Chapter 119: On What Grounds Do You Think I’ll Keep Your Child
Liang Chaosu’s gaze fixed on Liancheng.
She stood with her back to the floor lamp, her silhouette rigid and frozen. Her fingers were clenched into fists, and her slender shadow was like a drawn bowstring pulled to its absolute limit, as if any slight movement from him would unleash an invisible arrow, piercing his skin, flesh, and heart.
Shattering him, scattering him.
He responded, “Yes.”
Liancheng suddenly collapsed onto the floor. Liang Chaosu quickly strode around the sofa, his arm passing under her armpits, intending to lift her up.
But he met Liancheng’s dark, glossy pupils. The water-like moisture was completely gone, and fine, dense bloodshot veins surged in her eyeballs, each one like a poison needle piercing his heart.
From the phone receiver, Father Liang’s voice boomed, “I know about your arrangements in Liang Family, too. It’s a pity you’re so calm, capable, and resolute. Gu Xingyuan, however, is useless. He threw in the towel. Chaosu, you failed at the last hurdle.”
Liang Chaosu’s expression was as steady as a rock. He put down the phone, and with his other arm, he scooped Liancheng up from behind her knees, placing her lightly on the sofa.
“Whether I failed or not is yet to be known.”
Father Liang laughed heartily, not engaging in this verbal spar, “Is Liancheng with you?”
Liang Chaosu frowned and picked up his phone. “No.”
“I am.”
Liancheng’s face, inch by inch, became suffused with indifference, apathy, and a hardness like frost. “Do you need something from me?”
Father Liang was clearly not expecting her to speak. His voice suddenly became gentle, with a hint of a smile, and some concern and comfort. “My child, why did you go so far as Iceland when you were pregnant? Sister Wang said you bled several times, and the baby was almost lost. How are you now?”
For a moment, Liancheng was dazed, vaguely understanding something. But the thought that flashed through her mind was absurd and unfounded. She couldn’t tell if it was her overwhelming desire to leave Liang Chaosu causing delusion, or if she had overly deified Father Liang’s methods and scheming.
That was why she had conjured so much from a seemingly ambiguous expression of concern.
But she was already at the end of her rope, with no other options. Even if a cataclysm occurred, what of it? Could it be worse than the present?
“I lost it,” Liancheng looked up at Liang Chaosu, speaking word by word. “After returning to the Liang Family, my emotions fluctuated too much, too intensely. I had a threatened miscarriage and couldn’t save it.”
Liang Chaosu showed no reaction. To this day, he was fully confident and didn’t believe it one bit.
On the phone, Father Liang gasped, a sharp intake of breath, as if startled, but then continued smoothly, “Father recently learned the full story of your pregnancy. I didn’t find any record of you going to the hospital for treatment.”
Liancheng clenched her fist.
In the Liang Family, Mother Liang was ruthless and hard-faced; Father Liang was ruthless but undeniably gentle in demeanor. Liancheng was absolutely certain that her pregnancy was a thorny issue within the Liang Family, a tempestuous storm, and no one would acknowledge the child.
Father Liang naturally wished for the child to be gone; it would save him time and effort. His asking this question to confirm was understandable.
But Liancheng still had a sliver of a premonition, a premonition that always proved to be accurate.
She looked like she was about to cry and laugh, “A bastard child. No need to go to the hospital.”
Father Liang exclaimed, “You’re not taking care of yourself. You must go to the hospital after a miscarriage…”
Liang Chaosu hung up directly, bent down to pick up Liancheng, and leaned back on the sofa.
Liancheng nestled on the man’s lap, her face pressed against the second button of his shirt, right over his chest and heart.
Since he came to Iceland, the cold cedarwood scent on him had faded day by day. Now, his breath was wrapped in his body heat, soft and mellow, with a scent as light as water.
Beneath the buttons was a firm chest, hot and hard. Because her face was pressed against it, with his breathing, it rose and fell slightly. The buttons grazed her ear, and the beating heart beneath her chest bone vibrated with each pulse, strong and vibrant, mixed with an indescribable hoarseness in his voice.
