
Her own son was about to betray her.
When Lu Mingqi had kissed Shang Linyuan earlier, he had accidentally touched his phone watch and unknowingly dialed Lu Xiaoman’s number.
She had heard, with her own ears, her son discussing with his biological father whether his father was dead and whether he had ever seen him. Afraid to face Shang Linyuan, she had gritted her teeth and endured it.
But then her son mentioned the photograph of Shang Linyuan kept at home—a photograph she had secretly taken of him while he slept, the only one she possessed.
She truly wanted to die.
She no longer cared about her image or her reputation.
All she wanted was to stop her son before he said anything more.
Her furious shout startled the several beautiful young women in the secretary’s office, and they all turned to look at her in unison.
Su Cheng had been accompanying Lu Xiaoman the entire time; otherwise, she would never have been able to reach the top floor. He, too, was startled.
“Miss Lu, please keep your voice down. This is an office area.” He hurriedly tried to stop her.
“Lu Mingqi, get out here right now!”
Lu Xiaoman was mortified. All she could do was clench her back teeth and issue a low warning into the phone watch.
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