“Liancheng, the child is not a bastard.”
Liancheng didn’t struggle, didn’t refute.
She now had a fifty percent certainty that Father Liang was hinting at something.
Given Father Liang’s personality, even if he believed her, he would at most offer a word of comfort about suffering and taking care of herself if the child were gone.
He would never nag like women do, showing solicitous concern to the point of going to the hospital.
So, the hospital was the key point?
Was he hinting for her to go to the hospital?
Liancheng thought rapidly. Regardless of whether Father Liang had such a hint, she had nothing to lose by using the miscarriage to enrage Liang Chaosu and make him take her to the hospital for a check-up.
Shen Lichuan said that after Father Liang investigated, he would send more personnel to Iceland. Old Ghost was waiting for this.
Now that Father Liang knew, he could call Liang Chaosu and confront him. Given Father Liang’s methodical nature, personnel must have already been dispatched.
And the hospital was a place with many people and eyes, and Iceland was not without law. Mercenaries would surely be restricted, not to mention Father Liang’s men.
The chance of Old Ghost “taking her away amidst the chaos” would be infinitely increased.
With this in mind, Liancheng decided to take a gamble.
“Liang Chaosu, I’ll crawl away from you if I have to. On what grounds do you think I would keep your child?”
Before her words were out, Liancheng felt his heartbeat skip a beat.
Liang Chaosu was calm, and his heartbeat was steadier than most men’s. Such a noticeable pause indicated that he had lost his composure.
The next second, a gaze focused intently on her from above, deep and burning, like a probe drilling through her. “The child is still here.”
“No, it’s not,” Liancheng said expressionlessly. “The day after we returned to the Liang Family, you were going to take me to the hospital. You saw with your own eyes in the car how much I bled from the threatened miscarriage. If I didn’t go to the hospital, do you think it could have been saved?”
This small town in Iceland was not as bustling as cities back home, where Nan Province’s roads teemed with traffic day and night, with towering buildings and clouds like mist and rainbow. Iceland was solitary and cold, with only the whistling wind blowing across the vast ice fields.
It was approaching noon, and the sky was a hazy pale blue, casting a faint, ethereal blue light on the window.
Compared to the deep, chilling night sky she had seen that night she first returned to the Liang Family, pointing at the window and breaking down, it was as if dawn was breaking, and light was approaching.
Conversely, Liancheng had reached this point where incest was exposed and pregnancy revealed. Trapped in this confined space, she would be watched while giving birth. By all accounts, she had fallen into the deepest darkness.
“You don’t believe me?”
She didn’t look up, and Liang Chaosu didn’t speak. His chin rested on the top of Liancheng’s head with moderate pressure. The stubble from his morning shave wasn’t prickly.
Liancheng couldn’t lift her head. Her voice was muffled, trapped in his embrace. “Liang Chaosu, you know that explosion sounds affect the fetus, right? You’ve learned about pregnancy knowledge. Then tell me, what do you think would happen if I, with a threatened miscarriage, went sailing, took a long flight, and then was ambushed by two groups of thugs upon landing, and then drove through the ice fields at night?”
The breath above her head suddenly became burning hot. His arms didn’t loosen their grip, but a suffocating anger wrapped around her.
Liancheng took a deep breath and struggled out of his embrace.
The man’s face was cold and stern, without superficial malevolence. He remained silent, only his eyes surging with a sinister intensity, like a storm pressing down on the city.
“After you caught me, I had not a trace of blood, no pain or cramping in my lower abdomen, and I could still run in the snow. Why do you think that was?”
Liang Chaosu’s temples to his jawline instantly tensed into a straight line, and the veins beneath his skin bulged.
Liancheng also saw his fists clenched tightly, the cracking sound of his knuckles accompanied by the veins in his arms resembling writhing snakes, about to burst through his skin and flesh, ready to devour.
